wfn.org | U.N. AIDS envoy begs churches to do more in Africa

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Oct. 9, 2002	    News media contact: Joretta Purdue7(202)
546-87227Washington	10-21-31-71B{464}

By Joretta Purdue*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - A United Nations official cites AIDS as the underlying
cause of a famine that is ravaging southern Africa.

The famine that has 14.4 million people at risk of starvation in six
countries of southern Africa "is not a famine caused by drought exacerbated
by AIDS, but a famine caused by AIDS exacerbated by drought," said Stephen
Lewis, the U.N. special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa. 

Lewis spoke at an Oct. 7 meeting held by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance,
an international coalition of religious groups related to the World Council
of Churches. The United Methodist Church participates in the alliance, and
many of the denomination's ministries are directed at addressing Africa's
AIDS pandemic.

"So many have died," Lewis said. "So many are so weak, they don't have the
energy to plant food." Lewis, who assumed his job last year, has previously
been an Ontario legislator, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations and a
deputy director of UNICEF.

Predictions that AIDS cases would reach a saturation point and then decline
have not come to pass, he observed. Instead the pandemic grows. As many as
38 percent of the people in some areas of Africa have HIV/AIDS. 

"The face of AIDS in Africa is a woman's face," he said. In sub-Saharan
Africa, 58 percent of the people with AIDS are women, he said. The inability
of young women to have any say over their own bodies and sexuality is having
lethal results, he said.

Gender equality is non-existent where AIDS is concerned, he said. He warned
that the high infection rate among women will lessen their voices in forums,
where they are already under-represented, and could result in the loss of
what rights they do have.

He told of visiting with a group in a treatment program associated with a
church-related hospital in Tanzania. The people in the group spoke freely of
their illness and concerns - something none of them could have done in their
home communities, he said.

"The incredible problem of stigma just never ends," Lewis declared. The
stigma associated with having AIDS hampers prevention and treatment. 

He urged the religious communities to tackle the problem at every level, and
he praised an archbishop who has decreed that every sermon by every priest
in his jurisdiction must mention HIV/AIDS.

Many pledges of aid by countries and international bodies have fallen far
short of the promises, and the problems are so great that a general despair
prevails, he said. He encouraged the religious leaders to advocate with
their governments for more assistance.

"The strength of Africa is astonishing, but it needs some support," Lewis
said. "The religious communities haven't been as present" in that respect.
In Ethiopia, illiteracy is so high that disseminating information by print
is almost meaningless, he said. However, a religious patriarch has 350,000
priests who speak to their parishioners for an hour every week, and they
need to be trained to explain about AIDS, he said.

He told of a group of women living with AIDS who shared three main concerns:
They are desperate for food for their children. They want their children to
be educated. And they want to know why they and their families can't have
the same drugs people in developed countries have. 

In countries like the United States, anti-retroviral drugs have made AIDS a
chronic disease like diabetes, he observed. In Africa, it is more like a
sentence to death by torture.

"More and more children are being taken out of school to care for dying
parents," Lewis noted. Many teachers also are dying of this disease. The
AIDS orphans cannot stay in school because they cannot pay school fees, buy
books and meet other expenses. At a time when they most need the stability
of school, they are denied it, he said.

As parents are being wiped out, children are becoming the heads of their
households, known as "sibling families," Lewis said. They often have little
or no food, and no shelter, he said. But they do have "a bewildered anger"
that could turn into antisocial behavior later, he warned.

In other cases he has seen grandmothers trying to care for their
grandchildren without the resources they need. As the grandmothers die,
there will be no one to care for the children, he noted. 

Lewis encouraged the religious leaders to continue making AIDS a priority.
"I do not comprehend why we are prepared to lose millions of lives
prematurely."
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*Purdue is Washington news director for United Methodist News Service.

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United Methodist News Service
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