Miss HIV Stigma Free Pageant

This summary of two media reports highlights the use of a beauty pageant held in Botswana to challenge misconceptions about people living with HIV/AIDS.

Miss HIV Stigma Free Pageant crowned its third winner in 2005. According to a report on an earlier competition, "[l]ocal opinion surveys show that many people support the removal of teachers who have the virus and would avoid shopping at stores with HIV staff....The pageant's organiser Kesego Basha, herself HIV positive, said she hoped the contest, now in its second year, will change that and press home the point that having the disease does not prevent women from being beautiful and attractive."

Kesego Basha-Mubeli, founder of the HIV/AIDS advocacy group Centre for Youth and Hope, in 2002 conceived the idea of a pageant for HIV-positive women "as a fun way to educate people about the need to erase stigma" surrounding HIV/AIDS.

Miss HIV Stigma Free reigning queen is expected to challenge misconceptions and stigma associated with people living with HIV/AIDS in the country. The winner travels around the country teaching the "importance of testing" and "how to live positively with HIV.” The aim of the competition is to show people living with HIV/AIDS that "even if you are HIV-positive, you can do things like others."

As stated in a report on the 2005 competition, "[t]his combination of sequins and unadorned honesty, startling anywhere in the world, is especially unusual in Africa." In 2002, Botswana launched a national programme to provide antiretroviral medications to HIV-positive residents. AIDS advocates said that the government realised that drugs and testing centres do not provide all of the answers. HIV prevalence in Botswana is 37.4% the second highest in the world after Swaziland and life expectancy in the nation has dropped to age 37. Kgalalelo Ntsepe, the outgoing Miss HIV Stigma Free, has lectured in schools and companies around Botswana and visited Kenya, Uganda, and Thailand to talk about AIDS.