13 May 2009
Workers in Lesotho's garment factories are staying healthy thanks to a HIV programme supported by DFID.
More than 40,000 people in the landlocked southern African country are employed in the garments industry, which every year produces millions of t-shirts, jeans and other high street staples for sale around the world.
These items are Lesotho's biggest earning exports, and business appears to be booming. Yet in the country's garments factories there is a health challenge that, as well as having a huge human cost, could stand in the way of the ongoing growth of the garments sector: the massive prevalence of HIV infection - more than 40% - among workers.
Prevention and treatment
The ALAFA programme aims to keep new infections down, at the same time as providing life-enhancing - and life-saving - care to those already living with HIV. The approach is comprehensive - taking in prevention, testing, counselling and treatment. It also goes directly into workplaces, ensuring that those who need help do not have trouble accessing it.
Liapeng Mpeke, a widow with a seven-year-old son, was one of those in need. She was tested for HIV in the factory where she works. "Being able to have healthcare at the factory has made a big difference to me," she says. "I am sick now and then, but much less frequently."
Like many who have received ALAFA care, Liapeng now acts as a peer educator on behalf of the programme, informing her colleagues about HIV prevention. After training from ALAFA, Mapitso Lepolesa too became a peer educator - a role that has worked wonders for her self-confidence. "Before I was trained, I was shy and not popular," she says. "But now I feel strong enough to join in the social life at the factory."
The difference that ALAFA can make is also being recognised by employers. "In a factory that manufactures apparel it is a great loss to have sick or absent employees," says Jennifer Chen, president of the Lesotho Textile Exporters Association. "All workers have the right to be looked after - and all the necessary provisions should be made for them."
Support from factory owners, the government and partners like DFID is now enabling ALAFA to reach out to even more textile workers, helping to keep Lesotho's garments industry a powerhouse of the national economy.
Facts and stats
- ALAFA stands for the Apparel Lesotho Alliance to Fight AIDS. The Alliance was launched in a pilot project in 2006, supported by DFID.
- At the end of 2008 DFID Southern Africa provided a grant of £2.55 million to the ALAFA programme.
- DFID is the primary contributor to ALAFA (giving a total of £2.88 million so far), and the programme is co-funded with the EC and Irish Aid.
- The programme covers 28 factories, of which 17 have full treatment programmes, including workplace policies and prevention programmes. Eighty-seven percent of the workers have access to prevention, and 63% to treatment. The programme's 90% target for both prevention and treatment is well in sight.
- International brands and retailers supporting ALAFA include GAP Inc, the Levi Strauss Foundation, EDUN, the Wal-Mart Foundation and the US retail chain Nordstrom.