HIV/AIDS IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES: MORE THAN A THREAT TO HEALTH

A health educator from the Southern California Indian Centers' Job and
Health Fair facetiously told a reported in the mid-90s, "We don't have an
AIDS problem in the Native American Community. We don't have homosexuals
and we don't use needle drugs." She stressed that this denial of a pending
AIDS crisis in the indigenous population was what made the communities,
already threatened by alcoholism and diabetes so vulnerable. Nearly two
years later a Canadian study reports that while the majority of Aboriginal
Canadian youths surveyed received HIV/AIDS information at school, seven out
of ten reported having unprotected sex. The rate of AIDS among U.S. tribal
communities is about 2,540 - over 2,000 of which are males.

Across the globe, 11 million AIDS orphans in Africa struggle to survive.

The loss of their parents has robbed them of the safety and security all
parents strive to give their children.

But the disease hasn't only stolen their families, it's taking their
cultures, languages and knowledge that has sustained their peoples for
generations. Primary to this loss is the threat to the continent's food
supply and the plants that feed and heal the people and bring balance to
the ecosystem of Africa, perhaps the entire planet.

As of 2002, 42 million people had died from AIDS, of which 28 million were
adults. Nearly half were women, the primary caretakers of children.

In places like Liberia, 95 percent of the people are from Indigenous tribal
communities speaking numerous tribal languages, all of which are endangered
as are tribal religions still practised by nearly half of the country.

In Kenya, less than ten percent of households headed by orphans report that
they have enough traditional knowledge to be able to carry on the farming
practices passed down by their ancestors.

These practices include the cultivation of a diverse variety of crops that
have ensured a delicate balance in the local environment. A food crisis
could be the result.

Disease has long been the conduit for the decimation of tribal communities.
And while socialized health care and aggressive condom campaigns attempt to
halt an epidemic, the fact remains that HIV/AIDS threatens Aboriginal
Canadians at a rate five times that of non-Native Canadians. According to a
report by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Information Centre in Ottawa, Canadian
tribal communities face far greater incidences of HIV/AIDS-related
discrimination, jurisdictional divisions, funding shortages and limited
access to quality HIV testing.

These factors make it difficult for Canadian Aboriginal communities to
respond in ways that equalize the AIDS response to that of most urban
nonnative communities.

By the end of the '90s, 11,525 Canadians had died from AIDS and 40,100
Canadians were living with HIV. In recent years deaths from AIDS have
decreased due to the introduction of antiretroviral drugs, and while there
appears to be fewer reported HIV/AIDS cases in Native communities, the
reality is that the percentage of new AIDS diagnoses among Aboriginal
Canadians has increased by nearly nine percent.

HIV/AIDS continues to affect Aboriginal peoples in a manner
disproportionate to the rest of the Canadian population.

There are reasons for the increase.

These include higher rates of unprotected sex as illustrated by a
disproportionate rate of teen pregnancy, higher rates of incarceration
where the activities that spread HIV are increased, higher rates of drug
and alcohol abuse, increased mobility and overall lower health and
socio-economic status.

While HIV/AIDS has long been viewed in Native communities as a disease of
gay white men and needle users, recent statistics point to Aboriginal women
as the fastest growing population for HIV/AIDS. The main factor cited is
intravenous drug use and unprotected sex with infected partners.

As in the United States where the highest growing rates of HIV/AIDS occur
among African American women in the Washington, DC area for predominately
the same reasons, the unborn children of these women add to the statistic.

It's hard for those living in the "developed" world to see the threat to
culture and traditional knowledge in the same way it is recognized in
developing countries where antiviral drugs are expensive and hard to come
by and HIV/AIDS education is just beginning.

AIDS is no longer the death sentence it was in the '80s. But HIV/AIDS can
still threaten Native communities. These drugs are expensive and resources
in many communities are scarce. Communities have not yet come to terms with
those living with HIV. Cultures uncomfortable talking about sexual themes
and a continuing denial that these factors exist continue to contribute to
the increase.

Those infected with HIV are often stigmatized, prevented from holding
employment, shunned by family and friends.

Perhaps the greatest solution to HIV/AIDS in Native communities comes from
within. While there exists great diversity of language, values, customs and
lifestyles, the basic values among Aboriginal Canadians and Native
Americans are in many ways similar.

The interdependence long valued in tribal communities instills caring,
empathy and connection. Programs that incorporate these values and attempt
to use traditional medicine and spirituality have shown greater success in
combatting HIV/AIDS. Educating youth and keeping the messages of safe sex
and abstinence from drugs and alcohol is another strategy.

While many parents find it difficult to counsel their children on these
issues, depending on school-based education alone means that once the class
is over, the behaviours begin or continue. Vigilance in keeping the
messages consistent and frequent counts as an effective way to prevent new
HIV/AIDS outbreaks.

In December of 2002, Selena Moose, an Inupiat whose family chose to go
public with the story of her brother who had been infected with AIDS told a
reporter, "HIV can wipe a village out," At least a quarter of new HIV cases
in Alaska are among Natives - 16 percent of the entire Alaskan population.
To Moose, the threat faced by Indigenous Africans didn't seem so remote.
While most would have borne the burden of her brother's infection in
silence. Moose was adamant about education the public.

As her brother fought his battle with AIDS at home in the care of family
and friends, she stoically told an audience at the Alaska Native Heritage
Center. "We had to tell our people because not telling them means extinction."