Hidden in The Mealie Meal– Gender-Based Abuses and Women’s HIV and AIDS Treatment in Zambia is an in-depth and expository report on the challenges faced by women, especially HIV-positive women who seek treatment. The report identified, gender-specific barriers that prevent Zambian women from seeking HIV information or start and continue using anti-retroviral (ARV). These include violence, the fear of violence by intimate partners and the fear of abandonment and divorce in an environment where women suffer insecure property rights. '‘These abuses occur in the context of poverty and of a culture that condones male authority and control over women,’’ the report reveals.

Zambia was selected as one of the countries for case study by the HRW due to its high prevalence of HIV and violence against women.

Recent survey shows that, 17% of Zambia’s adult population is living with HIV. Out of this, 57% are women. More than half of the women responding to the survey are survivors of beatings or physical mistreatment, a situation that occurs at least once from the age of 15; one in six women are survivors of rape.

HRW worked with women living with HIV, health centres, government representatives, traditional health workers, Non Governmental Organisations and the YWCA of Zambia, which operates the only two shelters in Zambia for survivors of violence. Women, go to these shelters for counseling, trauma support services, training for Home Base Care and response to women sustaining injuries as a result of domestic violence. Some of these women are referred to the YWCA of Lusaka shelters from the hospitals; health care facilities seldom address violence against women except in situations where women show visible signs of physical abuse.

In the report, Yeta Mekazu, shelter manager, YWCA of Lusaka says ‘‘violence interferes with ARVs [anti-retroviral drugs] many times. There are several of such cases among women in the [YWCA’s] shelter. One [of the women in the shelter] had a partner who threw away her pills. [He] said to her, ‘if you have to drink medicine, you ‘re out of this house.’’’

Later in the week, Nada Ali visited the World YWCA in Geneva to strengthen partnership between the HRW and World YWCA based on similarity of goals in the area of human rights of women, violence against women, reproductive health issues and HIV and AIDS.

• Report:Hidden in the Mealie Meal: Gender-Based Abuses and Women’s HIV Treatment in Zambia

• Published by: Human Rights Watch

• Published: December 2007

• Source: Human Rights Watch