Armies unite to combat HIV
An IRIN headline caught my eye this morning: Militaries unite to fight HIV.
The article discusses the launch of the Regional HIV Network of Military Forces in West and Central Africa, a network for military forces to combat HIV within their ranks, and in their surrounding communities. As the article points out, with the exception of Ethiopia, “A number of studies on HIV prevalence rates among sub-Saharan Africa’s armed forces have shown higher rates than in civilian populations.”
And yet, most African militaries have been reluctant to develop programmes that effectively address this challenge. A few excellent reports, notably Alex de Waal’s Fucking Soldiers and Martin Rupiya’s study for the Institute for Security Studies – The enemy within: Southern African militaries’ quarter-Century battle with HIV and AIDS, look at some of the reasons behind this resistance.
As in other sectors of society, some of the reasons why HIV/AIDS is not adequately tackled within the armed forces include ignorance, fear, stigmatisation and stereotyping. For example, in Ghana, “new recruits who test positive are not admitted into the armed forces. A similar ban in South Africa was overturned by the courts in 2008.”
At one presentation at the launch of the regional HIV network, a doctor with Ghana’s armed forces said that soldiers are provided with condoms in the military barracks there. In response, echoing a classic argument against distributing condoms in schools, Senegal’s Minister of Armed Forces, Becaye Diop, asked: “But by giving them condoms, are you not encouraging promiscuity?”