Det betyder, at kvinder er ekstremt udsatte for at blive smittet med hiv med Victoria-søens bredder
NAIROBI, 16. December 2011 (PlusNews): For the past five years, Achieng (not her real name), a 35-year-old widow and mother of six, has sold fish on the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria.
Like many women in the fish trade, Achieng often has to have sex with fishermen in order to get the best catch of the day, a system known in the local Luo language as ‘jaboya’.
– When you are a woman and you want to get into the business of selling fish, you must be ready to lose your pride and use your body for bargaining, she told IRIN/PlusNews, adding:
-Being ready to give sex as and when it is needed by the fishermen… it guarantees your survival here on the beach.
‘Jaboya’ has long been associated with the high levels of HIV infection in Kenya’s western Nyanza Province, where HIV prevalence is over 14,9 percent, double the national average of 7,4 percent.
It is even higher among fishing communities. The Kenya HIV Prevention Response and Modes of Transmission Analysis 2009 reported that HIV prevalence among fishing communities stands at 30 percent, while an estimated 25 percent of all new infections in Nyanza are attributed to this group.
An estimated 27.000 women are involved in the fish trade in Nyanza either directly or indirectly, according to the Ministry of Fisheries.
Achieng is aware of the risks, but the immediate needs of her family override any concern she may have about contracting HIV.
– You know you can get HIV… but then you remember you have a family that needs to be provided for, and you say, let me die providing for them, she said.
According to Charles Okal, the provincial AIDS and sexually transmitted infections coordinator for Nyanza, while efforts to reach out to fishing communities with HIV prevention messages have begun to show results, the continued poverty of women means they remain vulnerable to ‘jaboya’.
– Fish trade that goes along with sex-for-fish continues to be one of the greatest challenges in the prevention of HIV in Nyanza… There are still challenges which involve the economic and social vulnerabilities of the women involved in the trade, he said.
Economic empowerment
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