The Politics of Prevention:

Epidemic of Aids kills over two million people every year and nearly 33 million people are infected with HIV worldwide. Epidemic of HIV has spread throughout the world, however, poor and marginalized communities are under the hardest hit. Especially the poor communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America have been more vulnerable to HIV & AIDS. HIV&AIDS has posed a serious development, human rights and humanitarian crisis across the world.

There have been various attempts to address the epidemic, there is a flow of aid to address the epidemic, governments and civil society too have started to talk about it, however situation has remained the same. The way epidemic is spreading, it demands alternatives ways to address it. Within these contexts, one of the alternatives is to strategically use education system as a medium to address the epidemic. “The politics of prevention” a newly published book by Tania Boler and David Archer has tried to explore these alternatives with a comprehensive analysis of AIDS politics globally.

The Epidemic of Prejudice, The impact of AIDS on Education, A crisis in Education, The Power of Prevention, Beyond Prevention, From Personal to Political, Religion versus Science, The Politics of AID, The Power of Money are the nine chapters in the book. A book, divided into nine chapters and further divided into sub chapters has tried to bring practical and critical experiences from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. Tania and David, have tried to open up some alternative spaces within AIDS politics, they appreciate the best practices and they criticize many initiatives. Moreover, they have tried to offer some inspiring and critical insights which force reader to rethink and re strategize HIV&AIDS intervention policies.

HIV & AIDS has always been the disease related to stigma and prejudice. In the past uncertainty of what caused HIV and AIDS created fear among the people. Now people fear because HIV and AIDS have been synonymous to stigma and prejudice. People living with HIV have to bear shame, hatred and discrimination in the society. People fear to reveal their status and even to test their HIV status because they know after their status is revealed they have to face stigma and prejudice. Children are forced to leave their schools; women have been forced to leave their families and communities due to stigma and discrimination. Book has tried to bring a comparative analysis of the politics around stigma and discrimination which is a serious violation of human rights.

Another focus of the book is the impact of AIDS on education and role of school in the lives of children. HIV & AIDS have adverse effect in society, politics, and economy but it also affects the education system. Mainly children’s education is affected by the epidemic as their parent get sick consequently children have to take care of their parents by skipping school and if their parents die because of epidemic they have to leave school due to poverty and lack of parental support. Book suggests that, at this point school can play an important role. It can boost up the ability of child and prepare them to expose themselves to the outside world and make them feel included in the structure of society. Children of HIV infected parents may experience discrimination and bullying but school can create a safe and creative environment for these children. Book also reveals the fact that among the school dropouts largest number is of girls. And the major reason is the low status of women and girls in the patriarchal society and they are the one to bear the burden which forces them to drop out from school.

The most important part of this book is chapter three which focuses upon education as an appropriate alternative to address the epidemic. Education being a basic human right helps people to identify themselves and teach people alternatives to deal with the epidemic. Like most of the people get HIV through unprotected sexual intercourse, sharing un-sterilized injection equipment or during child birth. These transmissions can be prevented by teaching people that: sexual transmission can be reduced by encouraging use of condom and changing sexual behavior, transmission through needle can be prevented by using clean needles and transmission during child birth can be reduced by giving ARV treatment and PMCT to pregnant mother. Further this chapter emphasizes on girls and women's education to prevent HIV and AIDS. In Africa and many Asian countries women are more vulnerable to HIV and AIDS than male. Mainly women without education are more likely to be infected than educated. Girls, who left their education, are more likely to get affected because they lack confidence to challenge potential vulnerabilities imposed by male domination, social structure and patriarchy. Writers have given the logic that when a girl stays at school for long time it prevents her vulnerability to HIV infection as it strengthens girl’s control, confidence and negotiation abilities of when, with whom to have sex and whether to use a condom or not. In many countries girls lack power to prevent themselves from the infection of HIV because power lies in the hands of male and women have to follow it. On top of everything, if a girl is in the school compound throughout school time, she is protected.

