Public scourge and personal demon
By Sazikazi Thabede Posted Jan 1 2006
Global Journalist/Bernell Dorrough
In the two main cities of Swaziland, Mbabane and Manzini, one can see wide, colorful billboards depicting a group of the country's most popular media personalities. Beneath them is boldly printed, “IHIV Yindzaba Yetfu Sonkhe,” a very popular slogan in Swaziland.
“IHIV yindzaba yetfu sonkhe,” means “HIV is our collective concern.” Walk along the streets in Mbabane, and you'll see the slogan pasted on the counter at the corner shop, on the door to the lawyer's office, on a keyholder among a beggar's trinkets. The catchy phrase has even become part of everyday language.
In full, the slogan reads “IHIV Yindzaba Yetfu Sonkhe — Asinakekelane, Sigcinane,” which means “Let Us Love and Care for One Another.”
This message was the core of the media campaign initiated by the country's coordinating body for HIV/AIDS interventions, the National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA), in 2003. The aim of the campaign was to promote ownership of the challenge of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland by every individual, business and community.
The media are a vital part of all of these sectors.
The main newspapers in Swaziland are the privately owned Times of Swaziland and the state-owned The Swazi Observer. Electronic media are dominated by the state-owned Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services, SBIS Radio, and the Swaziland Television Authority. In all of these media houses, the NERCHA campaign became the first HIV/AIDS initiative to directly engage the media in a concerted effort to raise awareness of the disease.
“This campaign brought to each sector in society the awareness that HIV/AIDS has no boundaries, and we all have a role to play as individuals in communities and employees in different organizations,” says Dr. Derek von Wisell, NERCHA Director.
The campaign effectively awakened the media to its responsibility to highlight HIV/AIDS as a national priority and, beyond that, the responsibility to take action as an affected industry.
The various media houses play distinctive roles in addressing and dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Times of Swaziland
“This thing is in two ways; HIV is status blind, whether you are journalist or the prime minister, you can be infected. Secondly, personalizing the pandemic is key to journalists being able to do results-based reporting, a necessary element in winning this fight,” says Sihle Mavuso, one of the HIV/AIDS program coordinators at the Times of Swaziland.
In November 2002, the Times established a seven-member HIV/AIDS committee that was given the responsibility of coordinating issues regarding the disease within the office. Their main objective was to have daily meetings at which reporters could discuss a range of HIV/AIDS topics and become informed about the disease — and hence be able to report on it from an informed perspective.
“Our company has been affected by HIV/AIDS. The media industry is driven by pressure, and in relieving the stress that comes with it, reporters may engage in irresponsible behavior that exposes them to HIV. We suspect we have lost people to this disease though no one has actually divulged their status to management. Hence we resolved that educating on prevention and living with HIV/AIDS would promote responsible behavior,” says Martin Dlamini, the chief editor of the Times.
Mavuso says that to date, the committee has engaged in outreach programs to sensitive communities on HIV/AIDS and organized voluntary counseling and testing within the office, though not without challenges.
“In August this year we held our fourth voluntary counseling and testing exercise. It has not been easy because the very same stigma and discrimination fueling HIV/AIDS in communities is the same found in the newsroom. Some reporters feared being seen going into the VCT site, though it was behind the premises, because they suspected that other journalists would be able to tell from seeing their expression after the exercise whether they are [HIV] positive or not.”
The committee is currently engaging management in approving an HIV/AIDS workplace program that will ensure proper treatment and welfare for people living with HIV/AIDS who divulge their status.
Reporting on the disease has not been without challenges. Some reporters have avoided writing about the disease for fear of being labeled as HIV positive.
There is at least one story every two days on HIV/AIDS. Political news, such as the brain drain of trained nurses to regions with better service conditions and the impact this has on the health sector, makes front-page news. However, a story about an HIV-positive person who has overcome the stigma and is making it through treatment would be relegated to the middle pages. The Times also has a weekly column that features developments in the HIV/AIDS scene.
