“Sex Cleansers”, AIDS, and Purchasing Power

How disturbing horrifying. After growing up in the Third World, I felt that I had developed a rather nuanced appreciation for the customs of other people, especially those from underdeveloped countries. The hospitality of the Arabs, the warm intimacy of Latin Americans, and the lack of hang-ups amongst Filipinos come to mind. Tradition, also, makes greater sense when you are living within rather than without its scope. But, I can’t imagine any situation where the widespread Sub-Saharan practice of "Sex Cleansing" could be acceptable.

[Recent African widows] must sleep with the cleanser to be allowed to attend their husbands’ funerals or be inherited by their husbands’ brother or relative, another controversial custom that aid workers said is causing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Unmarried women who lose a parent or child must also sleep with the ritual cleanser.

The custom has always been unpopular among women. But in midst of an AIDS pandemic, which has led to the deaths of 19.6 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, having relations with the cleanser has become more than just a painful ritual that women must endure. Cleansers are now spreading HIV at explosive rates in such villages as Gangre, where one in every three people is infected.

Ugh. The very idea is making the short hairs on my neck stand up.

Cleansers can be found in some rural parts of Uganda and Tanzania as well as the Congo, where traditional religions exist next to fluid versions of Christianity and Islam. They are also a staple in Angola and in villages across West Africa, specifically in Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, according to African aid workers who have been trying to talk to people in these countries about the HIV risk that cleansers present.

The tradition dates back centuries and is rooted in a belief that a woman is haunted by spirits after her husband dies. She is also thought to be unholy and “disturbed” if she is unmarried and abstains from sex. She must be cleansed, therefore, to attend funerals or remarry.

“The older generations need to change,” said Nancy Oundda, a nurse with the African Medical Research Foundation , which works with the widows’ groups and children orphaned by AIDS in this region. “Their attitude will change with education, and if they realize what this tradition is doing.”

As the article makes clear, greater education seems to be the only way to stop this vile misguided practice. Since only "skin-to-skin" contact will “cleanse” the women, condoms are never used. I’ve read the NGO sector’s complaints that the Bush Administration’s HIV-AIDS plan is inherently flawed because nearly one-third of the program's budget is earmarked for efforts promote abstinence. I’m sure that these are mainly political sentiments aimed against the Administration; because there is no way that simply distributing condoms by the truckload will make a dent in this epidemic’s death rates, if it is distributed by traditions such as these.

Family planning is an important part of any development aid, but it seems to me that only by obliterating the customs and traditions that perpetuate the scourge can any significant inroads be made in fighting the AIDS plague. “Abstinence” doesn’t just have to mean a bunch of teenagers keeping their pants on. So no matter what you might think about the behavior, there is no doubt that in this broader sense of “abstinence”, a grieving widow or orphan could save her life by sending the “cleanser” away.

(TANGET ALERT)

Ya know, since these “cleansers” seem to enjoy a monopoly on their practice, it’s not surprising that we find that,

The women of this village call Francise Akacha “the terrorist.” His breath fumes with the local alcoholic brew. Greasy food droppings hang off his mustache and stain his oily pants and torn shirt.
He’s always the first one in line for the village feast, tucking into a buffet carefully prepared by the women of the village like he’s diving into the ocean, no restraint. He’s too skinny and has, as the women point out, terrible taste in clothes. His latest hat is a visor styled from shabby paper stolen off a local cigarette billboard.

But for all of his undesirable traits, Akacha has a surprisingly desirable job: He’s paid to have sexual relations with the widows and unmarried women of this village. He’s known as “the cleanser,” one of hundreds of thousands of men in rural villages across Africa who sleep with women after their husbands die to dispel what villagers believe are evil spirits.

In fact, you will find that Mr. Akacha thinks exactly like a state-run monopoly:

“Your services are not required any longer,” [Margaret Auma Odhiambo] said, as her friends gathered to cheer.

“How many women have you slept with?” she asked, smiling and trying to prod the information out of him.

“I can’t know,” he sniffed. “I don’t want to know.”

“Do you know your HIV status?” she asked.

“That one I don’t want to know,” he said.

“Today, you sleep with this one, the next day another, the next day someone else,” Odhiambo said, sitting next to him and trying to convince him of the danger. “Do you use a condom?”

“Never,” he responded. “They won’t be really cleansed if the condom was there.”

Akacha has been forced to discuss the issue because more and more villagers are dying. Still, Akacha said he believes he provides a valuable service.

“It’s not bad for me since I get to be with the beautiful ladies,” he said, chuckling over his plate of food. “The woman like it ‘cause who else would be with them? They can’t stay alone with the spirits. They need me.”

Something tells me that if this guy didn’t have this job, and had to compete in the singles’ “meat” marketplace he couldn’t get laid, much less, “be with the beautiful ladies”. The reason is because women in more economically developed countries have sufficient enough resources that they don’t need a man, and can exert their “Purchasing Power” (for want of a better term).

So yeah, it might seem as a stretch to fly in the face of conventional wisdom and declare that free markets and capitalism provide greater immunity to diseases like AIDS, but the fact remains that if a woman has enough of a share of the village resources (held either in toto or by proxy through widow’s groups) she would never have to put up with a disgusting cleanser like Mr. Akacha.