By KEVIN SPURGAITIS
Princess Kasune Zulu is the new face of HIV/AIDS — one of the skyrocketing number of young women now infected with the virus, according to UN statistics.
Looking every bit benign and youthful, the 28-year-old health advocate still exudes a maternal warmth and grace befitting her first name. Though not really a princess, she bears traces of regality in colourful African garb. And in her native Zambia, where the world’s biggest killer strays, she is one of the pandemic’s loudest emissaries.
“I’m just one of those millions of people living with HIV/AIDS. But a part of that number is my own sister and my own brother — my own father and mother,” says Zulu. “Let’s not be lost from knowing these are real people. They are human beings.”
In December, Zulu toured Canada raising awareness of the disease for World Vision, an international relief and development organization. An HIV/AIDS spokesperson and educator with World Vision’s Hope Initiative, Zulu trains volunteers in the treatment and prevention of the disease in Zambia, particularly among children and youth. She also hosts a nationally syndicated radio program called, “Positive Living,” which addresses issues and personal problems associated with the disease. Zulu’s had genial téte-á-tétes with tribal chiefs, pastors, NGO heads, teachers, students, patients and health practitioners, as well as world leaders including U.S. President George W. Bush. After meeting with the “princess” and a delegation last year, Bush signed the five-year Global AIDS Bill, which pledges US$3 billion annually towards the cause.
“The world can do more, regardless of indoctrination — denomination. We need to come together,” says Zulu, who maintains the virus has no respect for “gender, colour, age and religion.”
“This is something people should be hearing again and again … We are sitting on a time bomb, which is now exploding in Russia, China and India, as well as Zambia.”
Women vulnerable to virus
World AIDS Day was observed on Dec.1. Now in its 17th year, the international health day was initiated by government ministers aiming to thwart the deadly virus. The first theme was “Join the Worldwide Effort.” In 2004, the focus is “Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS.”
Virtually unknown 25 years ago, HIV/AIDS has killed more than 20 million people. UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) say the disease now affects more than 39 million people globally. Today, the face of AIDS is predominately young and female — their infection rates soaring in every region. In sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of all carriers live, women and girls account for 57 per cent of all those living with the virus.
Zulu attributes the “feminization” of AIDS to gender inequality in African nations such as Zambia. Many women here have little or no access to education or jobs, she says. Economically dependent on men, they are sometimes unable to negotiate the use of condoms or resist sex altogether. ‘Sugar daddies’ reportedly offer schoolgirls meals or shoes in exchange for sexual intercourse — what the UNAIDS calls “pervasive disempowerment.”
The organization is urging governments to pass legislation protecting women from domestic violence and helping girls attend secondary schools. It also wants to see the reform of inheritance laws, which requires widows to marry their late spouses’ brothers. Sometimes, they are put out of the family home — their property then passed on to their husband’s relatives. The practice leaves a profusion of women destitute, forcing them into second marriages with infected men or even into the sex trade. With violent and non-consensual sex in Africa, abstinence isn’t always an option, according to Zulu, who maintains the heralded ABC strategy (Abstain, Be faithful, Use a Condom) does not adequately respond to the realities of women’s lives. It does not address incest or rape.
“If women were empowered, educated and were looked upon as equal partners, it is more likely that their rates of infection would be reduced. We need choices. We need to talk about this,” she says.
“We all have the power to change something in this world. We all have a purpose. Women, especially, don’t realize this.”
Family dead and dying
Although born in Kabwe, central Zambia, into relative prosperity, Zulu was still like many young women in the region. After her parents and baby sister died of AIDS in the early 1990s, she was left to care for her younger siblings. So she dropped out of school in grade 11 and had mostly casual sex, before marrying a man 23 years her senior. “I was young and had no one to turn to,” she remembers. In 1997, Zulu finally tested herself for the disease, although HIV-related stigma and prohibitive treatment costs warded off many young people. She calls it a “spiritual awakening” when she discovered that she, too, carried the virus. That’s when she decided to go public with her positive status, against the wishes of church leaders and her former husband, who once cautioned her to “remain in the house, or stay out of it.”
Zulu began volunteering in hospitals when few openly prayed for those dying from the disease. She became a combatant of the “silent sickness.” She educated patients. She cared for them, just years after carrying her own father’s fragile body down mile-stretch roads.
“I don’t want children to become a part of infected numbers. I don’t want to see any new person living with HIV/AIDS,” says Zulu, whose daughters, Joy, 10, and Faith, 8, have tested negative for the disease. “This is my burden. This is my cry.”
Zulu even hitchhiked with high-risk truck drivers, explaining prevention methods to those accused of transporting HIV/AIDS across the continent. Many truckers reportedly have unprotected sex with as many as 60 women on long-distance journeys, before returning home to their wives, she says. Hitching rides with drivers made her look like one of the many prostitutes — or just “crazy,” Zulu recalls. “If these truck drivers are protected, though, then their wives will be protected and their children. And the cycle would be stopped … they would be stemming the tide.”
In Zambian fishing towns, women in their 50s and 60s, unaccustomed to small chatter about sex, also attentively listen to a much younger Zulu explain the scope and severity of the disease. Citing an old African proverb, she describes herself as a “small hill growing into the big mountains.”
She says: “I’m already infected and there’s nothing I can do about that, but I know I can still do something. I am the example and can say, ‘I don’t want you to become like me. I want you to live a full life. I don’t want you to die prematurely.’”
As an effervescent educator, Zulu is the “light in the darkness,” says Ellen Ericson Kupp, a team leader with World Vision’s HIV/AIDS Hope Initiative.
“She is the prototype of the millions affected with HIV/AIDS — many of whom are dying quietly, without ever knowing or being brave enough to talk about their disease. Her message is extremely powerful.
“It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the scope and immensity of the problem. But there are people like Princess who don’t give up — who won’t give up against all the odds.”
In Zambia, HIV/AIDS is projected to wipe out half of the country’s 10 million people if not halted. Young women, some argue, are almost an endangered species in southern Africa. It’s said they will continue to reach out for a ‘bucket and wrench.’ However, a sanguine Zulu disagrees with naysayers. She envisions Zambians one day standing up and saying, “We want to fight.”
“Yes, many people are dying. Yes, there life expectancy has dropped, but there is hope in the midst of this hopelessness,” the princess warrior says, still smiling widely and looking every bit regal. “Just watch me.”
Originally published in the Catholic New Times, December 2004
