Religious leaders speak out on HIV/AIDS stigma

Since the first ecumenical plan of action for responding to the HIV and AIDS epidemic in November 2001, the church’s approach has been for the eradication of stigma and discrimination in the larger communities they lived in, but now, details are coming out on silent suffering among religious leaders infected with the scourge.

Participants at a forum recently organised in Nairobi from the June 20-25 by the African Network of Religious Leaders infected with HIV and AIDS, ANRELA, note that while religious leaders are expected by virtue of positions they hold in most communities to be counsellors among other roles they play, few have known what they themselves have had to undergo when they get infected by HIV/AIDS.

According to Rev Dickson Mwadime, a religious leader from Kenya’s Coast Province, while it was easy for a religious leader to advice the congregation on the ABC’s of HIV and AIDS, the same was not so when the leader was to disclose that s/he was HIV positive.

The leaders said that this scenario emanates from the association of the HIV scourge to promiscuity and the first reaction a religious leader who declares his HIV status gets from his flock is “ the pastor was not holy after all!”

Religious groups, in general, have a reputation for responding to the issue of HIV in negative terms.

The negative reaction to HIV according to Rev Mwadime, did not end with the congregation alone. The pastor risks being defrocked by his superiors.

For example, a life example was told forum participants about Luke, not real name, who was a pastor in a mainstream church in a rural area of Kenya. Few people then knew much about AIDS and when they were told they didn’t believe.

Then in 1999, his children aged 10, 7 and 4 and his wife died. The death certificate said Tuberculosis, but in the hospital Luke was told that it might be AIDS and was advised to go for testing. “On the day I received the result, I was about to die” confesses Pastor Luke. Desperate for advice and comfort, he went and told his Bishop. “You are a disgrace to the church” the bishop curtly told him and warned Luke not to tell anyone that he has the sickness and was asked to remarry if he were to retain his position in the ministry, so that “people will not be suspicious”.

That to Warren W. Buckingham III, Senior Regional HIV/AIDS advisor at the USAID, sums up the reaction the religious community has had on the scourge. According to Cannon Gideon Byamugisha from Uganda and the first Priest in the world to have come out publicly about his HIV status, “the irreligious’s leader’s response to the scourge has been judgemental, damnation, persecution and condemnation of the infected, especially among the leadership ladder”.

Agreeing, Warren says that while the religious response to disasters have been commendable over the years, this has not been so with HIV / AIDS. Initially, the reaction has been that of “inaction and misaction”, he said.

Warren adds that factors that have perpetuated this perception have included judgmental comment from religious leaders; debate about condoms; and an obstructive stance towards policy development, particularly regarding drug use, commercial sex, and harm reduction approaches.

He said that the religious sector has been largely unwilling to engage in any way that could imply dilution of moral standards. As a result, people with HIV have experienced rejection by religious people, congregations or institutions.

According to research done by the US based International Centre for Research on Women, ICRW, “even where they are said to have actively participated in demystifying HIV/AIDS, not all religious organizations or congregations are responding - many have not yet taken it as their concern, yet at the same time, congregational and personal response has been happening which is more difficult to accumulatively measure than the more visible organizational response.”

Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, the head of the Anglican of Church of Kenya and chairman of ten East and Central African nations’ religious leaders action against HIV and AIDS told participants that the early response of the religious leaders and sectors as a whole to the scourge demands an apology on the sins of omission and commission.

He said that the religious sector took time to react and learn about the scourge and rued that although the religious sector has a lot of influence in the society, their influence on HIV and AIDS however has been minimal. He called on religious leaders to gain knowledge on HIV and not be quick to condemn the infected and the affected.

Rev Nzimbi said an appropriate response by the religious leaders would have quickly built pressure upon regional governments to make accessible the ARVs, particularly at a time as this when the prices are affordable.

He said the religious sector has capacity to help community fight fear, lack of inclusion, and stigma. Yet the religious sector (churches, mosques, religious schools, lay groups, religious NGOs, ecumenical groups, etc.) has far-reaching influence throughout Africa and the rest of the world.

Rev Nzimbi said that the fact that religious communities are usually interwoven into the wider community is now being turned into a major asset and strength for scaling up, for sustaining response, and for promoting mutual healthy accountability for care, support and change.