Amid cultural dance and drama performances, fourteen HIV-positive women in Botswana paraded down the runway this past weekend in a beauty pageant aimed at destroying misconceptions about people living with the disease.
This was a beauty contest with a difference — the judges were searching for participants who could be ambassadors of HIV/Aids, and displayed courage, sacrifice and patriotism.
The eventual winner of Miss HIV Stigma-Free, Kgalalelo Ntsepe, told the audience she was living proof that anti-retroviral drugs worked.
“I was scared to go home, and my parents did not recognise me as the child they once knew,” she said. Initially weighing 48kg before beginning treatment, Ntsepe is now a healthy 75kg beauty queen.
She urged young people not to listen when others tried to discourage them from disclosing their HIV status and seeking treatment.
“I want to break stigmas with my title by giving lectures where I can tell my story to encourage others. I want to go around the country telling people that HIV-positive people have not done anything wrong, and that they also need care and love,” said Ntsepe, who works as a counsellor for HIV-positive youth.
Stigma raises its ugly head everywhere in the country. Botswana’s Aids Information Survey, conducted in 2001, found that 60% of men and 57% of women were unwilling to buy vegetables from an HIV-positive vendor.
It also established that 47% of men who participated in the survey believed that a teacher living with HIV/Aids should not continue teaching.
“We are struggling because Batswana in general have not seen the need to erase stigma and discrimination. Like, for example, in social gatherings like funerals and marriages, HIV-positive people are usually not given important responsibilities like cooking, because people fear they will spread HIV/Aids,” said Thatalyone Matlapeng, a 16-year-old youth volunteer with the Centre for Youth and Hope.
The director of the centre, Kesego Basha, who also organised the Miss HIV Stigma Free contest, hopes events like these will address the problem.
“I had to leave work because I was not coping, due to the hostility from my colleagues when they knew I was HIV positive,” Basha said.
Basha hoped the contest would build the self-esteem of HIV-positive women who had been rejected in their communities, as women living with HIV/Aids could also be beautiful. — Irin