Social stigma pre­vents many HIV pos­i­tive Sene­galese from get­ting live sav­ing drugs. The stigma of homo­sex­u­al­ity or for even straight peo­ple with HIV forces them into hid­ing. So much so that AIDS drug dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­grams are unable to reach them. Sev­eral vio­lent acts have hap­pened in Sene­gal lately to rein­force the stigma.

From this CamWest News Ser­vice arti­cle, writer Peter O’Neil cites a new Pew sur­vey on atti­tudes in Senegal.

Dr. Bara Ndi­aye, project leader for the non-governmental orga­ni­za­tion Enda-Sante, said anti-AIDS ini­tia­tives led by gov­ern­ment and non-government orga­ni­za­tions are often viewed suspiciously.

“This soci­ety is very hos­tile toward homo­sex­u­als,” said Ndi­aye, whose orga­ni­za­tion works closely with MSM and sex work­ers on issues like safe sex, test­ing, treat­ment and nutrition.

“They assume it is pro­mot­ing homosexuality.”

Some Sene­galese claim there had his­tor­i­cally been a mod­est level of tol­er­ance for sex­ual minori­ties in this for­mer French colony, but a 2007 Pew Research Cen­tre poll of 700 Sene­galese respon­dents found that 97 per cent believed homo­sex­u­al­ity “should be rejected” by society.

The poll had an error mar­gin of four per cent, accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton, D.C.-based Pew orga­ni­za­tion.
…

National and inter­na­tional health orga­ni­za­tions des­per­ately need to reach out to these groups to ensure they don’t spread HIV to sex part­ners, or in the case of moth­ers to their chil­dren dur­ing preg­nancy or while breast­feed­ing, accord­ing to Michel Kazatchkine, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the $18.7-billion U.S. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuber­cu­lo­sis and Malaria.

He said social stigma­ti­za­tion rep­re­sents the second-biggest bar­rier fac­ing national and inter­na­tional bod­ies wag­ing a multibillion-dollar bat­tle against AIDS, a cri­sis that has been over­taken in the media by the global finan­cial col­lapse, war, cli­mate change and the H1N1 flu pandemic.

It is next only to weak gov­ern­ment health-care sys­tems in recip­i­ent coun­tries, said Kazatchkine, whose orga­ni­za­tion funds Enda-Sante, Xam Xamle and Karlene.

“These peo­ple, because they’re harassed, will hide,” Kazatchkine told Can­west News Service.

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