HIV and AIDS: The Global Inter-Connection

THE POWER TO SILENCE US

By Aimée Mwadi

The story I am going to tell you is true. I have loved, and perhaps I have betrayed. I now have the peace of mind I need to write and convey the depths of my feelings. I carry the weight not only of the years, but rather of what is unsaid and everything that has been hidden.

I married when I was nineteen years of age; now I am the mother of three boys. Our home was a modest one, and we were full of love for each other. However, as time passed, I became increasingly more insecure because my husband did not allow me to express myself or to have basic rights as an individual. Even, for example, in the face of my husband's infidelity. That is why I decided to continue my education, despite his disapproval. After I completed my university studies I had the good fortune to go to France to train as a specialist in HIV diagnostic research techniques.

Upon my return, my husband announced that he was officially a polygamist and planned to have as many wives as he could afford. I did not become jealous, but rather indignant and scornful. This was not the first time that I had been faced with this problem and I therefore was not surprised.

This time I was defenseless and had no one to confide in. Even my mother could not be my confidant because I could not discuss the ideas that were beginning to form in my mind. In our culture, out of respect to our elders, one does not discuss sexual problems with one's parents. Given the seriousness of my problem, I almost dared to confide in her. However, I held back because I believed her response would be quite different from mine.

I spent days absorbed in thought and inner conflict. I could see the negative and positive consequences of my decision. Finally I regained my bearings because of a recurring thought: "This is a matter of life and death." With this in mind, I gathered the courage to begin an open dialogue with my husband. Since he had informed me about his polygamous intentions we had not been speaking; our children were serving as our intermediaries.

During our first conversation I asked him a number of questions, including whether he knew his partners' HIV status and their sexual behaviour. His response was that this issue was of little importance because HIV did not exist in the town where he lived. I tried to make him understand that not only the large cities were affected by HIV, but so were the rural areas. I even used statistical data to support my position regarding the HIV situation in our country. I also tried to dispel the widespread myth that HIV was an imaginary syndrome invented to discourage sexual activity. (SIDA, the acronym for AIDS in French, is believed to represent "Syndrome Imaginaire pour Decourager L'Amour.")

Other tactics that I employed included reminding my husband that the future of our sons depend upon our remaining healthy and productive. Unfortunately, he remained firm in his resolve to practice polygamy and refused to change his decision. It was upon this refusal that I demanded he agree to an HIV test before I continued any sexual relations with him, or that he use a condom. He rejected both requests and that was the beginning of our duel. He tried many things to change my mind. Blackmail, threats, and sometimes physical abuse, but I stood by my decision to protect myself and my children from his high-risk sexual behaviour.

My husband commenced his polygamous practices and returned to our home every three months for one week visits. When he realized that I remained as determined as ever, he assembled some members of his family to inform them of my disobedience. Yet he was unable to state the cause of my behaviour openly. He did not dare explain our true problem, perhaps because in Africa a couple cannot discuss problems regarding their intimate life in public.

During this time, the labouratory where I worked was the best equipped in the field of virology, particularly in HIV research and diagnosis. We treated patients from throughout the country as well as citizens of neighboring countries. It was frightening. People who looked healthy were HIV-positive. The high mortality rate left us in a state of shock. Of particular interest to me was the predicament of women and parentless children. Thus, living the reality of HIV at work encouraged me to regard my personal life in a very serious light.

I often wondered if I had made the right decision and I asked myself if I was not suffering from HIV-related phobia. However, reality made my decision firmer, in spite of the constraints, arguments, threats, and false accusations of infidelity made by my husband's family. I thought of leaving my home but concern about my children's future kept me from doing so, especially now that their father had rejected us.

Finally my husband spoke openly with his brothers about our conflict. They then held a family meeting to decide on the punishment they would impose upon me. I had humiliated their brother, even though, in accordance with African tradition, he was the one who had paid the dowry. This led to endless arguments between my husband and I, and often, for no reason, my husband ordered me to leave the house. Sometimes my sisters-in-law would visit, endlessly repeating that their mother had not given birth to their brother for me exclusively. They said that my jealousy was like electric current and that one day it would electrocute me. I spent two years in this atmosphere, and as result my health suffered terribly.

My husband officially left me in August of 1988. I saw him again three years later when he appeared before the court; I had begun divorce proceedings against him for moral and material abandonment.

In 1989, I co-founded a branch of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa (SWAA). I am now the national president. This has been an opportunity for me to meet with women from all walks of life to discuss our views on the HIV epidemic as it affects women.

Through my personal experience and the experiences of others, I learned that many women suffer in silence. We have been educated to respect the African tradition of resignation: a wife is at the service of her husband and his family. If one only knew how many of our sisters have been sent to the hereafter by the very resignation which our grandmothers and mothers have taught and continue to teach us. Now HIV has changed many aspects of our lives and humanity is facing a plague which requires that we reassess and reform some of our cultural and traditional values.

Efforts to prevent HIV have been focussed on three areas: a reduction of the number of sexual partners, monogamy and fidelity in personal relations, and the use of condoms. It is estimated that approximately 60 to 80% of African women who contracted HIV have only had sexual relations with their husbands. Because African tradition compares a childless couple to a tree without roots, it is no wonder that couples infected with HIV continue to have children, many of whom are also HIV-positive. These parents subsequently leave behind many parentless children when they die.

It is true that dependence, poverty, and sociocultural factors enable the transmission of HIV to women. However, not every African woman is faced with all these problems simultaneously. I believe that every woman must carefully assess her situation, so that she can prepare a personal action plan to contribute to the fight against HIV.

As to economic dependence, many women have declared that they cannot change their situation because they depend entirely upon their husbands. With this in mind, we must prepare our children, our daughters, our younger sisters, and our nieces to become self-sufficient.

In the face of the HIV epidemic, women must take charge of our lives. There is an adage that says that one must choose the lesser of two evils. In other words, it is better to stand for one's right to life than to die young, or through no fault of one's own, to become a widow, sometimes ill, destitute, rejected, and ostracized by society. In the presence of HIV, women must cease living from moment to moment. We must ask questions which address our families' future and seek a model for collective action where women can unite to change male sexual behaviour. We must refuse to be a link in the HIV chain of infection by being ever vigilant because the virus may strike at any moment.

It is our duty to keep the memory alive of all the women who have died or who will die because of this century's plague. We must ensure that women who have been broken and humiliated in a silence dictated by tradition have their voices heard. Let our voices be heard in harmony with theirs as we create a future where HIV no longer has the power to silence us.

Biographical note

Aimee Mwadi works with Institut National de Reserches Biomedicales in Zaire. She was a chairperson of Society for Women Against AIDS in Zaire. She was trained in Univeristy of Kinshasa Faculty of Medicine and Institut Pasteur in France.