Impact of Culture on the Spread of Hiv/Aids in Kenya

bdalla A. Bafagih Professor Trent Newmeyer Sociology of AIDS Soc 309Y1F June 21, 2004 Impact of Culture on the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Kenya a national culture isn't a legends, nor a theoretical populism that trusts it can find the people’s genuine nature†¦. a national culture is the entire body of the endeavors made by a people in the circle of thought to portray, legitimize and acclaim the activity through which that individuals has made itself and keeps itself in presence (Fanon, Frantz). Presentation Culture, even in the twenty first century, has various denotations.In different pieces of the world, it has been is as yet viewed as significant for the improvement of human progress and of people’s minds; a specific culture or development is considered according to its convictions, lifestyles and qualities. So, culture assumes a urgent job in a groups’ journey for personality and is in this way at the focal point of the socio-social advancement of a people, a rea or even province as far as character and legislative issues it fills in as a code of life that must be followed under any conditions even with a HIV/AIDS epidemic.These perceptions help light up reactions to our focal postulation: that social hindrances and the resulting sex predisposition have not just sustained the spread of HIV/AIDS among ladies, but on the other hand are thwarting a powerful HIV/AIDS avoidance battle in Kenya. Our position is that HIV/AIDS commonness is a gendered issue since ladies in many pieces of the creating scene, because of the abusive social practices ladies have no force. Moreover ladies keep on being sold out by obsolete customary standards, for example, widow legacy, widow purifying, polygamy and sexual orientation disparity, similar to the case in parts of Kenya.When these issues may appear to contrast, in actuality they are interwoven and go back to ages. To exacerbate the situation those contaminated with HIV, the two ladies and men accuse blac k magic as the wellspring of death (McGeary, J. Time Magazine, p, 30). In addition as Madhu Bala Nath states â€Å"myths are likewise established in the idea of refusal that is related with HIV/AIDS. Since HV/AIDS is so startling, there is an impulse to preclude the presence from securing the illness (2001, p, 32). Such refusal has a huge influence in supporting such obsolete practices.We should call attention to from the beginning that the current dangerous practices were at one time observed as quality (pre HIV/AIDS period) since they were extremely useful and suitable for their networks. Among the benefits of such conventional practices were, among others, the widow’s security inside the family unit was ensured and the stranded youngsters were ensured the more distant family support and along these lines endurance inside the network. It was intended to guarantee the widow and youngsters never became homeless.According to the Washington Post, In Western Kenya, the exclusiv ely known as spouse legacy once held a good guarantee: A people group would deal with a widow and her kids. She didn't remarry. Her better half's family just assumed liability for her. On the off chance that a brother by marriage couldn't enjoy her, at that point a cousin or a regarded outcast would. The inheritor ensured that the widow and her kids were taken care of, dressed, shielded, instructed, secured, kept (Buckley, Stephen.Washington Post, November 8, 1997). With the end goal of this paper, we take a place that the spread of HIV/AIDS has rendered what were once social resources into lethal liabilities especially towards ladies and youngsters. That is the reason there is a should be imaginative and grasp elective ceremonies that don't include hazardous sexual conduct. Our position is that legacy essentially isn't terrible, yet widow legacy and purging that jeopardize the lives of the widow and the inheritor/chemical ought to be discarded.Wife legacy or spouse purifying includ es an inheritor who has his own family. As revealed by the Washington Post â€Å"he taints his first spouse and the widow he has acquired. At that point he passes on, and two other men acquire the ladies he deserts. Those men pass on. And afterward their widows are inherited† (in the same place. ). It is this endless loop that clarifies the increasing HIV rates in Kenya. Kenya has dynamic and different social gatherings yet a few gatherings raise ethnicity above nationalism.This makes it now and again hazardous to manage intra and bury social standards or to attempt changes of certain dug in conventions. On one hand you have devotees to Christianity who are all the more ready to relinquish certain obsolete conventions, for example, those talked about in this paper. For example, a Kenyan diocesan, approached widows to stand firm against spouse legacy (Gonza, Sam. 2000, p, 1). Then again you have the inflexible conventionalists who are not open to any changes or changes inside traditions.There is generally no center ground and lamentably it plays hooky lines. We concur with the position set forward by Human Rights Watch in their report entitled Double Standards: Women’s