HIV-positive women compete in Miss Stigma Free beauty pageant

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GABORONE, Botswana A dozen women infected with H-I-V are competing in a beauty pageant in Botswana aimed at fighting the stigma surrounding the virus that causes AIDS.

Organizers of the Miss Stigma Free pageant hope the contest—now in its third year—will show the disease does not prevent women from being beautiful and living positively.

The contest is being broadcast on national television.

About 37 percent of Botswana’s one-point-seven million people are infected with H-I-V, which is one of the highest rates in the world.

The diamond-rich country has aggressively fought the pandemic. Botswana launched Africa’s first program to provide life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs through the public health system in 2002.

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