HIV/AIDS continues to spread throughout the world, shadowed by increasing challenges to human rights at both national and global levels. The virus continues to be marked by discrimination against population groups; those who live on the fringes of society or who are assumed to be at risk of infection because of behaviors, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or social characteristics that are stigmatized in a particular society.
In most of the world discrimination also jeopardizes equitable distribution of access to HIV related tools for prevention and care including drugs necessary for HIV/AIDS care. As the number of people living with HIV and AIDS continues to grow with different social structures and legal systems as is the case in Botswana, HIV/AIDS related human rights issues are not only becoming more apparent, but also becoming increasingly diverse. Botswana is finding itself at cross roads in trying to comprehend with the complex issues that are beginning to emerge such as homosexuality and prostitution.
The historical development of HIV/AIDS in Botswana remains a jig saw puzzle with the first case reported around 1985 in the small mining town of Selibe Phikwe, which to this day remains the vortex of AIDS epidemic. Botswana’s response to the HIV/AIDS was slow which may have contributed to the highest rates of morbidity and mortality. HIV/AIDS did not know boundaries and HIV/AIDS related burials became a weekend special and a common place for social gathering. Life expectancy drooped significantly to lower levels, quality of life declined with the old and the young left as care givers. As a result of that Botswana could not just continue watching as its people were dying. As noted by Dr Patson Mazonde…If we did nothing we could lose the country’, (New York Times June 14 2004).
In October 2011, Mogae made utterances at the National Aids Council (NAC) that shocked and stunned the Botswana Nation when he called for explicit decriminalization of the nation’s sodomy. He became sympathetic to Men who have sex with Men (MSM) as well as commercial sex workers and also called for provision of condoms in prisons as they argue sometimes great changes results from small actions. Mogae said the Church way does not work and has failed in history and therefore, it was deceitful for anyone to think there was no homosexuality.
Cognitive psychologists distinguish between “general” and “phenomenal” realities. The former refers to the actual bases of existence. The latter refers to “the constellation of thoughts, perceptions, and feelings” which make up each person’s “constructed reality”. The physical environment, other people’s behavior, even one’s own qualities as an individual all enter into this construction and are taken as true. Commentators have argued that we each create our own reality, and this is nowhere more true than in the way we identify problems or issues, and interpret and relate them to our mental map of some larger situation.” Whilst Mogae opened up a dialogue and setup a tone and an agenda for discussion and adoption advocating for policy change for the ostensible beneficiaries who are often at high risk and sometimes called the ‘voiceless poor’ his actions were viewed with great suspicion. Mogae’s commitment to his call was also questioned as to why he saw it fit to present such a topic.┬á ┬áOthers argued from a moral stand and questioned whether gays and lesbianism is not Un-African and against the call of nature.
Mogae was also criticized on the basis that his presentation was not backed up by detailed comprehensive action plan neither was it supported by evidence based research and availability of scientific data. The only thing that┬á Mogae did they stated was his acknowledgement that during his tenure in office he had instructed the police not to harass and arrest prostitutes because in his view, ‘police have better things to do than to chase people engaged in consensual transaction….after all prostitution is a service in demand’. He had also stated that sex work did not violate human rights and should not be confused with social norms. Thus decriminalizing sex work was merely being humane to those who had been forced into the vice by protecting them and regulating the industry.
From the foregoing, it is important to note that the uses of language are crucial to the political analysis of public policy making and problem definition. Language is essential to understanding, argument, and individual and group expression, which all figure into the definitions of social problems for public attention. This is mainly due to the fact individuals, groups and societies tend to place interpretations upon reality interpretations which may or may not be true in absolute sense. Mogae’s presentation was primarily focused on the right to health of prostitutes and gays as high risk populations and their access to health services. Mogae did not talk about the problems and challenges encountered by the commercial sex work profession in areas where it is legalized and regulated. He did not spell out whether sex workers as legitimate parties would be in a position to discuss their conditions of service and neither did he discuss the vulnerability of women who are at greater risks because of men who are husbands during the day and gays at night (hidden behaviors). Economic needs, lower social status, biological vulnerability, structural, social and cultural issues sometimes forces poor women into risk work of transactional sex and these should be the focus and not promotion of women to sell their bodies in a market place. Life style, drug use and the desire to keep up with fashion and maintain some high life status are some of the issues that need to be addressed among men who have sex with men. There is a high rate of cross border prostitution as well as the influx of illegal immigrants who are providing cheap sex in the capital city. Access to pornography has brought in explorative sexual practices where sodomy is even practiced by heterosexuals. International travel to meetings and conferences has also exposed and introduced many people to the world of commercial sex, where frequents visits are made to sex shops for sexual pleasures using the per diem.
 
*Thabo Lucas Seleke is researcher in Health Policy & Health Systems Strengthening 
