Condemned, invisible and isolated: Stigma and Support for People Living with HIV in Khartoum

In 2001, and again in 2006, the UN committed to increasing the availability worldwide of HIV treatment, care, and support, with the concrete ambition of providing HIV treatment to everybody who needs it by 2010. However,
the majority of people in developing countries do not know their HIV status, and do not access treatment even when it is freely available. Many refuse testing through fear – fear of HIV, and fear of the stigma surrounding not only those who test positive, but the act of seeking a test. Without widespread knowledge of HIV status, and without interventions to address stigma and
the difficulties of living with HIV, the UN goals will never be met, and access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support will remain the preserve of a small minority.
Nonetheless, stigma often seriously undermines many efforts to deal with HIV. While countries such as Senegal, Thailand and Uganda have all shown that open discussion of HIV can help to turn the epidemic around, the associations made between HIV and sex, drug use and other behaviours and practices deemed ‘immoral’ often leads to a reluctance amongst authorities – state, secular and religious – to address HIV in an open and non-judgemental
way.