Customer Reviews

HIV/Aids And Children in the English Speaking Caribbean (Journal of HIV/ AIDS Prevention & Education for Adolescents & Children)

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The title says it all: a handful of academics study AIDS and AIDS prevention regarding Anglophone Caribbean children. This is not Jamaica-centric; several islands are covered. The studies and statistics come in two forms: talk of preventing mother-to-child transmission and dealing with the sexual behavior of Caribbean teens. The studies are quite short in page length. However, those who don't care for statistics (remember chi squares?), this book may not be your cup of tea. Almost every chapter mentions when the first AIDS cases were found on various islands. This book is a good starting point that probably came from a much-needed and highly successful conference.

This book stresses that while AIDS in the Caribbean is not as huge a problem as in sub-Saharan Africa, it is the next greatest affected world region. Yes, Black Africa and Black America are occasionally brought up as comparisons (for example, the book states that drug use is a greater cause of AIDS' spread in Black America than in the Caribbean), but Thailand is often cited as a good model for Caribbean AIDS activists and health officials to follow. Then again, while the book mentions that the Caribbean is not entirely black, the studies never once mention non-Black, HIV-positive Caribbeans. These comparisons tell a lot about how a nation or region sees itself.

What's so saddening, but I guess unsurprising, is the stark poverty and sexism mentioned here. If mothers can't afford milk formula, then they risk spreading HIV to their children via breast milk. HIV-positive children die quickly if there is no one who can pay for AZT and other drugs. Near the beginning, a male writer noted that Caribbean boys said with pride, "Sex is for male pleasure and female pain." Wives can't encourage their philandering husbands to wear condemns in this often macho and chauvinist culture.

I freely acknowledge that heterosexual sex is the main transmission method in the region. However, this book downplays male-to-male sexual contact, to an extent. First, it acknowledges that most HIV-positive Caribbeans are male, but then goes on to focus on women and children. I wonder if it's somehow safer to talk about those groups under the guise that they are "innocent" AIDS carriers. With hatemongers like Shabba Ranks and Buju Banton and the huge numbers of Caribbean gays who flee to North America and Europe to escape homophobic oppression, something should have been said about how homophobia may play a role in AIDS' spread in the island, but it never comes up here. I'm suspicious as to why. This is especially odd when this book is produced by a very gay-friendly press.