Having HIV may not be a secret

Aids 2018, the largest health conference in the world, will take place this week in the Netherlands. Thousands of activists, dignitaries, scientists and celebrities travel to Amsterdam for this purpose. We know more about AIDS and HIV, and in many cases – especially HIV – it's easy to live with. Yet infected people still suffer from social stigma. "It must be broken," said Princess Mabel, who was also present at the conference and protest march. But how to break something so stubborn?

On the Museumplein is the exhibition of life-sized billets The Stigma Project by photographer Marjolein Annegarn. She portrays with people infected with HIV to show how difficult it is to live openly with the virus. One of the portraits is of a girl with braids holding a big red and white heart lollipop in front of her head. She hides her face. According to Annegarn, who herself is infected with HIV, HIV remains a secret to many of those they carry with them.

The word stigmatization comes from the ancient Greek tradition that "undesirable" people were marked. The branding of others is no longer usual, but in our head, we always label ourselves as "desirable" or "undesirable". As a bearer of stigma, you always have the feeling of entering a space where everyone turns their backs on you. Where you are evaluated on the basis of prejudice. Such as the prejudice that HIV and AIDS are deadly and contagious diseases that only occur through dangerous homosexuals and that can spread through every physical contact.

It is also often thought that the increase of the virus is their own fault and that, therefore, homosexuals and trans people would gain less help. One result of this harm is, for example, that the anti-influencing drug PrEP has been unavailable for a long time in the Netherlands. Even now that it has finally been decided to reimburse the drug in the basic package, it is only available for a few GGD for homosexuals from a high-risk group who also have to pay the contribution personal.

The government has always considered the prevention of HIV infection as clean. responsibility ". This suggests that a person has less entitlement to clemency if she makes a mistake.

It is possible to break the stigma if we learn to look at people we condemn differently. I remember a theory of Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Gyekye on the importance of community spirit. It would be the task of the community to take care of each individual, including those who deviate. The fact that you belong to the community is reason enough to receive the treatment you need.

A few years ago, I watched the play that had been filmed since, To Nothing Dead . An Antillean and Caribbean family struggles with the AIDS diagnosis of the only son. They keep him hidden because their fear of stigmatizing the community is greater than their love for him.

In the Ghanaian language, the Akan sometimes say, "A person is not like a palm tree, which can only survive." This means that we are all responsible for the well-being of everyone. Or while Dutch-Jewish activist and writer Olave Nduwanje was declaiming at the AIDS conference: "We call it" health care "because it is we who must care for each other.

Clarice Gargard is a programmer (BNNVARA) and freelance journalist.