CARICOM and the AIDS dilemma IF THE CARICOM Heads of Government did nothing else at their Nassau meeting this week but focused purposefully and sincerely on tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region, they would be doing this and future generations a tremendous service. Otherwise we might soon find that nothing else matters. HIV/AIDS is making a joke of South Africa's political Independence and rendering targets for economic growth meaningless. It was recently reported in the news, for example, that South Africa is all but out of cemetery spaces as a result of the epidemic. In parts of Africa where it prevails life expectancy is a mere 35 years of age. That renders much of Jamaica's population ancient. Now consider this: after Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean has the fastest growing HIV/AIDS cases in the world. Nine of the 12 countries with the highest HIV prevalence in the Americas are in the Caribbean Basin. Jamaica is one of them. Most of those affected are in the 15-44 age group. According to CARICOM Secretary-General, Edwin Carrington, quoting from the assessment of the Caribbean Epidemiological Centre, CAREC, "the situation is likely to deteriorate even further unless drastic changes are made to the approach of most member states to this epidemic". Health Minister, John Junor agrees. In his presentation to the June 2001 UN General Assembly on HIV/AIDS he spoke to the "significant new social, political and economic challenges" of the disease and the consequent threat of reversal of decades of social and economic progress. There is no shortage of International Declarations and Agreements on what needs to be done. Since June 2000, there have been no less than 12 of these including the United nations Millennium Declaration, the Abuja Declaration, the Central Asian Declaration on HIV/AIDS, the European Union Programme for Action and the Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS. Many Caribbean leaders point to the lack of resources to help combat the challenge. The agreements make one thing clear. Whereas money to fund research and provide accessible drug therapies for those already affected, is critical, it is a holistic approach to development and a real understanding of sustainability which are the principal weapons in the fight which must focus significantly on prevention. In addition to the initiatives already adopted locally, it is a battle which requires tremendous responsibility and vision at the level of the individual, the various communities in which we operate including the community of non-governmental organisations and certainly at the level of the government. Beyond special sustained public education programmes about the disease, there is a need for the widest collaboration on the inclusion of life-skills in every single discipline at every single level of the formal and informal education system. Perhaps central to this is the behaviour modelled by the adult population. We have to promote, by example, responsible attitudes to sex and sexual behaviour. We cannot continue to glorify and make exotic the practice of some of our menfolk to proliferate families while we preach the value of stable family life to our children. How do we expect them to make the connection between personal stability and productivity, between personal poverty of values, of wealth or ideas and ideals and national degradation? How do we enable them to develop a culture of responsible behaviour which permeates all aspects of their being? If we accept that poverty eradication is also an important element in the fight against this disease then we have to be careful that personal choices do not add to poverty statistics, which we then expect the State to manage. And the state most definitely will have to demonstrate its commitment not just to poverty eradication but to wealth creation as part and parcel of the approach to which Dr. Carrington alluded. Losing our young people to HIV/AIDS at the height of their productive years is not consistent with that. Nor is losing them to the idleness and hopelessness which are bred on joblessness and lack of opportunities for leading dignified lives. In Jamaica, adolescent females are twice as likely to be infected than their male counterparts. No surprise in a country where women remain enslaved to low wages, are systematically held at middle level occupations, are greater in numbers among the ranks of the unemployed and in one way or another are forced to be dependent on men for economic support. This economic powerlessness is often accompanied by inability to accept or practically apply their understanding of their rights to co-determine the nature and quality of the relationships in which they are involved, and critically, to demand the same level of fidelity which their men with multiple partners demand of them. Gender equity and empowerment beg to be placed on the agenda as fundamental to the fight against HIV/AIDS. In order to accomplish any of this and more, the governments have to adopt economic policies which put people above debt repayment, otherwise there will be no people to work to repay anything. The eradication of HIV/AIDS is in the end about the elimination of poverty, gender equity, wealth creation and the total education of the population including education into a sense of personal dignity and responsibility and commitment to posterity. If we cannot do it for ourselves then maybe we can do it for those we love. Are you living with AIDS? We all are. Will we continue? Maybe this will be one of the most important tests of the commitment of our governments to a healthy, thriving single market. Amina Blackwood Meeks is a communications specialist.
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