if you have AIDS and you sleep with a virgin...

[R_P_A_S]

so. why do people have so much AIDS in africa?
i heard that is because most of the tribes there believe that if you have AIDS and you sleep with a virgin, then it will go away?

is this true?

[BobKKKindle$]

African governments are unable to purchase the drugs required to treat aids because of the high prices offerred by mutinational drug corporations and under the terms of WTO treaties it is illegal to manufacture these drugs generically. In addition, American abstinence-based policies have limited information on and access to contraception. Moreover, poverty has driven young women into prostitution which facilitates the rapid spread of the AIDs virus, and the absence of effective testing systems means that carriers cannot easily be identified.

A range of reasons really. What you heard seems rather paternalistic and doubtless was from a western sourve; although I do agree that ignorance of what HIV is and how it is transmitted also plays a role.

[Cencus]

i heard that is because most of the tribes there believe that if you have AIDS and you sleep with a virgin, then it will go away?

is this true?

It's an exageration, there are some muppets that believe that, but afaik these are a small minority.

The reasons Africa has such an AIDs problem are many, primarily poverty related. There's little education outside of cities, so no sex education, much of the education systems there are are run by our old friends of the catholic church. Men often have to travel away from families to find work, so often seek prostitutes. There is no money for drugs all the money goes to service debt. People don't get tested as tests are expensive to your average peasant. In war torn regions rape is common.

Add to this certain personalities who deny the HIV/AIDS connection, including Tabu Memkie[sp?] and a macho culture in some areas where sleeping with many women is seen as a good thing and you have a major problem.

Also AIDS originated in Africe and was spreading for several years before it came to the attention of west where medicines are generally created and world health policy is generated, millions in africa were infected before we even knew HIV/AIDS existed.

[The Feral Underclass]

How is this a learning question?

[spartan]

in zimbabwae a significant amount of people believe that sleeping (or more commonly raping) an albino woman will get rid of aids! some peoples ignorance is astonishing! no wonder aids spreads like wild fire in africa.

[Mujer Libre]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 10, 2007 11:26 am
How is this a learning question?
Well... There's clearly a lot of learning (and much less generalising) that needs to happen in this thread...

But yes, this is one for S and E.

[Forward Union]

The late pope discouraged the use of condoms in Africa, and so the catholics for a long time spread rumors, including one that condoms caused aids.

No doubt this had a part to play in it.

[spartan]

yeah your right about the church and condoms. this is just another of the many reasons why we should kill off religion when the revolution has succeeded.

[Sentinel]

While a general discussion on the HI Virus or Aids would fit in S&E, this topic is about superstitious beliefs concerning it and problems they cause. It belongs in Religion.

And this belief indeed seems to cause problems. Most infamously in South Africa, but reportedly even in India and Thailand, according to media and online sources. I'm personally unconvinced about exactly how widespread the belief is, but there have been many reports about rapings of children and even infants in SA due to it.

Clearly poverty and neo-colonialism are to blame for these kind of myths being ignored and allowed to prevail.

Here's part one article I found:


Originally posted by Science in Africa
HIV/AIDS, the stats, the virgin cure and infant rape
Mike Earl-Taylor

Nearly 60 children are raped every day in South Africa and while experts agree to disagree as to the causes, or whether the pervasive belief in the so-called "Virgin Cure" prevents/cures HIV/Aids is possibly responsible for this deeply disturbing phenomenon, university researcher, Mike Earl-Taylor suggests it could well be a contributing factor, and a major one at that. Moreover, infant rape appears to be unique to South Africa, however, the Virgin Cure is not.
For an alternative opinion on this issue enter here

The Figures

At the close of 2001, an estimated 40 million people worldwide -37.2 million adults and 2.7 million children younger than 15 years -were living with HIV/Aids, and more than 70 percent of these people [28.1 million] live in sub-Saharan Africa; another 15 percent [6.1 million] live in South and Southeast Asia. [1]. South Africa, a country with the highest incidence of rape and child rape in the world, has 19.94, or approximately one in nine of its 41 million population infected with HIV/Aids, as opposed to one in five for Botswana [35.8 percent], and 25.25 and 25.06 for Swaziland and Zimbabwe, respectively[2].

