1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000 Women make up half of the world's population, more than 3 billion people. 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:14,000 Yet in many countries, the lives of women are in jeopardy as they face some of the greatest health challenges ever. 3 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:23,000 In this episode of 21st Century, we'll take you on a journey across time zones to witness the battles waged on women's bodies, 4 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:29,000 to see what risks they face and to discover how they can overcome adversity. 5 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:40,000 First, we visit Lake Victoria in Kenya, a bustling community where secret sexual deals have devastating consequences. 6 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:46,000 The struggle to survive is fierce on Nadeda Island. 7 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:55,000 Women fighting each other, all desperate to get their hands on a few fish to sell. 8 00:00:55,000 --> 00:01:05,000 Here alongside Lake Victoria in Kenya, the men may work the boats, but the women work the market. 9 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:10,000 Securing fish cheap is only half the battle. 10 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:16,000 Guaranteeing a space on the roof of the crowded bus en route to market is another. 11 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:25,000 The rivalry here is so intense, says this fish vendor, that many women are forced to do almost anything to win. 12 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:33,000 Some women have sexual relations with the driver to ensure their fish gets to the market. 13 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:45,000 There are even some women who have a relationship with the fisherman, the bus driver and the vendor at the market. 14 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:55,000 It's called the Jaboya system. Poor women forced to trade sex for a better chance to secure and sell their products. 15 00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:02,000 It's a system that is devastating this island and is threatening its very existence. 16 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:15,000 Making matters worse, some women, like this one, not only work the system, but after a day at the market, they're on the lookout for a different kind of catch. 17 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:22,000 I have two businesses. First I go to the beach, and if I don't catch a fish, I will surely catch a man. 18 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:33,000 Bartering sex, selling sex. Its effects are seen here in this hospital in nearby Bondo, where so many islanders are hospitalized in the late stages of AIDS. 19 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:45,000 An already overwhelmed facility, the hospital has just two doctors for a quarter of a million people, is burdened even more by the sheer volume of HIV-positive people they receive every day from the beaches. 20 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:55,000 Most of the patients who come from the beach who are fishermen, most of them, around 70 percent of them, usually test positive. 21 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:06,000 Half the population of Nededa Island has already died of AIDS. 22 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:13,000 And helping to spread the disease, the fact that many of the men here have multiple Jaboya partners. 23 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:18,000 What's more, many also have multiple wives. 24 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:33,000 This is the grave for my co-wife, who died in the year 2002. And this is the grave for my husband. He was positive. Yeah. He had AIDS. 25 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:43,000 The Jaboya system is not a good system, but I am a widow with children. With no other means of income, I am forced to use this system. 26 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:54,000 Julia, whose husband also died of AIDS, is yet to tell her lover that she is HIV-positive. 27 00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:00,000 She believes the consequences would be catastrophic for her and her young family. 28 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:07,000 I haven't told him about my status, because he will leave me if he knows I am positive. 29 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:16,000 AIDS awareness workers like Lazarus Uma do travel the beaches and islands trying to hammer home the message of prevention. 30 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:25,000 But his message often falls on deaf ears, as many here still deny the existence of HIV, 31 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:30,000 believing the disease to be a curse visited on those people who break customary law. 32 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:39,000 So they still go on doing their sexual immoralities without any preventive methods, because they think they are OK? OK. 33 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:43,000 Some customers like to use condoms, while others refuse to use them. 34 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:48,000 The ones who don't use them pay more. I would rather go with the ones that pay more. 35 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:53,000 I don't fear death, because death is waiting for all of us. 36 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:01,000 AIDS can infect me or the person I'm with at any time, so I carry on and have sex without fear. 37 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:07,000 And the reality of death is never far away. 38 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:13,000 The body of a man who has died of AIDS the previous night lies cold on the floor, 39 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:19,000 while his neighbors try to raise enough money to get the body to the funeral home on the mainland. 40 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:29,000 Andrew Okello is a nurse, but he works after hours at the family funeral home because of the sheer number of bodies they receive. 41 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:34,000 Day in, day out, people come here crying of this disease. 42 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:40,000 Most of our people, even the homes around, are dying of this disease. 43 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:46,000 If we don't get help or we find a proper way to curb this disaster, 44 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:52,000 then I think the community is going to get extinct, to say the least.