MERCY Makhalemele is a beautiful young woman. She is articulate and intelligent and talks of the empowerment of women and securing human rights. She is a voice of the new South Africa.
She is also HIV positive.
Mercy is one of thousands of women diagnosed HIV positive at ante natal clinics throughout southern Africa every year. She was five months pregnant with her second child when this happened to her. For months she kept it a secret from her family and, friends. But when she gave birth she lay for hours in the hospital bed because no one was prepared to stitch her up. And within two, days of finally telling her husband, she was thrown out of her home and lost her job.
Since then, her second child has died. Mercy has spent the last 3 1/2 years trying to rebuild her self esteem and speaking out for all those who, she says, cannot speak for themselves.
Mercy's case is not unusual.
"The plight of women in southern Africa as a result of AIDS is very serious indeed," said Dr Sheila Tlou, chairwoman of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa. She was addressing the EU SADC Conference on HIV AIDS in Lilongwe, Malawi, where the Irish presidency of the EU has made the issue one of its top international priorities.
More than half of all cases of AIDS in the region are estimated to be female. The ratio of male to female infection is thought to be about 0.7 to one medical experts say biological differences maker women five to 10 times more vulnerable to infection than men. In Zambia alone, the HIV prevalence among pregnant women last year had reached nearly 34 per cent in some regions.
Malawi, Zimbabwe and Botswana record similar levels, but independent studies claim that, even these figures underestimate the true situation.
"Women's status in African society is already very low," said" Dr Tlou, "but it is further worsened by the social and economic impact of AIDS." In some countries in the region the disease is the single biggest killer of young adults.
Any such death will inevitably place additional economic pressures on the family. But in some African societies, explained Dry Tlou, when the husband dies, inheritance laws allow his family to claim all household goods and the wife's jewellery, leaving her with nothing. Similar property, custody and legal rights can also work against women.