Catholics have begun to rise to the challenge of HIV and AIDS in Haiti

AIDS is the leading cause of death among Haitian women aged between 15 and 49 according to UN and World Health Organisation figures, writes Lizzette Robleto, Progressio's regional advocacy coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Luisan, a 47 year-old mother-of-four in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, told Progressio's development worker Gianni Dal Mas of how she found out she was HIV positive: 'I had my first HIV test after the death of my husband. I was getting very thin and weak, and people were murmuring that my husband had died of AIDS. It was several months before I had the courage to go for the test. I was very afraid that the result of the analysis would confirm that I had the same disease as my husband and that I was also going to die. I was afraid that people would point me out as someone with AIDS.

'When they told me [I was HIV positive], I became very sad. I left the hospital and went to the riverbank. I sat down to think of all the things going round and round in my head. What would become of my children? If I was going to die, who would look after my little girl and my sons? My family had no money to send them to school and I couldn't tell anyone that I had this disease …

'…Today, after knowing the illness better, I'm no longer afraid of telling people. That is the best way for people to avoid getting infected themselves. I know now that it is not a sin to have HIV, that we can all have HIV: the poor, the rich, Catholics or Protestants …'

The disease is particularly hard to control in Haiti as poverty means many lack hygiene, clean water, nutrition, healthcare and access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART). Years of political chaos has left the state unable to provide adequate healthcare and even the established religions in Haiti were slow to react.

Recently however, they have begun to rise to the challenge of HIV and AIDS. In January 2003 the Catholic church of Haiti announced a five-year action plan on HIV and AIDS including provision of information on the disease and preventive methods, safeguarding the rights of people living with HIV and AIDS and supporting them, particularly children orphaned by the disease, and provision of more and better care in Catholic health centres.

Internationally, the Catholic development agency Caritas raises awareness of HIV and AIDS in the Haitian countryside to reduce the social stigma of the disease, lobbies for effective treatment, and enables people living with HIV and AIDS more self-reliant by generating an income.

And there is a new willingness for churches to work together on HIV and AIDS. With World Relief, they plan to set up anti-AIDS brigades aiming to encourage young people to postpone their first sexual relationship, and to have fewer sexual partners.

Episcopalian minister and director of the NGO Childcare, Reverend Brunet Chérisol, told the International Development Research Centre in Haiti: 'If one of the church's priorities is to lead people's souls to heaven, it is not always obvious in Haiti that another should be to fight against HIV and AIDS. The hierarchy of the church has not yet felt the need to get involved. The question of vulnerability to the disease and how to reduce that has been confronted more by social organisations linked to the church and by certain individuals rather than by the church as a whole.

'The most important challenges in the fight against HIV and AIDS are to combat poverty and the stigma of having the disease. As soon as the church no longer regards AIDS as a sin, the amount of stigmatisation of sufferers diminishes. The church still needs to educate itself about the disease, and to step up its efforts to educate and inform others.'

To read more about how Luisan and others live with HIV and AIDS, and how the state, voluntary sector and the Catholic church has responded to the challenge, order or download Progressio's new book, HIV and AIDS in Haiti, funded by Trócaire and Christian Aid.