The myth that Batwa women cure HIV/AIDS

The other day I visited Bufundi Sub County in Rubanda, Kabale district and came face to face with the Batwa communities that live in Kashaasha and Rwabahundame but the situation these Batwa communities are living in is deplorable.

The communities are living in acute poverty, very low levels of education and very limited knowledge of their human rights, conditions that result in severe lack of self-confidence.

However, that is a tip of the iceberg because I found out a myth among the communities where Batwa live that left me speechless; that Batwa women can cure HIV; that an HIV+ man simply needs to sleep with a Mutwa woman to get cured.

This myth which is not true at all will annihilate whole communities and perpetuate the spread of HIV/AIDS in Uganda if we continue neglecting the health of the Batwa people. Now most men people in the region where Batwa live who test positive to HIV don't seek for medical  treatment, they simply look for Mutwa woman, pay her some little money and sleep with her and after that go home well knowing that they have got a permanent cure from the disease.

After that, they continue sleeping with their spouses and therefore spreading the virus and meanwhile the other Batwa women who are sleeping with other men to ‘cure' them also continue spreading the disease. Believe me with this cycle, Uganda will soon be a point of reference for failure in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

No wonder, today Uganda, which was a role model in the fight against HIV/AIDS a decade ago, is among the top three African countries with the highest new HIV infections after South Africa and Nigeria, according to the joint UN programme report on HIV/AIDS 2014.

You need to be informed that Batwa communities are not only in Bufundi but also Muko and Ikumba, sub counties of Kabale district. And in the rest of Uganda Batwa communities are found in other districts of  Kisoro, Kanungu, Mbarara and Bundibugyo and their total population is about 6000 according to 2002 National Census.

The pathetic situation these indigenous communities of South Western Uganda live in was partly caused by the act of gazetting their ancestral land into a national park in 1991. The current Bwindi Impenetrable national park the home of the rare mountain gorilla was a land that was being shared by the Batwa as their ancestral home. And in 1994, UNESCO declared the park a world heritage site. Without demeaning the importance of conservation and tourism, we shouldn't have simply gazetted the Batwa's ancestral land without providing a viable alternative for their livelihoods.

Today, the Batwa are destitute and consequently their life expectancy of 28 years is the lowest in Uganda.  This life expectancy was revealed by an American researcher Dr. Scott Kellerman in 2000. Kellerman was moved by the plight of these people and spent a lot of time and resources helping them.

Our constitution is clear about the rights of Ugandans but the situation the Batwa are living in clearly indicates that their rights are being violated. For example they don't easily access the health services offered to other Ugandans by the government of Uganda.

As I said earlier, the Batwa have a high HIV prevalence but access to antiretroviral treatment for the Batwa men and women is very hard because some of them have to walk for five kilometers and more to access them. But even when they reach the health centres, they are often segregated against by everyone including the health care providers.

According to the 2014 joint UN report on HIV/AIDS, ‘To begin the end of the AIDS epidemic, the people who are at increased risk of and vulnerable to HIV infection need the fullest access to HIV prevention and treatment services ‘ and the Batwa shouldn't be an exception.

I am therefore appealing to the government of Uganda, the communities where the Batwa live and the whole public that we cannot leave them behind if we are to develop as a country, that they are also human beings and are dying from HIV and also spreading it, we cannot win the HIV fight if we continue to segregate against the Batwa. They are also our brothers and sisters.