POSITIVE WOMEN'S SWAZI VIDEO DIARY

Positive Women has started to put up online its 'video diary' of its trip to Swaziland. See them here.

See also

POSITIVE WOMEN HIT SWAZILAND

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/positive-women-hit-swaziland.html

‘POSITIVE WOMEN’ HIT SWAZILAND

Members of Positive Women, the UK-based charity set up to empower women and children in Swaziland, flew into the kingdom yesterday (30 October 2011) for a series of activities.

To follow their work check out YouTube here – where they promise an ongoing ‘video diary’ of their visit.http://www.youtube.com/user/positivewomen1?feature=mhee#p/a

Also, follow then on Twitter here @Positive_Women

Positive Women is a UK charity set up to help empower women and children in Swaziland. Our work focuses on growing local women led organisations, helping to fund anti-poverty programmes, supporting social progress initiatives and by driving their efficiency throughout their projects.

Positive Women began after two inspiring women met at Make Poverty History. These women shared a similar vision -- to find new ways to support locally run women's organisations in places where a lack of women's rights seriously damage the ability of women to create income and protect themselves against disease and violence. Siphiwe Hlophe and Kathryn Llewellyn saw huge potential to develop the work that they had both begun -- The Children of Swaziland and Swaziland Positive Living, and so pioneered Positive Women as an innovative and forward-thinking project that reaches all eight of the Millennium Development Goals.

See also

SWAZI WOMEN LEAD THE HIV STRUGGLE

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2011/10/swazi-women-lead-hiv-struggle.html

SWAZI WOMEN LEAD HIV STRUGGLE

Poverty Matters Blog, Guardian, UK

26 October 2011

SOURCE

Women lead the way in the struggle against Swaziland's HIV crisis

A support campaign for Swazi women living with HIV is transforming lives, but needs international backing

Siphiwe Hlophe's shrewd, enterprising spirit is apparent within moments of meeting her. "You work for Comic Relief?" she says. "Brilliant! I might walk away from this meeting with some money." Hlophe, a Swazi woman living with HIV, wants the money for the charity she directs, Swaziland for Positive Living (Swapol), which supports rural communities affected by HIV.

Her resourcefulness is striking in a country where women are denied the right to register property, prohibited from opening a bank account or starting a business without the permission of their husbands, and paid 71% less than men. Yet it is not unique. Similarly enterprising women across Swaziland – where 31% of the female population is HIV positive, compared with 20% of men (a figure that rises to 49% for women aged 24-29) – are leading the HIV fight-back.

These women fight a tireless tripartite battle against HIV, the stigma it places on them, and their inferior status in Africa's last absolute monarchy. Hlophe, whose husband ended their marriage on grounds of "dishonour" after she contracted the virus from him, has conquered all three.

Kathryn Llewellyn, the founder of Positive Women, which co-funds Swapol, said: "Extraordinary women provide safe havens for women rejected by their families. Despite the fact that women are disproportionately infected and affected, or maybe because of this fact, they're not being overwhelmed. They're uniting and fighting back."

Some cross the border to South Africa. Thandi Maluka, of South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign, points out they're escaping a country where, in 2009, "one MP suggested branding people with 'HIV', so they cannot infect others … they believe women carry the virus".

Hlophe stayed put. She founded Swapol in 2001, along with four other rural women; all had been recently diagnosed, and were determined to resist destitution and ostracism.

Two have since died, but Hlophe continues, empowering Swazi women living with HIV through programmes that transform them into businesswomen. On a visit to a rural neighbourhood care point, I met six women making and selling peanut butter to fund their village orphanage. In another rural community, I encountered a crop-seller; Swapol gives her seeds to grow vegetables, helping her to sell surplus stock to locals.

Women operate at grassroots level in tackling HIV because they're rarely trusted with real responsibility. But they are increasingly making their voices heard. In 2008, when the king chartered a plane for nine of his 13 wives to go shopping, hundreds of Swazi women protested. In response to their cries of: "We need to keep that money for ARVs [antiretrovirals]", senior princes denounced them as "un-Swazi". Care of Swaziland's 80,000 Aids orphans increasingly falls to grandmothers, 1,000 of whom gathered last year to discuss action priorities, such as campaigning for fair inheritance rights. And in July, 100 people protested at the government's inefficiency in financing the response to the HIV and Aids pandemic. Leading the march, Vusi Nxumalo said: "There's a problem with procurement, supply and service delivery [of ARVs]."

