The goal of the Elisabeth Glaser
Pediatric AIDS Foundation is to eradicate pediatric
AIDS through education, research, public policy, and by providing funds for programs. Their work is tremendous in its breadth and feasibility of application. But they face steep opposition, even beyond the disease itself, from established cultures in highly infected countries.
In the small south African country of Zimbabwe, the common belief is that having sex with a virgin girl can cure AIDS. Local spiritual leaders, community leaders, and even billboards preach this home remedy. The ingredients are as follows: Take a virgin girl, preferably one of young age, rape her, take her virgin blood, mix it with a few herbs, drink it, and live a long happy life without AIDS.Virgin girls can range in age from one day old to 92 years of age and anywhere in between. There have been reported cases of all of these ages being raped and having their blood used to "cure" their attacker of AIDS.
Disturbingly, the rape of young innocent girls isn't the most haunting part - the fact that these girls become HIV positive and give birth to young girls of their own is the truly upsetting part. Not only does the practice of raping for a cure create a society of hate and a population of women degraded and fearful, but it also breeds a whole new generation of HIV positive children.
Despite information otherwise, men continue to rape girls in the belief that they will be cured, men continue to impregnate children, and men continue to create new generations of HIV positive babies. This is the kind of thing that the Elisabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation has to confront beyond simply educating about how to prevent transmission. They are confronting cultural discontinuities and hoping to make the world a brighter place for all children, whether in regards to their birth or their sexual development. Needless to say, it's not an easy task.
Check out the trailer for Tapestries for Hope, a documentary about the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe that helps empower girls that were raped and is trying to eliminate the superstition of virgin blood as an AIDS cure:
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