The World AIDS Day umbrella theme until 2015 is “Getting to Zero – Zero New HIV Infections. Zero Discrimination and Zero AIDS Related Deaths”. UNAIDS has developed 10 strategy goals by 2015 in relation to the Getting to Zero campaign, and these are listed below:

1.Sexual transmission of HIV reduced by half, including among young people, men who have sex with men and transmission in the context of sex work
2.Vertical transmission of HIV eliminated, and AIDS-related maternal mortality reduced by half
3.All new HIV infections prevented among people who use drugs
4.Universal access to antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV who are eligible for treatment
5.TB deaths among people living with HIV reduced by half
6.People living with HIV and households affected by HIV are addressed in all national social protection strategies and have access to essential care and support
7.Countries with punitive laws and practices around HIV transmission, sex work, drug use or homosexuality that block effective responses reduced by half
8.HIV-related restrictions on entry, stay and residence eliminated in half of the countries that have such restrictions
9.HIV-specific needs of women and girls are addressed in at least half of all national HIV responses
10.Zero tolerance for gender-based violence

(http://www.unaids.org/en/aboutunaids/unaidsstrategygoalsby2015/ )

This year’s World AIDS Day was barely over when I read an article about a South African journalist detained in, and deported from Qatar due to his HIV-positive status.

Naturally this news report brought up numerous questions. Even though I knew that some countries have visa restrictions for HIV/AIDS, I did not realise the extent of these restrictions, and the lengths to which and procedures some countries followed in order to enforce these rules.

Including Qatar, 47 countries worldwide have the HIV restrictions mentioned in UNAIDS strategy goals. Restricting the travel of people who are HIV positive is a measure these countries have taken to curb the spread of AIDS. Up until recently, the USA and China were among the countries that listed having HIV as a medical basis for inadmissibility and denial of visas.

I have tried to think of the reasons behind these prohibitions. It seems a logical move, I guess. Almost like the reverse of quarantine. The separation of infected people as an emergency response to prevent the spread of disease (especially those about which little is known) has been practiced throughout history, the world over, and in theory, should be quite effective in preventing the spread of HIV. But … I don’t think so!

We now know a whole lot more than we did in the 80s and 90s about the nature of HIV/AIDS and there is therefore no need for such draconian restrictions, which I feel do little more than fuel the fires of stigma and further marginalize people living with HIV in an age when openness about the disease is being encouraged and treatment is mostly readily available.

The world has become a global village and it is now not unheard of that nationals from one side of the globe, travel and even work on the other side of it. What has happened to this South African journalist is a harsh reminder of how bad the situation currently is and how much work still needs to be done on the issue. As UNAIDS continues in its call for the “global freedom of movement for people living with HIV”, I’m wondering how they might help this victim of discrimination and ill treatment due to HIV-positive status, and maybe use this issue as a platform to effect change and shed light on HIV discrimination and stigma?

No excuse – speed limit posted! This is a speed limit sign on Coronation Avenue in Greendale. For the record . . . police are trapping on this road.

I used to think that women who were beaten by their partners had no backbone. I saw them as weak and stupid. I didn’t really understand how difficult a step it was to bring the culprits to justice in Zimbabwe, until my own sister was entangled in such a relationship.

The first time she told me that he was beating her, I immediately thought “We’re so, gonna get him arrested!” And so, the very next morning, with her injuries still fresh(ish), we drove to Mabelreign police station, ignoring others’ suggestions to take matters into our own hands and get him thoroughly beaten up. I had really high hopes that he would be properly punished, according to the law, for what he had done. In retrospect, we should have beaten him ourselves!

It did not take long for me to see that the matter was of little or no importance to them. They asked her to make a statement, which they convoluted, writing it in their own words and later asked her to sign. They then casually mentioned that they had arrested him before for assault and knew him reasonably well. They laughed as they recapped previous encounters with him. The whole issue seemed to have lightened to mood of the station and offered the officers some comic relief. I told them this was not a laughing matter.

They assured me that they were sending a car out to get him, he arrived nearly 2 hours later, (driving his own car), nonchalantly eating an apple. The “Public Relations” officer explained that he would like to talk to them both, in order to ascertain what really happened, and give them both counseling. I insisted on going in with my sister, (I was not going to let her be in the same room as that monster!). The counseling, if one can call it that, was done in a small room where we all sat on the same small bench. Was I dreaming? How can they expect a victim of domestic violence to sit next to her abuser and give all the details of the experience?

I complained to them about the whole procedure and their lackadaisical attitude and several of the police officers said to me, “Siyanai nazvo. Inyaya Dzerudo!” (Stay out of it. This issue is about love). They would say this to me again and again as I made repeated attempts to report the beatings my sister received in 2009. The attitude the police have is that domestic violence is not a real criminal issue but a minor problem within personal relationships, and is therefore too trivial for them to bother with.

When faced with this reality, how can another women, a new victim of domestic violence of a long-sufferer who has had enough go to the police and expect help? Where can women go for real help, when those whose jobs it is to protect all citizens from this country from a myriad of harms, think her husband or boyfriend beating her is a laughing matter?

I am not discounting the existence of compassionate members of the police force out there, who would treat matters of domestic violence with some level of professionalism and treat these matters with the importance they deserve, but I, and the majority of Zimbabwe’s women are yet to meet or hear of such a police officer.

Whilst South African fast food chain, Nandos, pull their very creative advert that pokes fun at various African politicians (jeez man, whatever happened to Laughing at Yourself), because of threats of violence to their staff, Flavorwire focuses on the 10 best commercials of 2011 from an international perspective.

Bumped into a friend and fellow comrade the other day. She’s been on the Other Side (Diaspora) for awhile. She apologised for not being in contact much. She said she’d gotten tired of being outraged.