Living with HIV and Advocating for Health Rights in Urban Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT

This paper explores intersections between the HIV and human rights in Zimbabwe, a country with a high HIV prevalence and a contested human rights record. In-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with 60 people living in poor communities in the capital, Harare, are used to explore their lived experiences of HIV. The participants’ responses indicate the essential role that human rights play in successfully living and surviving with HIV. We identify health-rights standards and use a rights-based analysis to discuss a range of health-related concerns, in particular, those related to treatment and the social mediation of disadvantage. The social determinants of health and structural violence conceptually frame our understanding of the participants’ accounts of successes and failures in relation to poverty reduction, gendered disadvantage, discrimination and public health and illustrate how the individual and collective agency generated by rights-based empowerment can improve health and well-being in difficult political and social environments.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the study participants and like to acknowledge the support of Mr E. Magade, Dean, Law School, University of Zimbabwe; Tecla Barangwe of the Medical and Professional Workers Union; and Mrs Jane Murimirwa, Administrator of the Commercial Law Institute, University of Zimbabwe.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Stephen Mark O’Brien http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0703-6615

Notes

1 The CD4 count is a clinical test which measures the number of CD4 cells in the blood to indicate the effectiveness of, or need, for a patient to start ART.