Rural Haiti Essay

The culture, poverty, and HIV representation in Haiti is very devastating and HIV is the main cause in Haiti based on the article titled, “Culture, Poverty, and HIV Transmission, The Case of Rural Haiti” because it is a sexual transmitted infection that creates a deadly plague among people in Haiti. Factors such as culture, politic and economic factors have an impact in particularly addressing HIV transmission in rural Haiti; however, to understand this urban epidemic. Farmer proposes that we must move beyond risk groups and focus on the interplay of human agency and the low assess of medical services that can be a draw-back in the Haiti public health system. Farmer’s article begins with the history of Haiti. The author stated, “Haiti is based people living in the rural areas, and is known as the poorest country through political dislocations and that is conspired to the risen of HIV infection (Paul Farmer, 1999, p.242). Throughout the article, the author state a village name Do kay that have accounted of a 3 types of diagnosed HIV Haitians ; Anita, Dieudonne ,and Acephie. For example, taking the story of Dieudonne, he had been sleeping with different type of females and wasn’t careful and later died of AIDS and it also mentioned that each of the 3 Haitians slept with many partners which is related to their history of sexual
contact. For me, each story of the 3 HIV diagnosed Haitians were very sad because seem like people in Haiti are hopeless because there is a very low progression of the precaution toward HIV disease. Farmer (1999) noted even condoms are even not available for those that want it and even antiviral drugs are unavailable to most Haitians. Truly, poverty puts young adults, and especially young women, at risk of contracting HIV.
Toward the demographic or socioeconomic status, one’s occupation can be a keys to get anything he or she want. Like soldiers, landholders and truck drivers had a much higher risk of HIV infection than peasants. Women often rely on this type of men partner who have these occupations, which can be a desperate way to escape poverty. That why Famer (1999), stated that the majority of infected HIV patients are women (p.244). The risk factors for HIV in Haiti seemed to be living in Port-au-Prince, work as servant, and sexual contact with
nonpeasants. Lastly, Farmer talks about how HIV in terms of population pressures, economic pressures, patterns of sexual union, gender inequality, Political Disruptions, Other cultural considerations, concurrent disease and access to medical services are all part of the dynamics of HIV transmission in rural areas in Haiti. There can be a much approach toward the population of Haiti when studying HIV. There should be less focus on local actors and local factors as this might exaggerate the agency of the poor. To eliminate HIV transmission, poverty and gender inequality throughout the Haitian population, anthropologists must set a certain goals to be more involved in HIV/AIDS prevention, able to see which city in Haiti this burden HIV disease is affecting the most and able to concentrate more in the linking of sexual choices by individual through local sexualities but also on economic aspects shaping the AIDS pandemic.