Article Notes: Hammar, Lawrence

Epilogue: Homegrown in PNG: Rural Responses to HIV and AIDS
Lawrence Hammar

Many of the villages studied (along the western coast near the Indonesian border) seemed to accept medical explanations of disease and incorporate them into their traditional worldview. But this does not seem to be complete, with some blame being placed on sorcery. Additionally, AIDS is being used more in punitive and condemnatory ways. (See previous article Warrior Women.) AIDS sufferers are often protrayed in ways akin to horror film victims in the West.

Additionally, while condoms are promoted, the culture seems to think using them is only useful in immoral situations. Even more, condoms become maligned and misinformation about their efficacy is promoted. Sometimes they are even blamed for spreading the disease.

While the women in some places have taken the initiative to condem irresponsible sexual practices, in other areas men condemn women as witches when men die for unknown reasons (that get blamed on AIDS). Outsiders get blamed from bringing it in, and insides get named sorcerors or witches.

The government response has been typically to count and catalogue sexual activity and STD infections, rather than to truely study what is and is not causing infection. Health facilities, often run or attached to churches, have condoms stocked, but do not dispense them to the public because the local churches are against it. Rather, abstience is taught, even in cases of infected spouses. Additionally, netsa marasin ("natural medicine") is promoted.

The highest infection rates are in married couples. The men go out of village for work, where they acquire it throughe extra-marital sex and bring it home to their wife (or wives). The wives then pass it on to their children. However, men find their medical information kept private while women find theirs leaked to the press and other settings, either for the benefit of an institution designed to help women out of sex work or through Warrior Women or similar visionaries. And yet, national efforts do not call husbands out on this behavior and label it "high-risk".

Complicating matters are inconsistent views about sex throughout the country. Some areas are relatively sex-positive (in that the sexual act is good in and of itself), however larger areas are negative on the acts of sex but positive on the outcomes and uses of sex (procreation, bride wealth, etc.).

Since women are supposed to be submissive, how can they abstain when a man is demanding sex? (Regardless of whether they want it or not.)

Educational materials rarely actually have useful messages. Also, very little is done to study if the written billboards/signs are useful in a oral society. A lot is also controlled by international aid and may or may not be applicable to a PNG lifestyle and worldview. For example, it may be designed for multiple govenrment services to come together to help a group but ignore the PNG divisions based on denomination, tribe, and family.

Culturally, men are to be mobile and women static. That said, mobile men are viewed as a possible source of disease. Mobile women are assumed to be sexually promiscuous. It is also believed that sexual sins (extra-marital sex, specifically) causes the disease, however it only causes it for the one sinning (not their spouse).