Deadly Delay – South Africa Puts Survivors of Rape at Further Risk
The 15th International AIDS conference began yesterday in Bangkok. An estimated 5.3 million of South Africa’s 45 million people are living with HIV/AIDS which is the highest officially recognised national total of people with HIV/AIDS in the world. However this may not be the actual largest number because not all countries give accurate reports, and places like China and India are of great concern. In Africa, an estimated 24% of the adult population are infected with HIV and 57% of these cases are women. The South African government refused to acknowledge the problem of HIV/AIDS for a long time, but in April 2002 took the significant and progressive step of announcing that it was going to provide a comprehensive package of services for survivors of rape. This included HIV Post-exposure Prophylaxis (or P.E.P) – which is a short course of anti-retroviral drugs that can prevent HIV infection after exposure. This decision was surprising to HIV/AIDS activists because at the same time, the South African government was publicly opposing the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to treat people living with HIV/AIDS in the public health system. The inconsistency between the government policy and action has confounded the country’s people, health care services and human rights groups. Human Rights Watch released a report earlier this year titled “Deadly Delay: South Africa’s Efforts to Prevent HIV in Survivors of Sexual Violence”. Cinnamon Nippard spoke to Rebecca Shleifer researcher with the HIV/AIDS Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch about the disparity between the South African government’s policy statements and action.