Currently, there are estimated to be from 4.2 to 4.7 million individuals affected by the pandemic in South Africa and these figures are projected to rise to well in excess of 6 million by the year 2010[3]. With an average of five children raped every hour of every day, of every week, of every year, the projected estimate may well be conservative.

Between 1500 to 1700 new HIV/Aids infections occur daily in South Africa, or nearly one seventh of the 14000 new infections worldwide. This figure amounts to an estimated 5 million new infections globally in 2001; more than 95 percent of these new infections occurred in developing countries and HIV/Aids-associated illnesses caused the deaths of 3 million people worldwide, including an estimated 580,000 children younger than 15 years[4].

21,000 child rapes, and some 37,000 adult rapes, were reported in South Africa last year. According to the South African Police Service, only one in 35 are actually reported. The actual incidence of rape could well be in excess of a million per year. It can only be speculated and extrapolated then that the actual incidence of child/infant rape has reached alarming and phenomenal proportions that should signal urgent intervention from the highest levels of government, and society-at-large.
To what extent is the HIV/Aids myth responsible for actions against children?

In the first instance, we must examine the culturally-specific belief system, which is not confined to South Africa as is popularly conceived, nor to the African continent as a whole, but is found to exist in most other developing countries with large numbers of HIV/Aids positive people in their populations.


India, with an estimated 3 million plus HIV/Aids sufferers, along with Thailand, both largely patriarchal societies, also has entrenched the so-called Virgin Cure within its belief systems.

The myth of the Virgin Cure has a rich and culturally diverse history stretching back to 16th century Europe, and more prominently to be found in 19th century Victorian England, where, in spite of the emphasis on morality, rectitude and family values, there existed a widespread belief, that sexual intercourse with a virgin was a cure for syphilis, gonnorhea, [and other STD's]. Syphilis, like HIV/Aids, was fatal in its terminal stages. In the Eastern Cape of South Africa, when a significant outbreak of STD's was spread by troops returning home from overseas after WWII, the Virgin Cure was widely sought among the population.

Encompassed in the current belief system of both prevention/cure of HIV/Aids is the notion that an intact hymen, and the smaller amount of vaginal secretions in young girls, prevents transmission of the disease through sexual intercourse. As previously posited, experts agree to disagree on the root causes of the shocking incidence of child rape, but all are fairly certain, that it does not meet the clinical diagnostic criteria for the paraphilia [deviant psychosexual disorder] of paedophilia.

Link (http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/april/virgin.htm)

[Jazzratt]

There are a lot of problems in African countries that have led to these problems, foremost is - naturally - a lack of education resulting not only from the actions of the catholic church (a powerful entity in Africa) but this is certainly exacerbated by the superstitious beliefs that have been mentioned in this thread.

I believe that more dangerous than the minority "sex with X cures AIDS" beliefs are the various beliefs that have entered even mainstream thought (the Gambian ruler who had a dream that his ancestors showed him how to cure AIDS for example). More dangerous still though is the fact that any available pharmaceuticals that can treat AIDS are not available to the majority of people thanks to the profiteering of various medical companies.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 03:46 pm
More dangerous still though is the fact that any available pharmaceuticals that can treat AIDS are not available to the majority of people thanks to the profiteering of various medical companies.
Well, exactly, supply and demand. The majority of the african peasantry and working class cannot afford the medicines and treatments, and so there's no 'demand'. The benevolent pharmaceutical companies could loan it to them, but they're not likely to pay it back anytime soon.

