Impact of HIV/AIDS on women farmers and food security

Australia, March 2004
By Victoria Kakoko-Sebagereka, farmer from Uganda and President of the
IFAP Standing Committee on Women in Agriculture

Background

The Human Immune deficiency Virus (HIV) that causes AIDS was first recognized in USA in 1981. Since that time, the scale of the AIDS crisis increased to the extent that many countries are on the grip of serious HIV/AIDS pandemic epidemic. According to UNAIDS report 2002, it is estimated that worldwide over 60 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. Of those 38.2 million are adults, 19.2 million women and 3.2 million children below 15 years.

Uganda constitutes 0.4% (as of December 2002) of the World population and accounts for 2.4% of the world’s HIV/AIDS cases.

Half of the new HIV infections are among the young people (15-24) years. Of those two thirds are girls and one third are boys. These figures paint a gloomy picture on national development and as such, HIV/AIDS has terrific social, economic and political implications.

The AIDS virus is causing serious demographic problems. It is a significant factor in economic and social crises and, consequently, is contributing to political instability in many countries.

It has touched a big segment of the population including adult men, women and children. The epidemic has affected both rural and urban areas across all districts, constituencies, sub counties and communities. The impact of all this has resulted into devastating changes on all sector of development and in particular in the agricultural area.

Impact of HIV/AIDS on the Agriculture Sector

The economic, social and political consequences of extensive HIV contamination, especially in certain regions of Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, are readily apparent and indeed alarming.

The devastation of the labour force is eroding human capital. Unlike other diseases, AIDS is not confined only to the poorest, or least educated, members of society. Teachers, political leaders, the elite, military personnel and the police are also affected by it. The result is reduced national productivity, curtailed social, health and even education services, a reduction in the number of intellectuals, and so on.

Future generations will be hard hit. The estimated number of children orphaned through AIDS stands at over 9 million, out of a worldwide total of 13 million orphans who live in the streets and often suffer from the disease themselves. For some families, they have had to grapple with the burden of orphans thus making them longer while others have lost members thus making them smaller. In many situations, some families loose the productive members like parents and leave the young behind to head the families. They cannot produce (in terms of farming) enough to sustain their lives let alone a surplus for marketing. Present and future family and community structure and stability are being destroyed.

HIV/AIDS has affected the farming sector in terms of labour force being reduced and thus with the poor technology prevailing to our country, levels of production increase in a reducing manner. Our Agricultural Sector is not yet fully mechanized hence the impact of reduced labour force is tremendously felt.

The increasing number of HIV/AIDS patients has created demands on healthy infrastructure, drugs, health personnel, the general health services and even at home. Those with the families of the sick who are breadwinners are over burdened. They divert almost all the resources to the patients instead of improving their farms and gardens and thus, they are leading to less development to the sector of agriculture.

HIV/AIDS has affected parents, teachers and pupils or students alike. As regards students and pupils, HIV implies an increase of absenteeism, drop out of school and poor performance. This is due of poor health and/or lack of school fees. This means we shall have very few students who will finish school and qualify as agriculturalists to boost the sector.

This applies also to the government. The resources that could have been used to develop the agricultural sector are instead diverted to health services which slow down the development process.

Agriculture that includes manufacturing and food security is the main stay of the Ugandan economy. And yet HIV/AIDS affects the productive age group engaged in agricultural production. Uganda. It has seriously contributed to a decline in cultivation and often investment ventures. The illness or death due to HIV/AIDS contributed to decreased labour force, loss of time during agricultural crop planting and weeding seasons and lead to low or no harvest at all resulting into food insecurity. As HIV/AIDS continues to affect the production age group, there is a shift from production of cash to food crop cultivation. This has therefore reduced people’s attention to cash crops production leading to low earnings.

Why should Women take special concern in HIV/AIDS prevention?

- HIV/AIDS has become a women’s epidemic.
- Worldwide nearly 5000 women a day become infected with HIV.
- In Sub-Saharan African, women living with HIV out number men.

In many societies, women are facing serious social, economic, cultural, moral and religious barriers to access to information on the disease, to protective measures and to medication to slow the disease’s development in the event of contamination. Moreover, women transmit the virus when giving birth, and so have an especially important role to play in fighting the propagation of AIDS.

1. Biological factors

The Physiological make-up in which the larger mucosal surface are which increases the chance of HIV infection. During and after unprotected sex, mucous membranes in the vagina are exposed to infectious fluids for a prolonged period. Young women are at even a greater risk since the cervix is physiologically less mature and therefore more vulnerable to infection.

Women who set STD may not know it since these diseases are often asymptomatic in women. This can mean more vulnerability to HIV since some STDs care lesions making it easier for HIV to enter the body.

They (women) stand greater risk of and receiving contaminated blood/or blood products as they undergo surgical operations associated with pregnancy.

When infected with HIV, mothers can pass it on to the child before, during or after birth through breastfeeding.

2. Cultural factors

Some cultural factors prevent women protecting themselves from HIV-AIDS:

- Inadequate legal rights of women on property and inheritance and socio-economic inequalities imply a dependence of women from their partner. It makes it difficult to “negotiate” condom use or to refuse relations with a partner that puts them at risk.

- In many societies, women and girls are discouraged from learning about their bodies and about sex in general. Women often leave sexual decision-making to men. Gender based social norms can lead men to seek multiple partners, while women bear the burden of shame and stigma associated with the disease.

- Women have limited chances to formal education and information on HIV/AIDS.

- Preventive measures like condom use largely favours the opposite sex while the female condom is largely inaccessible. Current prevention strategies that emphasise mutual monogamy and make condoms require co-operation by women’s male partners.

- Many women want to get pregnant and for some, their social status and security is based on their ability to bear children.

- Women are care takers of AIDS patients and sometimes could get infected because of a lack of knowledge on the contamination process.

Conclusion

The International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) is particularly aware that over the past two decades, the appearance of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has been an event of unprecedented seriousness. Its impact on sustainable development is devastating.

It is inconceivable that rural women do not take into account this epidemic, bearing in mind its pervasive character, the populations affected (90% of AIDS victims are living in the developing nations, 70% on the African continent alone, and rural areas are heavily affected), and the disease’s alarming consequences.

It is extremely important to target women through specific programs and it is essential for the survival of future generations to change attitudes. AIDS affects society as a whole and inequalities between the sexes, societies and continents must be eliminated to fully halt the epidemic’s spread.

Failure to make available in the developing countries protective measures and multidrug therapy means that economic interests are overshadowing worldwide health issues. These inequalities with respect to AIDS must be overcome and international agencies and pharmaceutical laboratories must allow everyone access to protective measures and treatment.

To prevent HIV/AIDS contamination, women need education, economic opportunity and social support between others. Empowering women political capacities is essential to lobby for financial and political commitment for a long-term fight against HIV/AIDS.