ENDING the whispering

“A woman decided to commit suicide as soon as she discovered her daughter had HIV. She stayed day and night without drink, food or sleep. For six days she sat at the same place in the courtyard and finally died.”

It was only last year that serious, multinational campaigns against HIV stigma appeared. Why so long? Well, you have to know where to start...
This is Stu Flavell, International Co-ordinator of GNP+, the Global Network of People Living with HIV/Aids: “Internalised stigma is where it all begins. Stigma limits your range. You don’t ask for things, you resign yourself to a very limited sort of life. If you are not prepared to discuss your needs with the people closest to you, or who could be your support network, your ability to survive is impeded.”

“Even in projects that provide free HIV treatment, very few people living with Aids accept it. They do not want to reveal their status...in one African project, Médecins sans Frontières offered 150 HIV therapy treatments for five years for the equivalent of £9.50 a year. By the end of one year that had not even received 30 patients.”

The Italian Red Cross distrbuting needles in Bulgaria

Stigma is shame
Surely we’ve got beyond these truly dreadful situations?
“Not when it comes to what it’s like for the person inside. I think those of us who are ‘living well with HIV’ forget what it’s like, especially for the newly-diagnosed, even for a gay man, even in the West. Your struggle and my struggle as activists don’t look like his struggle from where he’s sitting.”
“Stigma is not discrimination,” Stu continues. “Discrimination is an action; it’s treating people

unequally. It’s easier to tackle because you can press for human rights legislation.
“But HIV stigma lies behind discrimination. It’s a view of certain people. It’s about what