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Township Immigration
How Women are Victims of HIV
Sometimes I feel more comfortable in the townships than I feel in Plettenberg Bay. I grew up on a border town where Mexicans are constantly trying to cross over to the United States to find a job in order to send money back to their families that they leave behind. The same thing happens here in South Africa. Blacks and colored people leave their families to find seasonal employment because there are not enough jobs where they live. In South Africa, Blacks are classified as people from traditional tribes and colored people refer to those of mixed race. Plettenberg Bay is a beach resort town and when the vacationers come, the blacks and colored people leave their families and move into the nearby townships, hoping to find a temporary job. Even people from other African countries are coming to South Africa because of the country's relative economic success. You might be asking how do families survive this? Well they definitely won't survive if there is no money to feed themselves. But the issue is bigger than that. It is about public health. This constant migration of people is part of the reason why almost 1 in 5 South African adults are infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Ronel's husband is an electrician who works in Cape Town. This last weekend Ronel got to see her husband after 3 months of him living in a different township. One of the ways she welcomed him back was by testing him for HIV. Ronel reenacted the scene for me.
"Why are you nervous? You have been sleeping around haven't you?" Ronel described her husband as very jumpy and nervous while waiting for 5 minutes for the results to return. I asked her why she didn't trust her husband while he was away. I wasn't surprised when she said, "Why do I need to trust him?" The women I have talked to in the townships uncomfortably say that they don't believe their husbands to be faithful. They often justify infidelity by saying it is part of "black culture."
Black and colored men are spreading HIV to their wives and to the women who live near their seasonal employment. Some experts are starting to call HIV a women's disease because they are the ones who are suffering most and whose infection rates are most on the rise. Some women haven't learned about how to prevent HIV infection, while others are educated but are too scared to use condoms or ask their husbands to get tested. And for many, this fear is justified; when a husband finds out he has HIV, he often blames and beats his wife.
Green Valley's medical staff is trying to combat this epidemic. Ronel is a trusted community member and tries to get women to ask their husbands to get tested when they return home. She has had little success. She also encourages them to make their husbands use a condom, but their husbands usually refuse. She also hands out female condoms, which reduces the risk of contracting HIV. A female condom can be inserted hours before use and often the male doesn't notice. The Chief Nurse in Green Valley goes to all the schools every year and educates students about HIV and other diseases hoping that their generation will do better.
So what can be done? The government needs to find ways to generate stable employment. Stable employment will help families to stay together and decrease infidelity and the spread of HIV, reducing the risk to women. The South African government needs to support women through education and actively prosecuting offenders of domestic abuse. Once again, this is not an easy public health issue and more than medicine is needed.
When I think about home, I wonder how immigration is a public health issue in Mexico, the United States and my hometown. What infectious diseases cross the border both ways? When I go back home I hope to research this more and raise awareness about how it affects my community.
For further Information on HIV/AIDS:
HIV & AIds information
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