Paper long abstract:

The first cases of HIV and AIDS to be documented in East Africa in 1982 came from a fishing village on the Ugandan shores of Lake Victoria. However, it is only in recent years that it has been recognised that the people living near the lakes in Uganda have been severely affected by the impact of HIV and AIDS. Many of the men, women and children living on the lake shores are engaged in fisheries-related activities. A recent global literature review and a situation analysis in Uganda show that prevalence rates of HIV among fisherfolk are between 4-14 times higher than national prevalence rates. The vulnerability of fisherfolk to HIV and AIDS stems from causes that include mobility, time away from home, access to a daily cash income in an overall context of poverty and vulnerability, demographic profile, the ready availability of commercial sex at landing sites and fishing ports and the sub-cultures of risk-taking and hyper-masculinity among some fishermen. The subordinate economic and social position of women in many fishing communities in low-income countries makes them even more vulnerable to infection than men. There is a danger in such `life-style' summaries that we characterise `fisherfolk' as feckless risk takers. Such a characterisation may prejudice policymakers and affect access to treatment and care as well as prevention support in places where all such resources are in short supply. In this paper we look behind the statistics to the lives of some men, women and children living in lake-side communities in Uganda severely affected by HIV and AIDS to try to illustrate some of the complexity of their day to day lives within `fishing communities' that generalisations mask.