HIV/AIDS and Behaviour Change: Why we are not winning yet!
HIV/AIDS and Behaviour Change: Why we are not winning yet!
Civil society and the state have done a lot in relation to HIV/AIDS awareness. However, we see that what is an obstacle at this point is not neccessarily a black out on HIV/AIDS information but a continuation of high risk behaviours.
What l have come to realise is that human behaviour is not always rational behaviour, hence information dissemination will only work firstly, if people make rational decisions about sex, and secondly, when they are in control of their behaviour.
For youths sexual activity is not arrived at through a rational decision making process, but mostly as a reaction, perhaps a reflex reaction to peer preasure or other pressures created by hormones, T.V and even general fantasies. Hence, human beigns are not predisposed to be in control of their sexual behaviours, especially women in patriarchal societies as they lack the social autonomy to initiate or even negotiate for safe sex.
Resultantly, despite whatever reliable information one has about HIV/AIDS, the final decision is a product of a myriad of socio-economic, psycho-cognitive processes that are independent of the information one has about HIV/AIDS.
Take the Case of Zuma's rape trial, the then Vice President of the Country was aware of the status of Khwezi, and was fully aware of the risks involved in having unprotected intercourse, but still went on to do it.
Prince Nare
To win the fight against HIV/AIDS we need to understand that people are often not in control of their sexual behaviour, and an appeal to their rational decision making will not necessarily inhibit transmmission of HIV.
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Comments
Social change
It is true that people do not necessarily behave rationally, but often the rationality is in their perspective. If one is struggling for survival then saving oneself for 20 years time is not rational. What we have failed to do in SA is tackle the epidemic from all angles - when one talks about lack of leadership it also means how leaders behave and demonstrate how to keep safe sexually - we have barely had any high profile people talking about being HIV positive, we have 2 very high profile men openly having more than one sexual partner (outside of marriage/polygamy) we have endless musicians and soccor stars having multiple girlfriends (and impregnating them - demonstrating that they are having unsafe sex) - why do we expect everyone else to behave in safer ways?
Until everyone is on board in addressing the epidemic we arent gonig to win!
HIV/AIDS
I believe that it is not even a question of information dissemination but more an issue of ignorance no matter how much the information on HIV& AIDS is being disseminated.
You still find people who still does not want to know their about their status, society still feels that when you are HIV it is because you were not behaving properly and you should not be part of the society and that is the reason why people are not disclosing their status, and that's the reason we still have people getting infected on a daily basis.