“AIDS is transmitted through love feelings, and you should wear special clothes not to catch it,” Moldovan villagers tell pollsters

Most of the people in Molovata Noua village from Dubasari district don’t know much and don’t dare to talk about the HIV AIDS infection, Info-Prim Neo has learnt from a poll carried out by a team of journalists in the locality. Most of the young respondents (60%), aged between 13 and 20, say they have heard of HIV AIDS, but are not sure of the information they have. Other young respondents specify they don’t know exactly what AIDS is, saying they have heard this infection is transmitted through love feelings, and you should wear special clothes not to catch it. Other way to protect you from AIDS is “to buy condoms from the bar”. There are some 12 bars in Molovata Noua. Yet, the youth from Molovata believe it’s a shame to buy condoms from bars, saying they are disapprovingly looked at by bartenders and customers alike. However, women selling in Molovata’s bars say mainly the youths buy condoms: about 20 pieces a day. Villagers maintain they cannot buy contraceptives, neither other medicines in drug-stores, as there is none in their village. Yet, adult men from the locality say they know everything they need about HIV AIDS, although they don’t think it is necessary to use contraceptives daily, leaving the problem to women, or to the fate. The adult men acknowledge they won’t have the courage to make friends with AIDS-infected people. On the other hand, most of the interviewed women would accept HIV-infected, reasoning those are people, too. Women aged 45-60 say they have not heard of such an infection and neither do they need to learn, as they are “decent women, with own houses, children and husbands”, and so they have no chance to catch the disease. They opine only prostitutes, drug addicts and alcoholics can get infected. Polling the villagers from Molovata Noua has been carried out by a team of Moldovan journalists participating in an informing session on reproductive health organized on April 11-13 by the UN Fund for Population in Moldova. Molovata village has 1,851 inhabitants.