August 2001 Insights Gender Violence Special Issue

Mixed Messages

Can education spearhead the fight against HIV/AIDS? In Uganda the government uses the national curriculum to promote sexual health in schools. Yet if school culture reinforces gender inequality - a fundamental cause of HIV spread - will government strategy work? Are schools a risk factor in the spread of this deadly virus?

Research from the University of Birmingham, using an ethnographic approach with fifty 13 to 18 year old pupils in an elite coeducational government boarding school in Uganda, revealed extensive gendered practices which themselves constitute a risk to sexual health. The context of male domination and power imbalances between men and women within the school culture means that the extensive high knowledge that Ugandan schoolchildren have concerning HIV infection may count for nothing given the reality of a risky situation.

Gendered practices at the school include:

• preference for male pupils and male teachers in leadership roles
• restricted access for girls to 'high status' knowledge (for example science)
• different disciplinary measures for boys and girls
• strict 'policing' of girls' sexuality by the school authorities, for example, what to wear, how to sit in public, how to talk to boys
• sexual harassment goes unchallenged by staff
• in class, boys control the language and physical space of girls, forcing them into silence
• girls endure insults whenever they speak in class.

Outside the classroom discrimination is reinforced by graffiti on walls, girls being touched on all parts of the body and degradation of the female body through abusive language and forced sex. The message for boys is clear: girls are 'available'. Social conformity to ideals of male leadership, manhood and male rights to sex are integral to school culture, and passed on through the generations to boys and girls.

Contradicting common cultural practice in schools is the new HIV/AIDS curriculum. Central to the 'official' message is that negotiation and partnership in sexual relationships are fundamental to HIV prevention strategies. Negotiation and partnership, however, require equal power and status between partners. Endemic harassment denies girls the right to make a choice, voice independence, or fight back on an equal standing. The inevitability of boy-girl relationships, the fact that girls have no choice but to follow a boy's lead puts them in the direct path of HIV infection, pregnancy or a violent relationship. To refuse a boy's advances is courting the risk of taunting, abusive language, physical harassment or assault.

A better understanding of patriarchy and gender roles in Uganda and their contribution to the AIDS epidemic is crucial. Equally important is the urgency for the Ministry of Education to address gender inequality within schools and to promote democratic learning in sex and HIV/AIDS education programmes within the curricula.

Practical suggestions for education policy include the need for:

• the school curriculum to address a wider concept of sexual health including positive aspects (such as sexual orientation and the good sides of sex)
• sex education to be taught in single-sex groups to give pupils greater freedom to discuss sensitive issues and greater control of their learning
• a whole school approach (human rights, family planning, democratic learning) that challenges the social injustices brought about by gender discrimination to help reduce pupils' vulnerability
• teacher training colleges to include courses that explore ways in which gender discrimination can be challenged within schools the government to embark on serious gender mainstreaming
• initiatives offering equal opportunities for all.

Robina Mirembe
King's College Budo
Kampala
Uganda
T +256 77 483 000
F +256 41 273 993
r.mirembe@infocom.co.ug