InterPress News Service (IPS); Thursday, 4 July 1996.
Nhial Bol

The families of young girls have almost shied away from the practice of marrying their daughters off to older men for fear that they may contract the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDs), leaving a stigma on the family that is hard to shake off.

In the past, girls as young as 12, 15 or younger, were married off for cows, money or gold to men they barely knew. In Sudan, husbands are on average more than eight years older than their wives, according to the United Nation's Population Fund's "Investing in Women: The Focus of the '90s".

Now the spread of AIDs, which is still shrouded in myths and misconceptions, has local communities believing that early marriages may bring the disease not just closer to their doorsteps, but into their homes.

AIDs in Sudan, like in most African countries, is on the increase. Official reports estimate that there are 16,000 AIDS cases in the country. But health workers say this is a gross underestimation. In its 1995-96 annual report, the country's statistical office reports that the 20 to 49 age group is most affected by the disease.

The disease has even become strong competition for the once attractive lure of early marriages -- the dowry (bride price), especially in cases where the prospective bride or groom is naturally slim.

"To us who have never been to school, we believe that slim girls or boys have developed the bad disease (AIDs)," says Chief Akol Akol of the Southern Dinka ethnic group. "We don't encourage them to marry and often they are socially rejected. The rate of marriage among the youth is diminishing rapidly."

Many people believe that AIDs is an illness of thin people, confirms Santina Khamis who works at the Comboni Health Centre here in the capital. "Some girls and boys privately come to me to ask for medical check-ups," fearing that they may have the disease just because they are small, she adds.

The Director of the National AIDs Committee in the Ministry of Health has urged communities in the South to form local groups to prevent the spread of HIV which causes AIDs, and to better educate each other on the disease. Bahr El Jebel, Western Equatoria and Eastern Equatoria are southern states where the prevalence of AIDs is reported to be high.

Parents in the southern Equatoria states, says senior government official Peter Wani Leki, are nervous about their daughters getting married, because they have seen families rejected by the community when it becomes known that a family member died of AIDs.

Some ethnic groups in Eastern Equatoria state, in the displaced camps in Juba (Southern Sudan) and here in the capital, have taken matters into their own hands at the urging of traditional chiefs who have been ruffled by the impact of AIDs on their people.

These groups started the Kopera AIDs Society to help government in its fight to prevent the spread of the disease and to educate people on its impact on communities. The society also provides care for families when a family member suffers from the disease.

Traditional leaders are at the forefront of the society's work and are constantly approaching the National AIDS Control Programme for assistance. "The tribal leaders ask us for financial support for their AIDS programmes, and we train their health trainers in their own languages," said Dr Isam El Khidier of the National AIDs Programme. (End/ips/he/pm/an/96)

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