Upcountry insight: the family should lead fight against Aids

NORTHERN PROVINCE MUSANZE — As the world marked the world Aids Day on December 1, in Rwanda following the national realities, the theme ‘the responsibility of the family vis-à-vis the children in the fight against Aids’ puts great assignment to the family as an institution for child rearing and the foundation of the entire society. The family should be a school where the attitude towards sexual intercourse should be changed, the social and cultural norms that govern attitudes towards sex need to be precautious and realistic. Whereas children in the past were viewed as a source of wealth where the more children one had, the better off he would be, today cases of polygamy should be accorded no space. The family must engage in all interventions related to management of health for the welfare of its members in a bid to improve health of the spouse and children, according to CNLS recent report. During the celebrations in Musanze marked by various inter group competitions in high jump, poem citing and traditional dance from all the sectors in the district, the campaign to task the family to break the transmission rate was stressed. Jean Damascene Kamana, CDLS coordinator warned that the communities, families and civil societies must bear responsibility of breaking norms attached to sex and stop the transmission rate in a bid to protect children. Drumming up sounds of ‘Stop Aids lets keep the promise’ should be within the family and community boundaries first before later extending the fight to other institutions supporting anti Aids activities.In the rural communities, leaders of all sectors, anti Aids associations of those infected and affected including the youth and children should have defined roles to play. Measures should be put in place to ensure that money meant for HIV positive individuals and sensitization campaign is used for intended objectives.For cultural and economic reasons, women compared to men have lagged behind in education and other social opportunities and they still face barriers in accessing health care and voice to protect their bodies from sexual abuse.Men with dogma of going for ‘grass which is still greener’ underage girls, should face hasher penalties but enhance campaign against the habit, because many times, the young girls are self made victims and good at keeping secrets and concealing evidence to prosecute the culprits.This should be therefore a decade of transformation, change of cultural attitudes towards sexual affairs which should begin from within the household to train the young generation of the realities of the disease and the way out. Voluntary counseling and testing of HIV in schools should be compulsory and efforts by the youth be supported in order to face this human crisis-HIV/AIDS in Rwanda head on. Ends