It is no longer news that Nigeria’s sero-prevalence rate stands at 5.8% and that it is growing. While new cases of infection are drastically reduced in urban and semi-urban localities due to increasing awareness, it is spreading like wildfire in the rural areas. More and more new cases of infection are popping up especially amongst the youth population.
Even these new cases are a trickle of available data given the fact that obtaining adequate and accurate information on the rate at which AIDS is spreading in Nigeria’s rural communities is such a difficult issue. This is because the rural are not only hard to reach but the terrain is tedious and even the local people are not willing to volunteer information relevant to the AIDS issue. This can be attributed to the lack of adequate grasp, on the part of the locals, of the issues surrounding the AIDS question.
Looking at the rural communities with special focus on the Niger Delta, one can appreciate why new cases of infection are happening all the time. Nigeria has a dual topography. One aspect of it is mainly dry land while the other is riverine riddled with creeks, rivers, rivulets, swamps, and mangrove forests. While the upland is a bit elaborate and easy to access and susceptible to development, the riverine areas are a difficult terrain, densely populated and steeped in demographic incongruities.
The focus of this article is the impact AIDS is having on the riverine communities spread across the southern fringes of Nigeria better known as the Niger Delta. There are approximately a 100 communities running from Ondo State in the South-West of the country to Akwa Ibom State in the South-South. These communities reflect different ethnic nationalities (Ijaw, Ilaje, Yoruba, Urhobo, Itsekiri, Ikwerre, Etche, Ogoni, Andoni, Efik, Ibibio, etc), speak diverse languages and sublanguages and subscribe to varied social experiences.
For many of these communities their means of livelihood is derived from fishing, farming, trading, and art works. The terrain is laced with difficulties ranging from inadequate means of transportation, uncharted forests rife with wild animals, mosquitoes, and others. This is where about 70% of youths in the Niger Delta live. Without adequate education, without social amenities, plagued by ignorance, enmeshed in infection-predisposing factors, and exposed to obnoxious belief systems and practices, it is not a matter of conjecture why these constitute the majority of AIDS victims.
Beyond these overarching factors, there are other minor yet serious ones that facilitate the rise in the rate of HIV infection. One of these is sexual networking among adolescent boys and girls where a group of adolescents network to share or have sex with a particular individual of the opposite sex. A group of boys take turns to have intercourse with a particular girl or a group of girls take turns to have it with a particular boy. And this is done without recourse to the risks associated with such abnormality. Many times the girl involved becomes pregnant without knowing the actual boy who did it since everyone of them had her. On the other hand, some or all of the girls who engaged in that orgy of sex could become pregnant for the same boy and this obviously translates into major alterations in the lives of both the girls and the boy or boys in question.
Another factor is the proliferation of sexual partners by a particular individual. A girl goes on having several male friends with whom she has sex on a regular basis or even at random as the occasion demands, so to speak. Or it could be a young man who strings along with several girls, having sex with them whenever he deems necessary.
These are situations that precipitate infection with HIV and the rapid spread of the virus in the rural areas. And this goes on amongst the youth population. One basic fact about this is that each individual in such network suddenly becomes a lethal carrier unleashed on society, howbeit covertly.
With the prevailing socio-economic environment in the rural areas many youths are predisposed to fall for unwholesome indulgences. Many girls come from poor homes and sometimes are under intense pressure to accede to have sex with one or more men to make ends meet or have their needs met. Almost always, these amorous relationships do not accommodate safeguards against HIV infection. Partners hardly make informed decisions regarding prevention against infection and pregnancy. In some areas, not only are condoms not available, majority of the people are ignorant about its uses or advantages.
So girls just go on having sex with men either on the premarital or extramarital basis or even in cases of early or forced marriages. And given that positive masculinity is foreign to many communities in this country, the young girls have to bear the brunt of pain inflicted by their partners during intercourse, lacerations to the vaginal walls, infection with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancies, premature delivery, incontinences arising from compromise of the yet immature birth canal, stigma associated with one or more of the above. All these depict the trauma, dilemma and challenges the Nigerian youth in rural communities have to grapple with.
The process of redressing these unfortunate circumstances is no doubt Herculean. Yet a lot can still be done. First, there is need for information and behavioral change communication targeted at the youths in the rural areas. This can be done through awareness creation and sensitization in the hard to reach localities. This is to acquaint them with issues such as abstinence, positive sexuality, early sex debut, partner reduction, Bonne (good/real) fidelity, dangers of premarital/extramarital sex, correct and consistent condom use, routes of transmission, etc.
This information can be utilized to motivate change and build awareness on critical issues. This change is necessary with regards to belief, values and attitudes that predispose and facilitate infection among young people; attitudes towards the infected and affected by AIDS (de-stigmatization/stigma-reduction); negative to positive sexuality and openness to discussions about sexuality; and changes in values, beliefs, and attitudes towards women.
Motivation can also effected in the aspect of inducing change from irresponsible to responsible or positive masculinity – making men understand and appreciate what it entails to be a man and a father.
Added to the aforementioned is the advocating of the rights of adolescent and children with special focus on that of young girls. Issues affecting women and children with regard to HIV/AIDS needs to be appreciated and given the necessary impetus. This is consequent upon available data suggesting that more women (especially the youths) are being infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.
Considering the difficult terrain, monetary cost involved and the logistics of it all, it would no doubt call for concerted efforts incorporating the government, corporate bodies, civil society organizations, private individuals, and other stakeholders to make the outreach to youths dwelling in the rural areas a dream come true.
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