“Many Muslims who were working in Police Department have died of HIV-related illnesses that’s why as a Muslim, I am also here to represent those families who lost their relatives due to this epidemic,” said Yusuf Lambat.
Muslims who working in the Department of Police have been urged to be honest and faithful to their spouses in order to end the spread of HIV/AIDS which is claiming the lives of many people in the country including Muslims.
The Chairman of Community Policing in Malawi Yunus Lambat made the call during the Candlelight Memorial Ceremony which took place at Blantyre Police under the theme of “Supporting the Future.”
“Let me remind Muslims in the country that Allah in His Noble Quran has commanded us to be faithful all the time. Many Muslims who were working in Police Department have died of HIV-related illnesses that’s why as a Muslim, I am also here to represent those families who lost their relatives due to this epidemic,” said Lambat.
Lambat also asked the Muslim community in the country to always encourage one another to go for Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) in order to know their HIV status.
“I am not only encouraging the Muslims working in Police Department but every Malawian Muslim is supposed to know his or her HIV status to plan for the future very properly,” he said.
He said the memorial ceremony would help to give a picture to either the police or the civilians that HIV attacks everyone.
“Let me advice the police who take advantage over their positions and abuse their power by sleeping with different women. For example, during patrols at night they sleep with commercial sex workers instead of taking the right action to them. This puts their lives in danger and if there are still other officers with this behavior, they have to change to support the future as the theme indicates,” said the chairman.
In his remarks the Guest of Honor, Commissioner of Police for Southern Region Headquarters Demester Chigwenembe asked the police officers who are living with HIV/AIDS to be open to their bosses so that they should be considered in a special way during their operations.
“It is this platform where we join hands and encourage those who are living with HIV from all walks of life as they give the face and voice to the epidemic and further, demand a sustainable AIDS response if we are to achieve sustainable development goal 3 which is to ‘ensure health lives and promote well-being for all at all ages’ by the year of 2030,”
Chigwenembe also said that the Southern Region and all police formations have embarked on 90-90-90 critical domains of AIDS mainstreaming where commitment of top management in the implementation of HIV/AIDS is leading from the front.
“Our target is to have more than 90% of all the police officers in the region to know their HIV cell status; 90% of those found HIV positive to be put on Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) thereby achieving a reduction of more than 90% of HIV related deaths,” said the commissioner.
