Law must deal with prisons' sex - BONELA
PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer
| Wednesday July 30, 2008 00:00
Legal Officer at BONELA, Uyapo Ndadi, said this at a three day workshop held in Francistown at Tati River Lodge yesterday.
The reproductive issue was just one of the advocacy issues by BONELA that was tackled at the workshop. Ndadi says that women living with HIV have been publicly blamed several times by authority figures for getting pregnant while their male partners were left alone.'We say they have a right to found families or procreate, but the government says that the right should be extended to them,' he said. Ndadi says that the government should not be against women living with HIV conceiving as long as they understand their status.
'The government is against HIV women having children even though the couple might want a child,' he said. Ndadi went on to say that women also did not like to be the ones to carry all the blame for getting pregnant while the gender imbalance still existed in this country's culture.
Ndadi says that in this culture ,women cannot negotiate for safe sex.'Sometimes women fall pregnant because the man has forced himself on them, but all these things are being overlooked and the woman ends up getting the blame,' he stated. Ndadi says this is unfair.
'Having a baby is a personal choice even though if you are HIV positive. You cannot just dive into it they should not be made to feel guilty about building a family,' he said. Ndadi went on to say that the government should also consider other possibilities.
One of the issues that were discussed at length was condom distribution in prisons. Ndadi says that even though this is a very sensitive issue it was a living fact.'Prisoners do engage in sexual intercourse and as long as that is happening prisons will remain a breeding ground for HIV,' he said. Ndadi says that prisoners are not safe so the society is also not safe.
'They come back and rejoin the society. Some of them go back to their wives and others meet women, our sisters and our mothers,' he said.
He said that it has to be understood that most people who engage in sexual acts in prisons do not do it out of choice, but they are either being bullied or conducting sexual favours for something in return, even a cigarette.
Most people at the workshop were of the view that condoms should be distributed in prisons. Other advocacy issues were those of sex workers and homosexuality. BONELA asserts that they should be legalised to be able to control HIV.