Public Story
Increase in HIV; the impact of Covid lockdown in East Africa.
Summary
Covid has had a devastating impact in communities around the world but nowhere more than East Africa. It has caused a significant increase in HIV, sexually transmitted diseases as well as other forms of abuse. Read more...
Key points
- Periods of lockdown have caused spikes in HIV, sexually transmitted disease, under-age sex and domestic abuse.
- Poverty, especially hunger, is the result of an increase in HIV but poverty is also causing the problem.
- Single motherhood, and abandonment by men is a mushrooming problem (hit and run).
- Sex is being offered to girls as young as 8 for 50 cents, or for $5 without a condom.
- Incest is being reported among brothers/sisters and fathers/daughters due to lockdown ‘boredom’.
It is 6:30 in the morning. Olivia has arrived as the African sun is about to break the horizon and clear the chill hanging in the air. The market comes to Mbale in eastern Uganda every Wednesday and people come from miles around to sell their wares. They know that they have to sell enough today to provide the money to support them and their families for the coming week.
Olivia is here early to ensure she gets a good plot before the crowds arrive. Her story is a familiar one and it doesn’t take anyone visiting this part of Uganda to realise that almost every woman and young girl, or so it seems, is a single mother with at least one dependent young child. The innocent victims of ‘hit and run’. The first time I heard the expression in this context was at a bus stop. I was talking to three 15 year old Ugandan boys. They were showing off about their exploits (real or imagined) joking about girls and they used the expression ‘Hit and Run’. It took a few moments to register until I realized they were talking about their sexual conquests. What they weren’t aware of was how close the analogy of a car crash actually is to those involved in the aftermath.
In our interviews with local people we heard how Covid and the lockdown imposed on poor communities was having a negative impact on the lives of young girls and women. Typically the houses are single roomed dwellings where the husband and wife are sleeping in the same room as the children. This means that children are being introduced to sexual activity from a very early age, often as young as 4 or 5. The children then, in turn, experiment with each other. We heard of a brother and sister who were left at home during the day and the brother (11 years old) made his sister (10) pregnant. It was only when she was 5 months pregnant that the parents became aware of the situation.
We also met young girls ( and were told of girls as young as 8, although we didn't talk to any this young) who were selling themselves for sex due to poverty and hunger. Sex is sold with a condom, although men are offering a higher price for sex without a condom and this is almost an impossible offer to refuse in a poverty-stricken economy. In fact, it is not uncommon for some young women to thank God that they were created women as it is a means of earning a living. This is a tragic situation where prostitution is so common that sex is seen as a commodity to sell in the same way as, for example, food at the market.
Lockdown has caused many issues around sexually transmitted disease and an increase in nearly all infections, including HIV. This, in turn, has created a society full of single mothers who have been abandoned by their men. This is not only a commitment issue which was present in this society before coronavirus, but is partly due to the strain of living under the same roof in highly straitened circumstances.
The local medical research centre told us that their number 1 test done for the wider community is paternity testing - over and above STIs, HIV, malaria and every other testing done at the clinic.
For further information, or for a fully written article along with accompanying photos, please contact Stephen Butler via the Visura page or at info@stephenbutler.co
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