But there is crisis in the education, education system, and educational institutions themselves mainly in African and Asian countries. Schools lack proper educational funding and educational strategy to deal with HIV. School can provide information and advice to young people who are not yet sexually active-who have not yet formed behaviors that will put them at risk of HIV infection. Recognizing the potential of school different donor agencies have invested financial and human resources to teach about HIV & AIDS, but it is not sufficient to strengthen the education system and to engage schools in addressing the epidemic. There are some other obstacles as well such as some parents are opposed to the teaching of HIV and AIDS in classroom and some parents do not talk about sex and HIV with their children and expected school to teach their children. At the mean time teachers too have barriers in communication they are not well trained, well educated, they are not well paid and there are overwhelming number of students and it becomes difficult for them to teach. They lack skills on how to deal with the issues of sex and sexuality with their students. They themselves are not aware about preventive methods. Education systems, itself lack proper teaching of the epidemic. In some schools still discussion about condom is a taboo.

Case study, of Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa, in the book shows how the power of prevention lies in the hands of teacher. Programs like Theatre for change, Making prevention personal and beyond school which emphasize on the role of teacher and disclose that “One way to overcome the difficulties face by teachers in teaching about HIV and sex is to encourage teachers to recognize HIV as an issue that is important to themselves and their student and simply telling young people what to do and what not to do is not sufficient they need to personally link and realize that the issue is connected with them.”

The book has significantly raised the issues of gay and sex workers and has raised the question of rights and justice of these groups who have been marginalized. It has tried to explore practical aspects that there is no use of telling sex workers not to continue their work and gay men not to have homosexual sex; instead they can be given better practical education to prevent the HIV spread among their community.

One of the best parts of this book is that it is largely political in nature and has opened up space for politicization of issues which is one of the important processes of empowerment. The example of Gabriella Leite of Brazil who is a sex worker and her role in building solidarity and creating great strength with other sex workers presents the best example how personal issues can be transformed to political issues with participation of individual. "If you are alone in the world then your issues are personal but once there is a group of you, they become political".

"Religion versus Science" seventh chapter of the book analyses different scientific and religious methods used to teach about HIV and sex in school. In orthodox school there is a difficulty to introduce a particular education approach related to HIV and sex because it is not receptive to such an approach. Teaching in most classrooms tend to be didactic, non participatory, inflexible and assessment-driven. Traditional school mainly focused upon morality and religion where sex is regarded as god gift and it should be protected.

One of the most important issues that this book has tried to raise is the “Politics of Aid” which has played a major role in slow improvement in the prevention of AIDS. "In order for HIV prevention to be successful, the response has to become politicized in order to deal with the double stigma towards HIV and these marginalized groups." There are many donor agencies like IMF, UNICEF, and Global Fund which are continuously funding on the sector of education, health in developing countries. But it has failed to reach to the people who are in need. Book has significantly amplified concerns about the governance mechanism of aid and aid effectiveness. One of the reasons why the aid has not reached to people in need is the larger amount of fund released is spend by government for paying the salaries of teacher, doctors and nurses and very little is left for delivering particular programs. Some governments even spend the fund in paying off the debt. So the fund is not utilized properly. Book has tried to critically analyze funding policies of some of the major donor agencies. It has brought a critical analysis on the funding of IMF and World Bank policies which restrict government to spend on education sector in the name of maintaining physical stability and macroeconomic stability.

This book offers very practical alternatives to engage education system as one of the strategic ways to address the epidemic. Moreover, book emphasizes on the need to strengthen education system in developing countries. It criticizes conventional practices, appreciates best practices, and offers alternatives; which is the most important aspects of the book. As still education system has not been practically realized as one of the major policy intervention areas in addressing the epidemic, this book can be a best document to re- strategize HIV&AIDS interventions policies globally. Policy makers and development practitioners will find some unique insights through the book.

Reviewed by Sabita Gyawali
Sabita_gyawali@hotmail.com