Having established that there are no HIV/AIDS intervention services in Nyanga, participants were asked to state how such services might be carried out should they be made available. This question is in response to the fourth objective of the current study, which is to recommend HIV/AIDS intervention strategies that would be inclusive of disabled young people’s needs.
Some participants indicated that they prefer to learn about HIV/AIDS from fellow disabled people, with whom they identify. While others do not mind learning from anybody who knows the subject well. Some prefer separate programmes for disabled young people only and others prefer inclusive ones as illustrated below:
Nceba: According to my knowledge, disabled people feel calmer when fellow disabled people are talking to them about HIV/AIDS. Because they see that these people who are like us are teaching us these things (sex and HIV/AIDS). So these things happen to people like us too. Most of the time it is able-bodied people who are teaching about AIDS … disabled people might feel inferior … they may not ask certain questions.
Nontsikelelo: Disabled people should teach fellow disabled persons…those who are not disabled also teach those who are not disabled.
Zandile: Able-bodied person should give information because they think wiser than disabled people …
Most participants indicated that they prefer to be taught about sexuality and HIV/AIDS by fellow disabled people, with whom they identify and who have no ulterior motives for teaching the subject. Such participants are suspicious that AIDS prevention messages are designed by non-disabled people to stop disabled young people from having sex. For it is paradoxical indeed that, on the one hand, society believes that disabled young people are asexual and on
the other hand, society calls for disabled young people to abstain from sex, which they are presumed not to be having in the first place. Meanwhile, some parents feel it is their own responsibility to teach disabled children about HIV/AIDS as stated below:
FGD 5: Parents of disabled young people should be responsible for teaching their children because they know how to communicate with them.
FGD 5: It should be the parents to teach them because we stay with our children all the time.
These quotes indicate a consensus that parents are the best teachers for their disabled children about sexuality education and HIV/AIDS prevention. However, the only concern parents raise is the limited information they have to be able to teach their disabled children effectively as stated below:
FGD 5: There should be a school where we should attend with our children to be taught how to protect them from getting HIV/AIDS. We need the government to give us information on how to protect them as human beings … also they must be taught how to use condoms.
Other participants prefer integrated HIV/AIDS prevention programmes. They argue that disabled and non-disabled people are exposed to the same risk factors and so they need the same HIV prevention programmes. Besides, these groups need to interact and get to know each other better. Consistent with the concept of integration or inclusive HIV services, Groce (2004b) and De Greve (2005) have called for mainstreaming disability into existing HIV/AIDS programmes and services (see Chapter 8). Such a move would still need to take into consideration the special circumstances of each disability group, considering that there are some disability groups that would always need separate programmes, such as those who cannot be moved from one point to the next and those who cannot hear, see, or talk. The following are views from Themba:
I think information should be given together so as to clarify some points you know. Also to tell people stop being stereotyped you know.
Whatever affects you affects us because we are human beings too so do not treat us in a different way …
Themba sees inclusive HIV/AIDS programmes as a way of dispelling false images about disabled young people. Inclusive programmes should enable disabled and non-disabled young people to appreciate each other’s uniqueness and special needs. In that way, barriers and prejudice against disabled young people would be reduced.
6.6. CONCLUSION
I have demonstrated, firstly, that disabled young people’s experiences are complicated by factors, such as ignorance, poverty and limited education. As such, their experiences of sexuality and HIV/AIDS are complex and riddled with paradoxes at individual and environmental or contextual levels. This is because of contradictory cultural and religious beliefs, which prohibit sexual or marriage relationships for disabled young people in Nyanga. Secondly, it is evident that some parents in Nyanga believe that disabled young people are not affected by HIV/AIDS because they are asexual. Such a belief is common even at society and policy level; hence little attention is paid to HIV/AIDS prevention needs for this population. This is evidenced by the limited factual information on HIV that disabled young people have and the lack of HIV/AIDS prevention services in Nyanga.
Thirdly, I have demonstrated that disabled young people’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS risk is exacerbated by the special circumstances of disability, such as the disability grant that exposes them to financial and sexual exploitation, the need to disprove that they are asexual; the need to feel accepted and loved as sexual partners and their inability to escape dangerous situations. Lastly, I have found that some disabled young people feel threatened and others do not feel threatened by the risk of HIV/AIDS, but that neither group takes precautions against contracting HIV infection. Such attitudes have negative implications for containing the HIV pandemic. The next chapter draws on the key findings of this study for further discussion.
CHAPTER 7
DISCUSSION
7. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, I discuss the key findings that constitute the paradox of risk in disabled young people’s experience of sexuality and HIV/AIDS in the context of Nyanga. I begin by considering contextual and individual factors, in terms of how environmental and cultural issues influence disabled young people’s experiences of risk. Then I discuss how such experiences are played out at individual level in revealing the paradox of risk. I also consider the effect of responses to the pandemic at different contextual levels, looking at social rights, access to HIV/AIDS services and biomedical approaches to the pandemic. A brief discussion about the limitations of existing sexuality education and HIV/AIDS prevention programmes and an introduction to recommended programmes is presented. The chapter concludes with personal reflections on the research journey.