Inter Press Service - October 21, 2002
Katy Salmon

In traditional African societies, a woman's place is in the home. She defers to her husband who is the breadwinner of the family. Yet when it comes to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is women who are taking the lead - and shaking up gender relations in patriarchal societies.

"I decided there was no need to just stay at home. I had to come out and fend for my kids. I had to pay rent, pay school fees," says Caroline.

Today, the 35-year-old is the executive director of Campaigners for an Aids Free Society (CAFS), a community-based organisation that she has set up. The idea of CAFS came to her when she was trying to work out how to tell her teenage son about her status.

It took a lot of guts on her part to move from working class unemployed to an AIDS activist. She says that after two years of living in denial, she found the strength to fight back from the example set by other women living with HIV/AIDS.

"When I started interacting with these other AIDS support groups, that is when I gathered my courage. If you see, those women who come out in public play a very big role in fighting HIV/AIDS. That is what made me come out, so I would also fit in their shoes," she says.

Her job takes her all over Africa. She participates in workshops and meetings. She lobbies to change laws that discriminate against people living with the HIV virus. She speaks to employers to sensitise them to the rights of workers with HIV/AIDS. She cares for the sick, while herself eating "good, balanced meals with plenty of greens" to keep up her immunity levels.

She is not yet on anti-retrovirals, but is about to start. "Whenever I fall sick with opportunistic infections - pneumonia, cough - I go to Medecins Sans Frontiers and get treated with antibiotics."

Caroline still lives in one of Nairobi's innumerable slums. Her day starts at 5.30 each morning, typically fetching water, washing clothes and getting her daughter ready for school. By evening she is so tired that "you will find me on the sofa asleep before the dinner is ready. I think I'm overburdening myself but there's so much to do."

Sophie Muthoni Paul, an HIV-positive activist and mother, echoes Caroline's zeal and commitment. "I think because of the mother part of us, we are very courageous," she says. "As a mother and as a person living with HIV, you feel there's a need for the community to be reached and educated."

AIDS kills an estimated 700 Kenyans daily, according to the Ministry of Health.

What role are men playing? Mike Onyango heads one of the few men's organisations, Movement of Men Against AIDS in Kenya. He thinks Kenyan men are having a harder time facing up to HIV/AIDS. "When a woman is tested and found to be HIV-positive, she'll want to continue with life, to take care of the children. And this also helps them to cope," he says.

What men do is stigmatise women, say women activists. "Men believe that this is a women's disease. They keep on saying that is a women's disease, women are the ones who are bringing this disease and women should fight it," says Caroline.

"They don't want to be associated with HIV/AIDS. It's just recently that we have men coming out but they are still not very open," she points out. "When we have our group therapies (CAFS has branches also in Bungoma and Kisii in western Kenya), you'll find that in a group of 200 women there are only two or three men," she says.

According to Onyango, men find it harder to admit they are infected because of their role as the family breadwinner. "Most of the time women depend so much on men to provide for foodstuffs and things. If, let's say, a person is sacked from work because of their HIV status then the whole family loses," he says.

But HIV-positive women like Paul believe men are scared to go public about their status because it would expose all their multiple sexual partners. "African men, you know, most of them are polygamous. Some of them keep both wives and mistresses and it would affect their several relationships," the 41-year-old asserts.

Kenyan women have come together to face the HIV/AIDS crisis. Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK) was formed by women whose husbands had died of AIDS, say Pamela Ateka, a volunteer. "They needed to support each other in terms of psycho-social support and also financially. So that's why the women came together, because they needed each other."

Women talk to each other more easily about private matters than men do. "Most African men, rarely meet to talk about their personal problems. They always talk about business and other things, but men rarely discuss their personal issues with each other," she believes.

So, is the fight against AIDS led by women changing gender relations? It is empowering women, Ateka believes. "The major trend right now is that women are more confident and women are really going out there. Men are gaining respect for women because women are at the moment really taking up so much leadership roles," she says.

Once started, she is hard to stop. "I think it's time for women to really do that, especially in African countries. Because we have seen that most of our men rarely help us out. Most women are single mothers, widows, experiencing problems in their marriage.

"It's now up to us to help ourselves. So women are really going out and trying to support their families, they're taking up leadership roles, even getting into politics. I think that's a really good thing," she concludes. The AIDS epidemic is denting gender stereotypes in Kenya. (END/IPS/AF/HD/HE/KT/AN/02)

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