Choices choices?

"HIV/AIDS can be prevented with the proper lifestyle"
"If you are faithful or abstinent, you won't get HIV"

Do these messages sound familiar? Pop culture-- funded and abetted by USAID's so called ABC funding criteria that only gives money to organisations that encourage Abstinence, Being faithful and Condoms (in that order)-- puppet these sayings again and again as if they have legitimacy for women's lives across incredeibly diverse cultures and countries all over the world.

When I heard Dr. Carr asking us at the OHTN conference if people from various cultures really have the choices this kind of message implies, I immediately thought of some of my friends in South Africa. My friend "Karabo," as we'll call her, confided in me that she wasn't certain if her fiance was being faithful to her.

"Karabo!" I said, immediately concerned, "If you're not sure that he's being faithful to you, you have to use condoms."

"Girl," she sighed, "I can't. I've dated him since we were both in high school. If I start asking him to use condoms now he will wonder why. He'll think I'm not being faithful."

This kind of situation is exactly what Dr. Carr is referring to.

The spread of the HIV/AIDS virus is more than a series of bad "lifestyle choices" by people across the globe. Rather, HIV/AIDS reveals people's vulnerability and their lack of power much more than it does their personal choices.

Take the example of the countless women who are victims of rape in conflict zones. HIV/AIDS in this situation can hardly be seen as a consequence of lifestyle. Instead, it shows the lack of respect for women's rights that soldiers and indeed the entire institution of revolutionary groups have. The spread of HIV/AIDS through rape also highlights the vulnerability of certain women more than others; those women that can not escape conflict zones when war breaks out often have less money, and most certainly lack the protection of a strong state system that could protect them.

The issues surrounding HIV/AIDS are complex. It is not fair to blame people who have the virus with poor lifestyle choices. More relevant is to examine the factors that have created such a vulnerability to contracting the virus, and to work on destroying these disempowering structures.