Women Being Cheated Into Marriage By HIV-Positive Men - MP

The Namibian (Windhoek)

March 20, 2003
Posted to the web March 20, 2003

Chrispin Inambao

A SWAPO parliamentarian claims that some women are being cheated into marriage by men who lie about their HIV status.

Jeremiah Nambinga, who is also Deputy Minister of Prisons, said in the National Assembly on Tuesday that some men fraudulently gave themselves clean bills of health by falsifying their HIV-positive status.

Nambinga said he knew of some "girls who had undertaken to go for voluntary (HIV) tests when planning to get married. However, some of them have been betrayed by their fiancees".

Nambinga, who was speaking during debate on the Budget, said: "What is happening, and this is not a rumour, is that a man who knows that he is HIV-positive but who wants to get married would ask a friend of his who is HIV-negative to go for a test to get a medical doctor's health certificate that he is HIV-negative".

"The end result is that he will get married and of course infect the poor woman," charged the politician.

He said the problem arises from the fact that people who go for voluntary HIV tests are not required to produce IDs leaving the whole exercise open to abuse.

Nambinga also agreed with a suggestion by another ruling party parliamentarian, Hifikepunye Pohamba, that the status of people who died from HIV-AIDS should be made known at their funerals to amplify the magnitude of the pandemic.

He said their status should also be revealed so that people, particularly the youth, can know that HIV-AIDS is killing the people.

A summary on a recent study on the municipalities of Ongwediva, Oshakati, Swakopmund, Walvis Bay and Windhoek says Namibia "is already severely affected by HIV-AIDS, and this is set to worsen".

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