Yet the crisis is too far-reaching for women to tackle alone, and men are now being actively encouraged to take responsibility. When I travelled across the border from South Africa to Swaziland as part of an Action for Southern Africa delegation, I was handed a health department leaflet advocating circumcision. The initiative to circumcise 175,000 men by December 2011 is based on studies suggesting this could reduce annual HIV incidence by 75% by 2025. But in Swaziland, where polygamy is commonplace, men often demand sexual favours from women in return for employing them, and less than 20% of people know their HIV status, these targets feel overambitious without a wider push for social change.

The economic downturn and the government's financial irresponsibility have exacerbated the HIV crisis. ARV supplies were recently reduced from three months to one month a person for each clinic visit. Travelling to collect ARVs is expensive and exhausting for people in poor, isolated rural areas.

You might expect the Global Fund, established to combat HIV by "directing resources to areas of greatest need", to prioritise Swaziland. But Hlophe says: "We keep crying out for answers, but we haven't received a response about where our Global Fund money is. We've now been waiting for nine months."

In reply, the Global Fund, whose last HIV grant disbursement was in April 2011, said they "will be engaging with Swapol to determine the way forward on their involvement" with phase two of the disbursement.

Allegations of corruption in January this year led to the Global Fund stalling grants – clearly problematic when it disburses funding through a body of Swaziland's undemocratic government – rather than giving directly to already overstretched NGOs such as Swapol.

It is down to the international community to sharpen its focus on Swaziland, lest women like Hlophe run out of steam – and HIV infections spiral upwards.

‘KING ROYALLY SCREWING SWAZILAND’

Huff Post, UK

Stephen Brown, Director of NGO Positive Women

8 September 2011

SOURCE

King Mswati III is royally screwing Swaziland

In August [2011] the South African government bailed out the small Kingdom of Swaziland to the alarming tune of R2.4b after the landlocked country lost a third of its revenue from a regional customs union. Most South Africans were bemused at propping up the undemocratic kingdom ruled by a man with more interest in what his wife is wearing than the schooling of thousands of orphans.

The plugging of Swaziland's budget deficit was already seen as somewhat peculiar given that according to Forbes magazine, the absolute ruler's estimated personal fortune is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

And this was all before the most distasteful part of the story even emerged, because King Mswati III is audaciously demanding commission on a loan he supposedly negotiated with the Government of South Africa, despite being the one accused of fiscal mismanagement.

Yes, Mswati argues that because he spearheaded the deal he should receive around R200m in commission. You can't help but wonder if he's been watching too much Blackadder or has been inspired by the dealings of one Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter.

Mswatti is the Cowboy King of Swaziland. While he lounges around his many palaces pleasuring the 14 young wives he's married, his country has collapsed. Let me break it down for you; Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence in the world with over a quarter of people aged between 15 and 49 living with the disease.

The impact of Swaziland's HIV/AIDS epidemic has been so severe that life expectancy is the lowest in the world2. The catastrophic effect of HIV and AIDS on Swaziland's mortality rates has created a society in which approximately 15%3 of the total population are orphans and vulnerable children, many of whom live in child-headed households. In short, Swaziland is a weak, starving nation with a greedy, gluttonous leader.

It's the type of situation that begs the question -why isn't Swaziland getting more international monetary support? But there lies the greatest of ironies. Whilst the Del Boy King of Swaziland bemoans his lack of commission on an emergency loan from South Africa, the reason Swaziland can't get more international support is because he's too wealthy. Yes, his wealth is so high that Swaziland is classified by the World Bank as a "middle-income country" meaning that the government can't work with other international institutions (insert optional 'FFS' here).

