Women Must Be At The Center In The Fight Against AIDS

Nov. 22, 2005—As the world marks World AIDS Day this year, women should be foremost in all our minds: They are the most infected and affected by the disease. Global efforts to combat AIDS must have them at the center.

The numbers are there to see. Women are 57 percent of those in sub-Saharan Africa living with the disease. There’s been a dramatic increase in new HIV infections among young women, who now make up over 60 percent of those aged 15 to 24 infected worldwide.

But highlighting facts and figures does not fully capture the real story of the disease’s impact on women.

The Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) recently held a month-long workshop, “WomenLead in the Fight Against AIDS,” with global women’s advocates fighting AIDS on the frontlines. The workshop strengthens the technical expertise, leadership abilities and program management skills of women working to prevent the spread of AIDS and mitigate the disease’s effects in developing countries.

Each of the workshop participants had a powerful story to tell about AIDS in her country.

One clear message was that around the world, women and girls are the ones most stigmatized by the disease. One advocate from South Asia talked candidly about becoming infected with HIV by her husband, and how her husband’s family threw her out of the house when she got sick.

Another participant from sub-Saharan Africa said it quite clearly: “When HIV hits a family, it is usually the woman who bears the brunt. Automatically she will be told she brought it to the house.”

“When a man wants to know his status, he will send his wife to get tested, especially if she is pregnant,” she said. “And if she tests positive there is a lot of violence that is visited on her.”

The knowledge of one’s HIV status is perhaps the single most important issue within the AIDS paradigm. The stigma of HIV/AIDS prevents women from seeking testing to find out their status. The resulting loss of social support also affects their ability to seek treatment and care. This adds another barrier for women living in countries where accessing health services, especially antiretroviral drugs, is already difficult. According to UNAIDS, only 3 percent of those in need of antiretroviral drugs in sub-Saharan Africa receive them.

Even when they are not infected, women and girls are the ones most affected by the disease.

Worldwide, women remain the primary caregivers of the sick, children and the elderly. They are the ones providing home-based care for the many AIDS patients and AIDS orphans around the world. These responsibilities are added to women’s existing workloads of farming, water and firewood gathering, cooking, caring for the household and other family responsibilities. Girls may be taken out of school to care for family members with AIDS. And as studies have shown, women tend to put the nutritional needs of their families ahead of their own, so women caregivers place themselves at a further health disadvantage if they contract the disease.

AIDS also places an increasing economic burden on women. In countries that don’t recognize women’s inheritance rights, AIDS widows frequently are denied property rights when their husbands die and are cast out from their homes. This sends these female-headed households deeper into poverty.

But the women in CEDPA’s “WomenLead in the Fight Against AIDS” program give us hope, because although this epidemic now has a woman’s face, women are also at the forefront in the fight against AIDS.

Each of the program participants is an example of women working to combat the stigma and discrimination against those living with HIV/AIDS, raise awareness about prevention, mobilize communities to support the care and treatment of patients and insist on the availability of services.

These women lead prevention efforts that focus on educating young women and men about AIDS. They put on plays, speak to youth groups, partner with other community groups and work with local and national leaders to support girls’ education. They advocate for better AIDS treatment and care for women and girls, and work to increase access to HIV/AIDS testing and services.

Several participants run networks of people living with HIV/AIDS to raise awareness and reduce the stigma against those living with the disease.

One woman, Tendayi Westerhof, founded the Public Personalities against AIDS Trust, an organization in Zimbabwe that encourages public figures to declare their HIV status. “I saw if prominent people talk openly and candidly, it could be a great influence on the public,” she said.

Some of the women’s advocates see progress in the struggle against AIDS. A participant from Uganda, Proscovia Namakula of the National Forum of PHA Networks, noted recent successes in fighting stigma in that country. “People are now very free to open up about their HIV status, and they have many places to go for support,” she said.

To support these and other women on the frontlines of the AIDS crisis, the world community needs to do more. We should invest more in prevention, care and treatment that recognizes the disproportionate impact of the disease on girls and women.

HIV/AIDS programs need to be more responsive to women’s needs and recognize how stigma, gender discrimination, violence and economic insecurity are contributing to the growing infection rates among girls and women. And programs should recognize and support women who are shouldering the overwhelming burden of caring for AIDS patients and orphans.

Any effective strategy to combat HIV/AIDS must be grounded in the wisdom offered by women such as those who attended CEDPA’s “WomenLead in the Fight Against AIDS” workshop.

At CEDPA, we believe that when women move forward, the world moves with them. This has never been more true than it is in the case of the AIDS epidemic.

Related Links:

Nepalese AIDS Advocate Awarded Ralph Stone Award

WomenLead in the Fight Against AIDS

World AIDS Campaign official website