Young Women's Dialogue - Swaziland

The purpose of the Dialogue was to explore the issues affecting HIV positive young women in Swaziland, and to develop an advocacy agenda addressing these issues, which the participants of the workshop would be able to take forward in their country. The workshop aimed to provide skills and capacity building in order to advance the women’s activism and to determine advocacy goals, messages and action plans through which to carry the advocacy agenda forward.

The week started with introductions from Gcebile and Promise, Vicci and the participants themselves. The brief introductions revealed that the participants were nearly all members of local support groups; that several of them were already receiving anti-retroviral treatment through local treatment projects; that they were all mothers of at least one child and that several of them had experienced the loss of a child to AIDS. While some of the participants had been aware of their positive status for several years, others had been diagnosed within the last six months. Few of the women had been involved in any kind of activism to date.

The workshop began with a session on hopes and fears about the workshop, which revealed a range of expectations from sharing experiences with other positive women, to learning vocational skills for income generation. Fears included issues around disclosure, stigma and discrimination external to the workshop, as well as long terms fears about the participants’ own and their children’s health. One of the women was waiting for the results of her child's first HIV test. Concerns relating to the workshop itself were primarily about being given the opportunity to speak and air problems, being listened to and listening to each other, and practical issues about being able to attend the whole workshop, or having enough time to learn as much as possible. Some of the fears were immediately converted into ground rules elicited from and agreed on by the participants.

The rest of the first day of the workshop then focused on the personal journeys of the participants, their identities and the main issues facing HIV positive young women in Swaziland. In their journeys, the women spoke of their education and childhood, their relationships with parents or guardians, the death or separation of close family members, poverty, diagnosis and periods of illness, the death of children, friends or partners, periods of anger, sourness or depression, and the acceptance of their condition to the point of being able to face life positively again, often through joining a support group or gaining the support of other networks. The identity maps included the following identities; HIV positive; woman; young woman; mother; single mother; Swazi; co-ordinator; educator; Christian; black; dark; coffee coloured; members of support group; teacher; carer; motivator; survivor; sister; daughter; aunt; niece; friend; client. These two exercises helped to establish trust and build bonds among the participants as well as highlighting commonalities and differences of experience. It also introduced the idea of political identities and lead into an examination of what it meant to be a young HIV positive woman in Swaziland. By the end of the first day, the following 7 key issues had been identified:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <!--[endif]-->Participation and meaningful involvement in planning, implementation and leadership around issues that affect our lives – not just tokenistic involvement in the research stage of HIV/AIDS interventions.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->2. <!--[endif]-->Stigma and discrimination – in families, workplaces and communities

<!--[if !supportLists]-->3. <!--[endif]-->Sexual and reproductive health and rights – the inability of women to insist on safer sexual practices; lack of ability to negotiate family planning; lack of decision making power over whether or when to have children;

<!--[if !supportLists]-->4. <!--[endif]-->The position of women in Swazi society – cultural, political and social impacts such as forced marriage, minority status of women; women’s inferiority to men; the sexual division of labour;

<!--[if !supportLists]-->5. <!--[endif]-->Access to appropriate and adequate care, treatment and support – problems around the quality and availability of counselling services, treatment for opportunistic infections, and ARVs;

<!--[if !supportLists]-->6. <!--[endif]-->Disclosure – to family and friends, new partners, and the problems of protecting self, partners and children while fearing the consequences of disclosure;

<!--[if !supportLists]-->7. <!--[endif]-->Prevention issues – the difficulties associated with protecting oneself from re-infection against the wishes of a partner, and preventing mother to child infection where conflicting and confusing information about breast-feeding abounds.

The following day’s work introduced the concepts of gender, power relations and practical needs and strategic interests, and developed a framework through which to analyse the key issues elicited on day 1 in more detail, and draw out advocacy messages. Both the framework and the analysis were borne out of the personal, local and lived experiences of the women. The areas that were then examined in more detail were sexual and reproductive rights, access to care, treatment and support and meaningful participation and involvement of HIV positive women in areas that affect our lives. Outputs of the analysis included a sexual and reproductive rights charter; a long question-and-answer session on issues around care, treatment and support, and an analysis of economic, social and political barriers to accessing appropriate and adequate care, treatment and support; and a list of criteria for assessing meaningful involvement and participation, particularly in development projects of interventions relating to or targeting people living with HIV and AIDS.

The first session on day 4 was given over to an informative presentation from Women in Law in Southern Africa (WILSA), which talked about Swaziland's legal system and looked at some of the areas of concern in Swazi culture and society for women. These included gender based violence; the socio-economic status of women as minors under customary law; discriminatory laws and customs, such as polygyny, virginity testing, wife inheritance and genital mutilation; sexual and reproductive rights; property rights, and lack of access to essential medicines and health services. The presentation went on to look at human rights, especially in relation to HIV and AIDS, and how rights agreements and conventions are signed, ratified and implemented.

Having carried out a deeper analysis of the key issues affecting young women living with HIV and AIDS in Swaziland, the participants then looked at how to translate these into advocacy messages. They were asked: what is advocacy? What criteria are used to identify advocacy issues? How do we turn needs or demands into goals, and what steps are needed to reach those goals? How can we develop and present our advocacy messages in as concise and persuasive way as possible? Who can help us reach them, and who is likely to stand in our way?

Finally, several action points were established to ensure that the learning and outcomes of the workshop were taken outside the walls of the workshop venue, and to identify ways of sharing and furthering the workshop experience. The workshop closed with a presentation of certificates of attendance, in addition to photos taken during the week, ICW tee-shirts, stickers and diaries, and each woman said a few words about what the workshop had meant to her. Their comments included thanks to ICW and to each other, and commitments to share what they had learnt with others, especially with other members of their support groups. Other of the comments were more personal:

“When we started it was all dark, but now it is all clear. I know where we are coming from and I know where we are going”

“I would like to thank ICW for everything they’ve done, and for all of you. Before I came here I felt that I was living with HIV and that I was going to die soon and that I was different [from everybody else]. Since being here I’ve realised that it’s not a disease you have to die from and that we all face the same issues.”

“Thanks to the relationship between the women here, I’ve been able to open up to others”

“I’d like to thank you ICW and my fellow positive women for empowering me. I’m now an activist on HIV and AIDS”

“I’ll stand for my rights forever”