WOMEN AND AIDS IN ZIMBABWE - THE MAKING OF AN EPIDEMIC

As the AIDS epidemic in Africa assumes major proportions, the need to understand the social context in which heterosexual transmission occurs takes on urgent importance. In this article we explore how the intersection of traditional culture with the colonial legacy and present-day political economy has influenced family structure and sexual relations, and particularly the social position of women. Drawing on Zimbabwe's historical experience, we show how land expropriation, rural impoverishment, and the forcible introduction of male migrant labor fostered new patterns of sexual relations, characterized by multiple partners. Traditional patriarchal values reinterpreted in European law resulted in further subjugation of women as even limited rights to ownership were withdrawn. For many women, sexual relations with men, either within marriage (for the majority) or outside, become inextricably linked to economic and social survival. In this setting, all sexually transmitted diseases became rampant, including genital ulcer, which facilitates transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Intervention programs to halt the spread of AIDS need to take into the account the epidemic's historical roots and social nature. For example, efforts to reduce risk of HIV transmission should seek to expand women's limited options, both technically (e.g., by providing alternatives to condoms) and socially (e.g., by promoting employment).; The pattern of promiscuous sexual activity that places men and women in sub-Saharan Africa at risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection must be understood as a result of historically produced social conditions if such behavior is to be modified. In Zimbabwe, patriarchy and colonialism appear to be the most significant social legacies responsible for the family structure and sexual behavior associated with HIV infection. The social context of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in Zimbabwe features a migrant labor system, rapid urbanization, constant war with high level of military mobilization, landlessness, poverty, and the subordination of women. As deteriorating economic conditions have forced family separation, sexual relationships outside of marriage have become the norm for African men in urban areas. In many cases, town sexual liaisons come to supersede the rural wife, leading to divorce or a reduction in remittances. For women in Zimbabwe, sexual relationships comprise the only means of social and economic survival, and the traditional subordination of African women places them at a disadvantage in terms of their ability to reduce their risk of HIV infection. Women who live apart or are divorced from their husbands may supplement their low incomes through prostitution. In most cases, however, it is the husband who introduce HIV infection into the family unit. Since social conditions have made a single lifetime sexual partner unrealistic AIDS prevention efforts should focus on condom-use promotion, including empowering female prostitutes to dictate the conditions under which sex will occur.