The Swazi Observer
In September, The Swazi Observer completed formulating its Employee Wellness Policy. The chief executive officer, also chairperson of the company's HIV/AIDS Committee, Myzo Magagula, says: “It is an important cornerstone of the policy that there will be no discrimination against employees who are HIV positive. Sick employees will also be assisted, cared for and protected whilst they are physically and mentally unfit to carry out their day-to-day activities. This is also supported in the policy.”
Magagula says that her company has not been spared by the disease. “We have lost some employees to AIDS, something that is more than just losing an investment, but also entails the trauma colleagues suffer from that loss,” she says. “Another downside is that many hours of production are lost when employees are off sick.” For this reason, she says the company budget for medical attention is to be reviewed in due course.
As a state-owned medium, The Swazi Observer has not been able to report freely on the government's failure to effectively deal with the crisis. The paper therefore restricts itself to reporting on civil-society initiatives to address the pandemic and success stories of people living with HIV/AIDS. SBIS The response of Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services is similar to that of The Swazi Observer. According to the station's human resource officer, Mncedisi Mayisela, the department's HIV/AIDS workplace policy is directly linked to the government's, which is still in draft form. SBIS is represented by the Ministry of Public Service and Information.
“Though the policy is in draft form, I can safely mention that it seeks to address issues of stigma and discrimination as well as treatment by ensuring that discriminative regulations are amended. Promotion, recruitment or training should not be based on the individual's HIV/AIDS status as per the document.”
Mayisela says that currently no staff members have disclosed their status, so it has been difficult to determine the impact of the disease on the company.
“Because we are a 24-hour station, the shortage of one person seriously affects the achievement of the department's aims and objectives,” he says.
The station does not air any of its own programing that directly addresses the issue of HIV/AIDS. However, it does have slots for civil-society organizations, which provide education about the disease and are sometimes critical of the government's failure to honor international development goals and HIV/AIDS commitments.
STVA
Just last year the station began taking steps toward addressing HIV/AIDS internally. “There is not much we have done consciously to take a stance to address HIV/AIDS and its impact on our organization. We have only now engaged a consultant to assist us in drawing up an in-house policy,” says Nozipho Mabauza, the station's public relations officer.
It seems as though the gloom does not end. However, gradually the bright light of hope is beginning to emerge through the response of civil society and communities that have taken up ownership of the situation and are engaged in far-ranging initiatives.
The media as the Fourth Estate of Swazi society are confronted with quite a challenge in acting out their role within the arena of HIV/AIDS. However, they are trying to set a positive example by changing internal policies and reporting on the gravity of the situation.
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The Numbers: Statistics indicate Swaziland is one of the countries most affected by HIV/AIDS in the world. HIV infection levels among pregnant women attending selected prenatal clinics increased from 3.9 percent in 1992 to 42.6 percent in 2004. It is estimated that in 2001, more than 30 percent of the approximately 1.1 million-person population of Swaziland was living with HIV/AIDS, 88,000 of whom were women between the ages of 15 to 49.
Health Care Woes: Because of HIV/AIDS, the demand for health services has surpassed health-care resources. The health sector is suffering from a serious brain drain in which trained nurses are leaving because of poor service conditions. Only 10,000 of the approximately 26,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in need of treatment are currently on antiretroviral drugs through the national 3X5 Plan. The country has only two CD4 count machines to test infected patients' immunity levels, and only one central laboratory service to confirm HIV test results from over 50 voluntary counseling and testing sites.
Tragic Results: Life expectancy has declined from 55 years in the late 1980s to about 39 years currently. A majority of those infected are adults between the ages of 15 and 49, the very labor force behind the cornerstone of the Swazi economy, agriculture.
Left Behind: The HIV/AIDS epidemic has increased the number of orphans. To date, there are an estimated 69,000, a number expected to increase to 120,000 by 2010, according to the projections of the UNICEF office in Mbabane.
- NERCHA 2005 Annual Report