Ghana marks International Discrimination Day

Prof. S.K Annim, Government Stastiscian

More than 70 per cent of females and males aged between 15 and 49 who have heard about Human Immune Virus (HIV) discriminate against people living with the disease, the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has stated.

This is contained in a statement issued by the GSS in Accra yesterday and copied to the Ghanaian Times to mark the International Discrimination Day, which is observed on March 1 in Ghana every year.

The statement which shed light on discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV, said almost eight in every 10 (78.4 percent) females and seven in every 10 (72.1 per cent) males aged 15-49 who had heard about HIV “Have discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV.”

“Discriminatory attitudes is the inclination that children living with HIV should not attend school with children who are HIV negative or would not buy fresh vegetables from a shopkeeper who has HIV. The percentage with discriminatory attitudes is higher in rural areas (85.5 per cent for females and 78.1 per cent for males) compared to urban (73.4 per cent for females and 67.3 per cent of males),” the GSS said.

The statement said among females aged 15 to 49 in eight regions – Ahafo (87.0 per cent), Savannah (86.8 per cent), Oti (86.4 per cent), North East (85.9 per cent), Northern (85.7 per cent), Upper West (83.8 per cent), Western North (84.4 per cent) and Upper East (80.1 per cent), more than four in five had discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV.

In comparison, the GSS said three regions – North East (85.2 per cent), Northern (83.1 per cent) and Oti (81.5 per cent) had more than four in five males aged 15-49 with discriminatory attitudes towards people living with HIV.

“Persons with more education are less likely to show discriminatory attitudes towards people with HIV as the percentage of persons with discriminatory attitudes who have no education is more than twice that of persons with secondary education or more,” the GSS said.

It said discriminatory attitudes among females aged 15-49 ranged from 91.5 percent for those with no education, decreases through primary (89.3 per cent), secondary (78.9 per cent) then more than secondary (44.8 per cent).

“Across type of sex, discriminatory attitudes among males aged 15-49 with no education is 90.0 percent, compared to 86.8 percent for those with primary education, 73.6 percent for secondary education and 43.4 percent among those with secondary or more education,” the statement said.

The GSS said discriminatory attitudes towards people with HIV decreased with wealth and was highest among females aged 15-49 with the lowest wealth quintile (91.3 per cent), followed by those in the second (88.1 per cent), middle (83.3 per cent), fourth (73.5 per cent) and those in the highest quintile (63.7 per cent), recording the lowest percentage.

The GSS said among for males, 84.9 percent in the lowest quintile had the highest discriminatory attitudes towards people with HIV compared to those in the second (79.5 per cent), middle (73.8 per cent), fourth (71.3 per cent) and the highest quintile (52.7 per cent).

BY TIMES REPOTER

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