World YWCA calls on religious leaders to rise up against stigma and discrimination in response to HIV and AIDS
"Imagine a world where you can walk into a room and say ‘ I am HIV positive’ and the response was ‘It’s ok, we love you and we are here for you, and we are all going to die one day anyway and how you got HIV is not important. The fact is that it is here, so let’s deal with this together’. Imagine a world with no stigma. More than half the challenge would be won."
World YWCA HIV and AIDS Co-ordinator Sophie Dilmitis presented these powerful words to over 500 people attending the Ecumenical Pre-Conference that took place in Mexico from July 31-August 2 preceeding the International AIDS Conference to be held from August 3-8.
Dilmitis was part of a plenary session addressing stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS and she called on religious leaders to start using their power to help overcome the stigma and discrimination often associated with HIV. “Religious leaders have immense power. Imagine the Pope or religious leaders speaking out widely on condoms as life saving devices and other advocacy issues like countries that restrict entrance to people living with HIV. When we see religious leaders standing up and addressing touch issues like these, things will shift,” said Dilmitis.
Dilmitis who has been living with HIV for 14 years, said her faith in the power of religious leaders was restored when she visited a church in Stommen, Norway, that accepts people with HIV and drug users and offers spiritual and emotional support.
“The energy of acceptance and love I felt there was godly and this is how relationships should be between people living with HIV and religious leaders.”
She suggested four strategies for building relationships between religious leaders and people living with HIV: speaking out about HIV; accepting, understanding and empathising with people living with HIV; acknowledging that people of faith are sometimes stigmatised; and learning more about HIV.
Her thought provoking speech moved many in the audience including the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Chicago, and President of the Lutheran World Federation who began his presentation by washing Dilmitis' feet and those of another HIV positive woman on the panel of the session. He said washing the womens’ feet was the only way he could begin his remarks with integrity.
“I am absolutely convinced that we as religious leaders, and we in the religious community that so shunned and shamed people with HIV and struggling with AIDS must begin first by engaging in public acts of repentance. Because absent public acts of repentance, I fear our words will not be trusted,” he said.
World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda also participated in the Ecumenical Pre Conference;moderating a panel that explored ‘Gender-based Violence and Trafficking’ and the session raised serious issues that confront women and girls in the HIV pandemic.
Dr. Pauline Muchina, Senior Partnerships Adviser, UNAIDS, one of the guest speakers at the session saluted the efforts of faith-based organisations in AIDS intervention. “Communities of faith have been on the forefront of the battle since even before the world really understood the disease,” she said. “Yet even today many faith-based communities are ill-prepared.”
Muchina said certain church teachings have perpetuated the pandemic. “Women are more vulnerable, in part, because they are socialised to believe in male domination. In some countries, women lack control over their bodies because they don’t have the power to decide when, how and with whom to have sex.”
Kay Warren, Executive Director, HIV and AIDS Initiative, Saddleback Church (USA), told the audience, “Most women have no one to raise a voice for them. Even in a Christian community, it is acceptable to beat a woman, to force her into submission. But we are called to be the hope of the world.”
One young woman gave a moving testimony about her experiences in Africa as a victim of rape, beatings, kidnapping and her exposure to HIV. Herlyn Marja Uiras was deceived into leaving her native Namibia by men who eventually kidnapped and then abused her. “I was not even able to negotiate the use of a condom,” she said.
Uiras was in South Africa when she learned she was infected with HIV. “I was so devastated that I thought I would soon die in a foreign country without my family knowing where I was buried.” She, however, made her way back home where she eventually began a regiment of medications to treat the disease. Today she is an Ambassador of Hope for Churches United Against HIV and AIDS in Southern and Eastern Africa, focusing efforts on younger women and girls to help them claim healthy self esteem and life choices.
Gumbonzvanda urged the audience to take action now and say no to violence; especially gender-based violence. “ Together we agree to take concrete actions to prevent violence and especially gender-based violence, to end violence where it is happening, to provide support in services to survivors of violence, and to build our own capacity within our institutions, within our communities and within our churches, to respond to gender-based violence in the context of HIV and AIDS,” said Gumbonzvanda.
The World YWCA AIDS 2008 delegation participated in a range of workshops at the pre-conference and will continue to keep women and girls on the agenda throughout AIDS 2008.
