Gender Activists want Women at Center of HIV and AIDS Debate [Part 3 of 5] | Voice of America - English
The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) says increasing attention is being paid to women and girls in the world's response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. But it says the focus on these groups as being particularly vulnerable to the disease is still not enough. The organization is hoping this will change at the International AIDS Conference set to start in Mexico City on Sunday. VOA's Darren Taylor reports.
KimberlyAshburn, a public health specialist and gender and HIV/AIDS expert at the ICRWin Washington, says the Mexico deliberations must have a sustained focus onwomen and girls, with good reason. "There[are] increasing (HIV infection) rates among women, and women are over 50 percent of new infections now, globally. The face of the epidemic is increasinglythat of a woman and a young girl." Sheadds that young girls, especially in Africa, where she's worked, are "threetimes as likely in their age categories as boys to become infected with HIV." Experts say the diseasehas claimed millions of lives, with two million people dying last year alone,and 33 million people are currently living with HIV - mostly in sub-SaharanAfrica. Laura Nyblade, a leadresearcher at the ICRW, says it's taken a long time, but the female face ofHIV/AIDS is finally being revealed, in initiatives such as the United States'President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), for example, which inits revised form has included a section addressing the specific vulnerabilitiesof women and girls to HIV. "Historically,the epidemic has had a certain face to it which has been more around men whohave sex with men, and gay men," says Nyblade. Ashburnagrees, pointing out that it wasn't until 1993 ? more than 12 years afterscientists first discovered the disease ? that women were included in AIDSresearch. "There'sa history there of how women in health, in particular, have been secondary,"she comments. Nybladesays such ignorance of women and how they're affected by HIV/AIDS persiststoday, because "women tend to not get the services and recognition, in allfacets of life, so the imbalances between women and men in terms of power andaccess to resources just plays into all of this." The ICRW points out thatimpoverished women are especially susceptible to HIV infection because they'reoften compelled to have unprotected sex with men in exchange for the economicsupport supplied by these relationships. Ashburn's research has concentrated on HIV,violence and property rights in South Africa and Uganda. "There'sgenerally a gender-based power dynamic that creates risk for women," she says,explaining that many women in Africa have more important priorities, such asfood and shelter, than negotiating with partners to use condoms. Ashburn's study foundthat in places in Africa where women were permitted to inherit and own propertyand as a consequence usually had more economic security, they were far moreempowered to protect themselves in various ways against contracting HIV. Nyblade is an expert on gender and HIV-related stigma. As apublic health demographer, she has over fifteen years of experience in HIV andAIDS research throughout Africa and South and South-east Asia and has sharedher knowledge at previous international AIDS conferences. Accordingto Nyblade, HIV-positive women around the world continue to suffer stigma anddiscrimination, and therefore "social isolation." "Poorwomen particularly are extremely dependent on social networks?on theirfamilies, on their neighbors, (for very basic needs such as) to borrow salt, toget a sick child to the hospital," she explains. But,continues Nyblade, they're often shunned and lose access to that support whenit becomes known that they're HIV-positive. Shesays women she's interacted with identify gossip about their HIV-status intheir communities as a "critical form of stigma?. We don't often think ofgossip for example as a form of stigma related to HIV, but in our work acrossthe globe and?in multiple countries in Africa, that's one of the things thatwomen fear the most. And the minute gossip starts around, 'Is that personHIV-positive; how did they get it; they must have done something bad,' those(social) networks break down." Nybladeplans to use her time in Mexico City to focus on matters like this. "Thingshave improved (with regard to the stigmatization of HIV-positive women) butwe're still at a level that's fairly unacceptable," she says. "Stigma is stillhighly prevalent and it still impacts everything we do, so it affectsprevention, it affects individuals' ability to protect themselves and theirchildren, or transmission (of HIV) from mother to child, for example." Nybladesays the discrimination against HIV-positive women has far-ranging implicationsand can result in women refusing to be tested for HIV: "If they do get tested,it often impedes their ability to disclose that status, particularly to theirintimate partner." This, she adds, can have devastating consequences. She'salso witnessed the harmful effects of stigmatization of HIV-positive people inSouth Africa, where people are crushing their antiretroviral pills "to hide thefact that they're taking medication, and that has implications for dosing, orpeople missing doses, because they're in a situation where they haven'tdisclosed their status because they don't want people to know that they'reliving with HIV, so they skip doses." Nybladesays groundbreaking research has been completed in recent years on HIV andstigma, but that these efforts have been "quite small and scattered across theglobe." TheMexico City conference, she maintains, offers those concerned an opportunity tocoordinate their efforts around discrimination against people living withHIV/AIDS. She acknowledges that it's difficult to achieve this. "Stigmais (itself) stigmatized in a sense; it's a very sensitive issue. You cannottalk about stigma if you're not going to talk about issues of genderinequality, sex, sexuality; these are difficult things to talk about, but wehave to talk about them, and we've found ways that you can do this quitecomfortably ? even with groups, for example, of religious leaders." Criticsoften call gatherings such as the International AIDS conference mere "talkshops" that offer little in the way of positive action once they've concluded.But Nyblade and Ashburn are convinced that the event is worthwhile. "Theseconferences allow for individuals who would never be able to meet each other tomeet and to network. And that leads to stronger partnerships and we learn fromeach other and that strengthens our response (to HIV/AIDS)," Nyblade says. Ashburnexpects the Mexico event to be a venue where those involved in the HIV/AIDSsector will "put the pressure on one another; it's a way of checks andbalances. The conference is also a venue to make sure that we are holding ourinvestigators as well as our funders accountable for their activities and theirresponse to HIV." Nybladesays the conference offers a reminder that, as much as many people complain of"AIDS fatigue" and want to ignore the disease, "this epidemic is still presentand it's still with us and we still have to pay attention to it."