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 Once believed predominantly to target men, AIDS is now a global pandemic, and one that affects as man women as men. According to a U.N. report released November 26, women make up 50 percent of those infected with HIV.
Yet most African women have no social recourse to protect themselves against the disease. Poor, undereducated and culturally unable to negotiate the terms of sex, millions are powerless to change this dangerous situation.
“The African woman can only do so much,” says Princess Kasune Zulu, an AIDS educator for World Vision. “But she cannot guarantee that she will be safe when a woman is raped every 15 seconds. She cannot force her husband to be faithful. In many cases, she cannot even refuse to sleep with him.”
Princess Kasune Zulu serves as assistant development facilitator for World Vision’s Models of Learning research program in Zambia. After discovering she was HIV-positive at 21, Zulu started a school for children who orphaned by AIDS and hosts a nationally broadcast radio program called “Positive Living.”
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