Mswati is literally royally screwing his country. He is presiding over a government of his choosing and under his influence spending international and government funding where he likes. The situation has become so ludicrous that even the usually sympathetic Global Fund is withholding money from the country, plunging thousands of organisations, like mine and the people we work with, into chaos and closure. These are the very people fighting to stop the loss of an entire generation to AIDS.

This is a Commonwealth country - an undemocratic member of the Commonwealth that bans all political parties, so you'd think our government would have something to say on it (assuming they could find it on the map). But a simple Google search shows you that we haven't heard a peep from either the Development Minister or the Foreign Affairs Minister about Swaziland since they came to office, which is odd given that countries such as Fiji have been threatened with expulsion from the Commonwealth for not holding free and fair elections.

But the people of Swaziland who for so long have remained silent, are beginning to stamp their feet. Just last May, whilst Mswati was toasting the future King William and his new bride at Buckingham Palace, thousands of ordinary Swazis took to the streets, despite the fiercest of police brutality, to argue for democracy.

And this week they're at it again, workers, trade unionists, ministers, civil society, teachers - all coming together to argue for a constitutional monarchy and democratic powers. And this is absolutely crucial because the people of Swaziland recognise that money isn't going to solve their problems on its own, it is politics. And they think the removal of the Cowboy King would be a good start.

Follow Stephen Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LordBrownof

SWAZI KING SHAME OF WEDDING INVITE

Kathryn Llewellyn, who runs a women’s rights charity in Swaziland called Positive Women, wrote this on her blog, reacting to news that King Mswati III of Swaziland had been invited to the British Royal Wedding this Friday.

SOURCE

25 April 2011

An invite to be ashamed of

I have had to rewrite this blog about 20 times. I was so angry the first few times I wrote it, that it barely made sense. I have had a week to reflect and with the help of the brilliant Paul Mason from Newsnight, who covered the story last week, there has been considerable noise made about this issue and I now feel calm enough to tell you about it.

I found out last week that the King of Swaziland has been invited to the Royal Wedding and that he would be attending with a large delegation of around 50 people and staying at the Dorchester Hotel in London. As many of your know I run a women’s rights charity in Swaziland called Positive Women and am desperately trying to help support some of the 80% of the population that live on less than $2 a day to work themselves out of poverty. It is infuriating to then see such extortionate amounts of money being spent on a trip to London at our monarchy’s request.

The people of Swaziland have bravely taken to the streets and demonstrated against the crisis the country is in. With the economy in serious trouble and human rights abuses sharply on the increase, is this really the right message we should be sending out?

Can you imagine the outcry if Mugabe was attending the wedding, or if Gadaffi was forgiven for the “big day” It is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to happen. We must not let this happen.

I have witnessed human rights abuses in Zimbabwe and let me tell you it is ugly – very ugly. But just as ugly is when it happens in Swaziland and trust me, it happens there too. Each life is important and each voice deserves to be heard, wherever it is speaking from.

The poverty I have witnessed in Swaziland has reduced me to tears. The people of Swaziland endure so much and for us to allow their King to come to the UK, at our request would be a huge blow to them. I for one will not let them suffer this complete lack of respect for their lives and their struggles, without a demonstration or two!

Swaziland has the lowest life expectancy in the world. Over 70% of the population live in absolute poverty. The people are demanding they have the right to hold the king and government accountable for public money that has gone missing yet when the king inflicts violence on his own people, the response of the UK is to invite him to the biggest national occasion of the year.

There is an important debate going on about UK foreign aid and corruption. Corruption is used as an argument against the UK giving aid to countries where it is desperately needed. Yet the message coming from our future King is that he is happy to invite to his wedding the corrupt leader of a country where people are lucky to see their 35^th birthday and where freedom of the press is a dirty word. This is just unacceptable.

Some of the amazing and brave people in Swaziland have asked if we could stage a protest in solidarity with them and talk to politicians in the UK, to see if we can at the very least highlight how grossly unfair and wrong it is that King Mswati III should be enjoying an extravagant trip to London, while the women and children we are fighting so hard to support, are left with no drugs in the clinics and are lucky if they see their 35^th birthday.

Please join us by adding your voice to our petition: www.positivewomen.org/petition and show the people of Swaziland that we support them and that their voices and lives are important.