Southern Africa joins several countries in the world to commemorate Mother’s Day on May 9. This is a special day for honouring mothers throughout the world. It is that time of the year when people take time to spoil the women who matter in their lives.
For the media, Mother’s Day presents an opportunity to allow the voices of the women and the mothers to be heard. This is the time when southern Africa and the rest of the world should be paying attention to the hardships facing African women everyday of their lives.
Many mothers do not have anyone to run around and get them a present this Mother’s Day as they have lost all their children to AIDS. Many more are failing to access treatment or even to access Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission programmes so that their babies can have a chance at being HIV negative.
  According to UNAIDS in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, women account for approximately 60% of estimated HIV infections (UNAIDS/WHO 2009 AIDS Epidemic Update).   The organisation says women’s vulnerability to HIV in sub-Saharan Africa stems not only from their greater physiological susceptibility to heterosexual transmission, but also to the severe social, legal and economic disadvantages they often confront. A recent comprehensive epidemiological review undertaken in connection with the modes of transmission study in Lesotho found that sexual and physical violence is a key determinant of the country’s severe HIV epidemic. According to a recent survey, 47% of men and 40% of women in Lesotho say women have no right to refuse sex with their husbands or boyfriend. Refusing to have sex for many women has led to their being battered or even murdered. As people commemorate Mother’s Day, the media needs to bring all these issues to the fore.
Would it not be a special Mother’s Day present for all women if the media celebrates this Mother’s Day by allowing the women’s voices to be heard? For once if all headline stories would focus on women, Africa would have commemorated Mother’s Day in a special way. We all know that by bringing life onto this world women are playing a special role.
If women were to stop having children, what would it mean for the world? But if you look around are women being supported through pregnancy and after birth. Are policies in place to ensure that women do not get penalised for having children in the workplace and communities?
The Media Resource Desk would like to throw out a challenge to the media practitioners this Mother’s Day. Instead of focusing only on events and the politics, let us do something different this year and hear what the women have to say.
Let us bring out those stories that are never told of women who have managed against all odds to raise their children amidst difficulties never imagined, of little girls who have had motherhood thrust upon them by circumstances, let us bring out stories of those women who have taken on a mother’s role in their communities- by spearheading home based care programmes and feeding schemes, among others.
Let us applaud the women who have gone to get tested for HIV before pregnancy in a bid to ensure that their babies are born HIV negative. Let us champion women living with HIV who have gone through the PMTCT programmes so that their babies could have chance at being HIV negative. Can we this Mother’s Day talk to the many mothers who have emerged in the form of grandmothers, aunts, cousins and adoptive mothers, among others and hear their stories?
Can we go the extra mile and advocate for the rights of all women, to healthcare, to food, shelter and life, among other things?
For more information on Mother’s Day and its origins as well as other women’s issues visit your local women’s organisations, ministries of gender or women affairs and talk to the women around you.
Additional sources:
www.dayformothers.com
www.safaids.net
www.un.org/womenwatch
www.internationalwomen’sday.com
www.unaids.org