Property Rights Violations in Kenya that â€Å"as significant as social decent variety and regarding customs might be, if customs are a wellspring of oppression ladies, they like some other standard must evolve† (2003, p, 2). Kenya has roughly forty clans, which are co-identified with the four more prominent ethnic gatherings (Buckley, Stephen.Washington Post, November 8, 1997): Bantu, Nilo-Hamitic, Nilotic and Hamitic (see figure I). Due to it’s neighboring, societies are identified with one another inside Kenya and in the fringe nations, for example, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Sudan. [pic] Figure: I Source: http://www. lib. utexas. edu/maps/kenya. html It will be basic for this paper to give short authentic occasions in Kenya in order to give an appropriate compr ehension of both the inward and outer elements of this country.Kenya accomplished its freedom from Britain in 1963 and has a populace of thirty 2,000,000 (32 million). [1] Kenya like other Sub-Saharan nations is a formation of European scramble for Africa. [2] thus same ethnic gatherings are by and by scattered across various nations. The limits resemble fake divisions such that the individuals can't be checked at all outskirt crossing zones. [pic] Figure: ii Source: http://www. lib. utexas. edu/maps/kenya. html The point, which we need to examine, is that it is hard to attempt to onvince these networks to surrender a portion of their practices, since they feel that toward the end, relinquishing their traditions, would totally clear out their way of life and in the end free their character. In some African nations, different ethnic gatherings are the minorities and would need to keep flawless their way of life with the end goal of their own character, in order to empower them to hag gle any political force in the administration (Kanyiga, Karuti. 1998, p, 7)). Then again the ethnic gatherings, which are the greater part, would need to keep up their authority and are not prepared to change their conventions (ibid).Thus why managing medical problems, for example, HIV/AIDS makes significant results. Current HIV/AIDS Situation in Kenya The summary about Kenya isn't acceptable in any way. Joined Nations AIDS (UNAIDS) reports that more than 2 million out of an all out populace of 29. 5 million (2000) were tainted with HIV and a total number of 1. 5 million individuals had kicked the bucket because of AIDS. The high commonness paces of HIV/AIDS have adversely affected future to the degree that it has dropped by roughly 13 years to 51 years (1998); while GDP decreased by - 0. in 2000 and is relied upon to intensify in coming years. The normal proficiency rate is evaluated at 78% (1995) and all out ripeness rate in Kenya is around 4. 4 (1998). Around 30% of the populace lives in urban regions and the greater part of the populace live under the neediness line, ladies establishing the larger part. UNAIDS gauges that 500 people passed on of AIDS every day in the nation in 1999. (www. unaids. organization/Unaids/EN/geographical+area/by+country/kenya. asp).According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the assessed number of grown-ups and kids living with HIV/AIDS, in Kenya end of 2001 stands as follows: Adults and kids 2,500,000, Adults (15-49) 2,300,000, Women (15-49) 1,400,000 and Children 220,000, current living vagrants, 890, 000, evaluated number of death because of AIDS (2001), 190, 000 and the present grown-up pace of 15. 0 percent (www. who. int/hiv/bar/the study of disease transmission/pubfacts/en/). Besides, the Human Rights Watch Report (2001) demonstrates that an expected 2. million grown-ups and youngsters live with HIV/AIDS, speaking to around 14 percent of the explicitly dynamic populace. The frightening measurement is that Kenya has the ninth most noteworthy HIV pervasiveness rate on the planet to the degree that the U. S. Statistics Bureau projections show that by 2005, there will be around 820 passings for each day from AIDS in Kenya. (http://www. hrw. organization/reports/2001/kenya/kenya0701-03. htm#P144_18884). Factors behind the Gendered HIV/AIDS rates in Kenya. Through culture and society, we can transmit abilities and different frameworks of social relations to adjust our environment.But that has not been conceivable with ladies in Kenyan in both rustic and urban territories even in case of a HIV/AIDS plague with not a single fix to be seen. Since our convictions and lifestyles are indistinguishable from our specific societies, it is regular for individuals to dismiss a conduct on the off chance that it isn't connoted in their culture’s social code. It is anyway a lot harder for the underestimated bunches like ladies and young ladies to dismiss what is probably part of their way of life just like the case among the Luo and Luhya[3] of Kenya where they practice their way of life to a fault.In such cases, singular personal conduct standards alone are not answerable for the watched high-hazard exercises that cause HIV/AIDS. Obviously, HIV/AIDS transmission in parts in Kenya is generally through hetero relations. On account of [blind] reliability to their way of life, numerous inside the gathering (most instructed ladies with