Children and stigmaAIDS-related stigma is a major contributor to the health and psychosocial well-being of children affected by AIDS. Whilst it is often suggested that AIDS-affected children may be stigmatised by other children, to date no research focuses specifically on child-on-child stigma. As such, the Manicaland HIV Project set out to explore how Zimbabwean children represent AIDS-affected peers, examining (i) whether or not they stigmatise, (ii) the forms stigma takes, and (iii) the existence of non-stigmatising representations that might serve as resources for stigma-reduction interventions.
The study is informed by a theory of change which accords a central role to community-level debate and dialogue in challenging and reframing stigmatising representations. The study is on going. The first phase looked specifically at children representations of AIDS-affected children and took place in late 2008. 50 children (aged 10-12) were asked to “draw a picture of a child whose family has been affected by AIDS in any way”, and to write short stories about their drawings. Thematic analysis of stories and drawings revealed frequent references to stigmatisation of AIDS-affected children – with other children refusing to play with them, generally keeping their distance and bullying them. However children also frequently showed a degree of empathy and respect for AIDS-affected children’s caring roles and for their love and concern for their AIDS-infected parents. We argue that a key strategy for stigma-reduction interventions is to open up social spaces in which group members (in this case children) can identify the diverse and contradictory ways they view a stigmatised out-group, providing opportunities for them to exercise agency in collectively challenging and renegotiating negative representations. In 2010 the second phase of the project saw the inclusion of children's drawings and representations of poverty. The aim with this second phase is to untancle the relationship between HIV/AIDS-related stigma and the stigma of poverty by examining whether children’s representations of children affected by AIDS or poverty is largely down to poverty or whether an affiliation to AIDS adds something extra and beyond this. Methodologically, both studies revealed that contrary to the common view that drawings enable children to achieve greater emotional expression than written stories, children’s drawings tended to be comparatively stereotypical and normative. It was in written stories that children most eloquently expressed meanings and emotions, and an awareness of the complexity of the scenarios they portrayed. Selected publications Campbell, C. Skovdal, M., Mupambireyi, Z and Gregson, S. (2010) “Exploring children’s representations of stigma and AIDS-affected children in Zimbabwe through drawings and stories” Social Science and Medicine 71(5):975-985 | access |  People involved |
Here is a selection of drawings made by the participating children. The children were asked to "draw a picture of a child whose family has been affected by AIDS in any way". No further prompts were given, so children were free to express their views - either from their own experiencem or from third person or fictitious stories. Thereafter children were asked to write short stories about the drawings.
|
