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HEALTH-COLOMBIA: 'Positive' Women Buoyed by HIV/AIDS Network
By María Isabel García
BOGOTA, Nov 4 (IPS) - Women living with HIV/AIDS in Colombia have
set up their own network to provide each other with support, fight
ignorance about the disease, and press gender-specific demands for
health care.
At the age of 19, Miriam Cossio felt safe from infection with
the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV), because she had a stable
partner who she trusted.
But when she was told she tested positive for HIV, the AIDS
virus, she felt that her whole world had collapsed around her.
''You think those things only happen to others,'' Cossio told IPS.
By then, in 1996, she had been widowed, and was left to raise
her two-year-old son on her own. She faced her new HIV-positive
status in a hostile environment, where she was surrounded by
ignorance about and prejudice against AIDS.
Living in the town of San José del Guaviare in southeastern
Colombia, which she described as ''small town, big hell,'' Cossio
first faced her own fears: ''Will I die tomorrow? What will happen
to my son? What will my family say? Will my mother be able to cope
with the news?''
But she later became the victim of an unscrupulous doctor who
leaked the fact that she tested positive for HIV - one of the
five cases registered in the department of Guaviare, in the
Orinoquia region, in 1996.
Although 86 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS in Colombia
are men, the epidemic is growing among women.
According to the Health Ministry's National Programme for the
Prevention and Control of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and
HIV/AIDS, since the first two cases were registered in Colombia in
1983, just under 28,000 cases of HIV/AIDS had been logged by June.
But according to epidemiological projections, the real number
of people with HIV/AIDS in this civil war-torn country of 42
million is closer to 173,000 people. Unprotected sexual relations
were responsible for transmission of the disease in more than 50
percent of all cases.
While she looked for work, Cossio received solidarity and
support from her sister, as well as a doctor in the regional
health service, who encouraged her to travel to Bogotá and take
part in a women's conference.
Her life took a radically new direction when she attended the
meeting, which was convened in 1999 by the joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Colombian League for the
Fight against AIDS, in the first national attempt to bring
together women living with HIV/AIDS.
''I thought they would take photos of me, and that I would have
to tell my life story to the whole world,'' recalled Cossio. But
the possibility of undergoing a new AIDS test that could perhaps
show that the first result was a false positive spurred her to
travel.
''Attending that meeting was like opening a huge door,'' she
said. Listening to the stories of other women, ''I took the first
step towards admitting I had the disease, and let out all of the
pain I had stuffed inside.''
She understood that she was neither the first nor the last
woman to be infected with HIV, nor was she ''a poor little
thing.''
''I also learned that not everything that was happening to me
was terrible,'' said Cossio, who is now studying psychology and is
one of the seven regional directors of the Girasol (Sunflower)
Project, which represents women living with HIV.
The 1999 conference was attended by some 100 women, mainly
Colombians and a few delegates from other countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean. They shared their experiences, and took
part in workshops on human rights, empowerment, sexuality and
medicine.
The participants talked about working to improve the quality of
life of HIV-positive women, of breaking through the silence
surrounding the epidemic, and of seeking mechanisms and spaces for
organising themselves.
They discussed the need to set up their own support groups,
which up to then had been made up of both men and women, with many
focusing on the problems suffered by gay men.
It was not an attempt to exclude others, but to focus on the
specific problems of women, because ''only we can know what our
needs and priorities are,'' said Cossio.
The women then decided to organise the National Network of
Women Living with HIV/AIDS, which gradually expanded to include
HIV-negative professionals and activists working with AIDS-related
issues.
In order to better reflect the broad character of the
organisation, its name was changed to the National Network of
Positive Women.
The Girasol Project was born at the same time, to provide
workshops for women, 400 of which have already been held around
the country.
Cossio is the head of the Bogotá branch of the Girasol Project.
Offices have also been set up in Pasto, Cali, Pereira, Medellín,
Barranquilla and Cúcuta, the capitals of the departments of
Nariño, Valle, Risaralda, Antioquia, Atlántico and Norte de
Santander, respectively.
Becoming the only reference point for women with AIDS in the
regions has forced the organisations to work hard on staying up-to-
date with respect to legal aspects, public health issues, and the
availability of medications.
The groups also help the women get their own lives back on
track. Some of the members have finished tertiary-level studies,
while others are taking computer courses or studying
communications, business administration, or, as in the case of
Cossio, psychology.
She describes the support provided by the network - through
phone conversations, e-mails, and awareness-raising and
educational workshops - as ''vital'' to the members.
The next step is to become legally registered non-governmental
organisations, which will allow the groups to receive funds to
implement projects offering income and employment alternatives to
HIV-positive women.
In Bogotá, eight of the group's members have already begun to
produce scented candles and wooden craft ornaments as part of the
programme.
Cossio underlined the importance of taking a broad approach in
working with HIV-positive women, because many do not want ''to go
public with their status, but they might get involved through
other interests.''
''We face the same needs and problems shared by all women, plus
a diagnosis that confronts us with other pressing issues,'' she
said.
Most women living with HIV in Colombia are homemakers who found
out they were infected when their husband fell ill or died.
''Being enrolled in a health care institution or the social
security programme is no guarantee of receiving'' the
antiretroviral drugs needed to delay the onset of full-blown AIDS,
and the support groups must frequently take legal action to assert
a woman's right to health care, said Cossio.
Another area in which much work needs to be done is
strengthening a culture of prevention, among women as well as
health professionals, because by the time women are diagnosed with
HIV, they are often pregnant, or already suffering from
opportunistic infections, she added.
Preventing the spread of the disease and guaranteeing access to
health care and the antiretroviral cocktail therapy to everyone
living with HIV/AIDS are actions that are ''heavily underscored by
the questions of respect for human, sexual and reproductive
rights, and gender equality,'' physician Ricardo Luque told IPS.
But Luque, the head of the Health Ministry's prevention
division, said ''gender equality'' obliges the state to provide
care for both men and women with HIV/AIDS, and to sex workers as
well.
He clarified, however, that there were no specific healthcare
guidelines for women living with HIV/AIDS - an area in which only
the Network of Positive Women and the Girasol Project are
currently active in Colombia.
(END/2002)
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