Let their voices be heard: empowering women in the fight against AIDS
Ankrah, E.M.
Aidscaptions 2(3): 4-7
1995
PMID: 12347562 Document Number: 197900
By the year 2000, it is projected that more than 13 million women will be infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and 4 million will have died from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). By the end of the century, HIV transmission rates for women are expected to exceed those for men--a major shift from 1985, when the male/female ratio was 10:1. AIDS overlaps the most pressing issues for the international women's movement: domestic violence, trafficking of girls and young women, reproductive health, educational and economic opportunities, and equality under the law. Issues of gender-based power and control have been central to the escalating HIV rates among women. Limited access to economic resources and fear of violence force many women to yield control over sexual relations to men. Without a preventive method they can control, even monogamous married women are at risk of acquiring HIV from their husbands. Universal behavior change strategies such as consistent condom use bypass the issue of who controls the decision to practice safe sex. Needed are AIDS prevention strategies based in the concept of empowerment that help women to gain control over their economic, social, and sexual lives. Such programs would include economic opportunity to reduce women's dependence, social and political advancement to raise women's status, and female-controlled HIV preventive methods. As approaches designed by and for women become a part of standard AIDS programming, women will at last have a face and voice in the struggle against AIDS.