AIDS Now Compels Africa to Challenge Widows' 'Cleansing' - New York Times

For those of you who attended my talk on Africa to Reno Surgical Society last week, you will find this an interesting article that illustrates the fact that a large majority of AIDS patients are victims in one sense or another and that empowering women is probably a good way to break the AIDS cycle in Africa...
AIDS Now Compels Africa to Challenge Widows' 'Cleansing' - New York Times: "Here and in a number of nearby nations including Zambia and Kenya, a husband's funeral has long concluded with a final ritual: sex between the widow and one of her husband's relatives, to break the bond with his spirit and, it is said, save her and the rest of the village from insanity or disease. Widows have long tolerated it, and traditional leaders have endorsed it, as an unchallenged tradition of rural African life.
Now AIDS is changing that. Political and tribal leaders are starting to speak out publicly against so-called sexual cleansing, condemning it as one reason H.I.V. has spread to 25 million sub-Saharan Africans, killing 2.3 million last year alone. They are being prodded by leaders of the region's fledging women's rights movement, who contend that lack of control over their sex lives is a major reason 6 in 10 of those infected in sub-Saharan Africa are women.
But change is coming slowly, village by village, hut by hut. In a region where belief in witchcraft is widespread and many women are taught from childhood not to challenge tribal leaders or the prerogatives of men, the fear of flouting tradition often outweighs even the fear of AIDS. "