The Church is often the first port of call for HIV sufferers, and Catholic social teaching leads to a holistic response to HIV, and not just a medical one. So said HIV and Gender Policy Officer with Trócaire, Deirdre Ni Cheallaigh, just back from a major AIDs conference in Mexico.
In an interview with ciNews on her return from the XVII International Aids Conference held in Mexico City at the beginning of August, Ms Ni Cheallaigh, spoke positively of the Ecumenical Pre Conference.
She was encouraged to see how the role of various churches and faith communities in dealing with the challenges involved in dealing with the HIV and AIDS pandemic is respected.
She said that the role of Faith Based Organisations (FBO’s) was recognised as key and they were respected for their long term involvement and commitment.
“The church may be the first port of call” said Ms Ni Cheallaigh and external speakers also highlighted the gamut of responses provided by FBO’s singling out their characteristically holistic approach.
She underlined the importance of Catholic Social teaching which informs Trocaire’s approach especially in the struggle to give people their natural human dignity. The result of applying such teaching leads to a broad integrated response to HIV, not just a medical one.
Two sessions at the conference which brought together 500 mainly church-based organizations from 77 countries, were really timely, she said, one on gender based violence and one on stigma and discrimination.
“The fear of violence can be a barrier to going for testing. This has implications down the line and leads to a vicious cycle and interplay in which gender based violence actually drives the HIV endemic”.
Violence is an extreme manifestation of stigma, she said and identified the importance of faith based organisations taking on a leadership role in this regard “to send out a clear message that discrimination is not to be tolerated”.
Ms Ni Cheallaigh was struck by a very stark example of an empowered young woman, who is a college student but who had lost both parents through HIV and was infected herself. The woman never appeared during her entire intervention but was only heard through the sound system as because of her fear of stigmatisation and discrimination she did not want her face to be shown.
Another strong message from the Conference was with regard to children and HIV and the prevention of mother-child or vertical transmission. Here Ms Ni Cheallaigh mentioned specifically the case of Africa where 90 per cent of all infected children live, and yet only 10 per cent of all who come for treatment are children.
Issues around this include the need to make medicines in suitable sizes for children and to improve the area of paediatric diagnosis.
“Often the focus on children is an after- thought and in that respect we have failed children. However, the issue of children and HIV tracked right through the main Conference. Some of the best responses are the commonsense ones. Even the best orphanages can’t replace parents so obviously we should be working to help parents survive. Often there is only one surviving parent – we should be supporting the child by supporting the remaining parent. The last resort is institutional care,” she said.
On the other hand, the Trócaire policy officer pointed out that there was a good youth representation at the Conference and through their presence they were saying “you need to involve us, you need to talk to us”.
Ms Ni Cheallaigh acknowledged the response of the Irish Government which allocates 20 per cent of Ireland’s contribution to child specific responses. During the Conference, Irish Aid held a symposium event on children for Irish participants and associates, which was attended by Brendan Howlin and Mary Robinson.
Later this year the 4th Global Partners Forum on Children affected by HIV and AIDS will take place in Dublin.
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(Source: CIN)