I think we need an economic system that can avoid this problem :rolleyes:

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by Urban [email protected] 10, 2007 04:19 pm
I think we need an economic system that can avoid this problem :rolleyes:
I wonder what kind of system that would be?

That's a real poser...

[TC]

why do people have so much AIDS in africa?
i heard that is because most of the tribes there believe that if you have AIDS and you sleep with a virgin, then it will go away?

is this true?

I have heard that reported on the BBC but i would guess that it was probably some line that some racist news editor expanded out of all proportion; despite what the former british empire's official news source would like to think, i doubt Africans are that stupid.


The real reason why Africa has such a high AIDs infection rate compared to the rest of the world is because the location of the initial human outbreak where a strand of SIV mutated into HIV was in Africa and because HIV is not very infectious secondary outbreaks from people who traveled to Africa did not lead to as expansive an epidemic as that nearer the point of origin.

[synthesis]

The pandemic has a million root problems that are too complex to solve. For example, some politicians still deny that HIV causes AIDS; there are many other such tragic misconceptions that continue to survive. These are not only supported by previously existing cultural practices, but by blatant ignorance on the part of those whose duty it is to know better.

One of the most atrocious examples of poor leadership was when Mbeki's vice president Jacob Zuma was on trial for allegedly raping his assistant who he knew to be HIV-Positive. Along with the obviously disgusting "prove she's a slut" line that the defense used, the great tragedy of the case was that Zuma claimed, under oath, that taking a shower after unprotected sex will prevent people from getting AIDS.

I mean, shit, if the fuckin' vice president is doing it, could it really be that wrong?

[chimx]

I have heard that reported on the BBC but i would guess that it was probably some line that some racist news editor expanded out of all proportion

Unfortunately it is quite true.

When I was in South Africa you heard about virgins being raped by people with AIDS pretty regularly. An infant was gang-raped while I was there. The article went into rather graphic detail about how badly damaged the infant was.

This thread has nothing to do with religion.

[NorthStarRepublicML]

i would guess that it was probably some line that some racist news editor expanded out of all proportion

it is not racist to say that africa is a mostly backwater, largely uneducated, highly superstitious, desperate for hope, and impoverished continent ....


Diviners and traditional healers through their governing organisations have come out to strongly condemn the belief, endorsed by some healers, that sleeping with virgins cures HIV and AIDS.


"We (healers) have no cure for AIDS in our herbal medicines, and there is a desperation among some healers who are unable to assist dying patients, so they resort to popular superstitious beliefs," Mkhombe says.

there is also the president of Gambia, who personally claims to have come up with a cure for aids:


From the pockets of his billowing white robe, Gambia’s president pulls out a plastic container, closes his eyes in prayer and rubs a green herbal paste onto the rib cage of the patient — a concoction he claims is a cure for AIDS.


He then orders the thin man to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.


The last six news releases on Gambia’s official Web site are dedicated to the president’s treatment, available to Gambians free of charge. Regular radio and TV addresses publicize it and the Health Ministry has issued a declaration of support.

sources:

Gambia: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17244005/

Traditional Healers: http://www.aegis.org/news/ips/2002/ip020105.html

[Avtomat_Icaro]

I also remember it had something to do with cultural factors relating to sexuality, sometihng with "dry sex" which causes the women to bleed and AIDS is spread faster through blood than through the penis merely touching the vagina. (eventhough those fluids can spread it too, blood just works more effectively)

[synthesis]

it is not racist to say that africa is a mostly backwater, largely uneducated, highly superstitious, desperate for hope, and impoverished continent ....

That is quite racist. Africa is a piece of land with thousands of ethnic groups in thousands of different positions. Some are doing all right, some could be doing better. Some are quite wealthy and others are being massacred... but to reduce an entire part of the world to its worst aspects without context will inevitably lead to either crypto-racism or the same old patronizing bullshit.

[Comrade_Scott]

because they didnt take a shower after ask the ANC vp hell tell you all about it lol :lol: