Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - February 7, 2004
Helen Nyambura

Now the age-old custom practised by the nomadic peoples of Kenya's northeastern province is increasingly being used as a cure for HIV/AIDS.

Nassir hesitantly admits he slept with a nine-year-old girl because the clan elders in Isiolo, 200 km northeast of Kenyan capital Nairobi, said it would rid him of frequent bouts of illness brought on by HIV.

"I was given a girl of nine years to sleep with for a week," Nassir said. "I took pity on her but if it wasn't for this disease I wouldn't have slept with her...I had to do what the elders had said."

Isiolo's pastoralist community practices a mix of Muslim and traditional African beliefs. Illiteracy is high and AIDS is shrouded in stigma and superstition.

"I am still afraid (that I may die), but there are many people from my area who have done it," Nassir said. "Many survive, many die."

Although he paid 15,000 shillings ($195.9) and his mother gave up two goats for the purging ceremony, Nassir still gets ill once in a while and goes for treatment in a clinic run by a local charity whose Swahili name Pepo La Tumaini Jangwani, means Wind of Hope in the Arid Land.

After the ceremony, which includes gouging out a goat's heart while it is still alive, the people of the village engage in a sexual orgy intended to help a son or brother cleanse himself.

Nassir said he'll get tested at the end of the year to see if he has been cured.

BREEDING GROUND

Two million of Kenya's 30 million people are HIV-positive and 1.5 million have already died.

Khadija Omar Rama, the founder of the Tumaini charity said that despite the fact that up to 800 Kenyans die every day from AIDS, communities like Isiolo continue to embrace traditional practices which actively help to spread AIDS.

Another ancient custom permits men of the same generation to have indiscriminate and unprotected sex with the wives of their peers. A spear propped by the door of a man's house means that someone else from his age group is in bed with his wife.

"None of us is jealous about someone else sleeping with our wives because we all do it," said Nassir, who says he has slept with the wives of many men, even though he suspects he has HIV.

Nassir thinks his wife, who died shortly after his cleansing ceremony, was infected with AIDS. She was never tested.

One woman who did not want to be named said her husband stabbed her in the eye for objecting to having their daughter take part in a cleansing ceremony.

She now belongs to the Maula, a group of women sponsored by Tumaini who hope to convince people to abandon the old ways by reporting the use of girls in purging ceremonies and offering alternative rituals for men with AIDS.

ALTERNATIVE CLEANSING RITES

Rama says alternative cleansing rituals are highly contentious and the Maula must operate in secret. Men who do visit, come to them under the cover of darkness.

"The women have to be very discreet about the alternative method of cleansing and this is counter-productive for their campaign," Rama said.

In a dome-shaped hut made of sticks, nine veiled Maula members sit in a semi-circle for the cleansing ceremony. The earthen floor is covered in mats and all footwear is left outside what is now considered holy ground.

Popcorn, roasted coffee berries cooked in oil, coffee cups, sugar cubes and a bar of soap lie in the centre while a pungent smell from a small incense burner passed from woman to woman as part of the ritual, assaults the nostrils.

Rama said reporting traditional purging ceremonies to the authorities can sometimes cause further trauma for the girls who have been forced to take part. She said two girls disappeared after the Maula reported that they had been forced to take part. One is still missing.

One traditional custom which may help save some women from the deadly virus that has afflicted much of sub Saharan Africa comes at a price.

Many women who suspect their husbands are infected with AIDS or HIV have been turning to sufis, women healers, to put off their husband's advances.

Traditionally, a woman seeking to join an elder council or tribal leadership is required to stop having sex and will ask a sufi to her bedroom to discourage her husband. In such circumstances the husband eventually gives up.

But women who choose to use a sufi are not permitted to ever have sex again and they are killed if caught in the act.

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