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Poverty Linked to the Feminisation of HIV / AIDS By Marcela Valente BUENOS AIRES - Throughout Latin America, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, like poverty, is increasingly becoming "feminised". Socio-economic and gender inequalities continue to widen, and young girls and female adolescents are driven into commercial sex work where they are unable to negotiate safe sex due to their age, and the fact that their trade is often the sole income for entire families. "The 'machismo' (sexism) typical of Latin American societies, considerably increases the vulnerability of women to HIV/AIDS, and when other factors are involved, such as poverty, unemployment and illiteracy, the result is a true catastrophe," says Mabel Bianco, head of Argentina's Coordination and Implementation Unit for HIV/AIDS. There are 1.8 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean with HIV/AIDS, but in the 1990s the incidence among women grew rapidly, especially among girls and adolescents, according to statistics from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Women infected with the virus represent 25 percent of the total, and in the Caribbean, the portion jumps to 35 percent. Bianco, who was the delegate from Latin America and the Caribbean, to the March session in New York of the Commission on the Status of Women, says that a combination of factors are contributing to the rising infection rates among women. According
to a study by the non-governmental Health Network of Latin America
and Caribbean women, which was conducted in Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Nicaragua and Peru, sexual abuse of young girls is on the increase,
and in 40 to 75 percent of the cases that are reported, the abuser
is a relative or friend of the family. The strong tradition of Catholicism in Latin America also has been a double-edge sword in the fight to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, Bianco stresses. On the one hand, she says, the Catholic religion stands in the way of formal - or even informal - education on sex and sexuality intended to prevent adolescent pregnancy and to protect adolescents from sexually transmitted diseases. But this same religion, she adds, does not speak out as loudly against the regular dissemination of images of sexual violence by the communications media, which contributes to sexual relations among young people in which the woman is subjugated to her male partner. "This association between a conservative society and the apparently liberal attitude toward these images is harmful and perverse for the young, and confuses them," Bianco warns. In AIDS-prevention workshops with adolescents in Argentina, participants openly admit that their contraceptive method is to engage in anal sex, which they consider a sure way to prevent pregnancy, Bianco says. They often fail to realise that, besides distorting the range of acts in a healthy sexual relationship, it exposes them to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, she adds. "Sexual violence and the lack of women's autonomy are therefore assimilated at very early ages, and the behaviour they consider normal is actually very high risk," she says. Despite all the alarming statistics and warning bells sounded by activist groups, health organisations and UN agencies on the growing vulnerability of women to HIV/AIDS, governments have done little to address the problem, Bianco says. "Governments adopted very few policies or specific measures to prevent HIV/AIDS in women and girls," Bianco points out. "The lack of political commitment from leaders and the lack of appropriate policies favour the growth of this epidemic among the female population." The activist stresses that there are several measures that should be urgently adopted, such as providing sex education -formally or informally - that includes the gender perspective. Messages targeting girls and female adolescents to make them aware of their rights and to strengthen their sense of autonomy and self-esteem should be an integral part of sex education, Bianco says. Also, she says, it is essential to eliminate legislation that supports sexist ideas, such as laws in some Latin American countries that allow the release of a rapist if he agrees to marry the victim, or those that permit a girl to marry even if she is not old enough to make an informed decision on the matter. The sexual and reproductive health rights of women infected with HIV, or who are living with AIDS, also must be fully respected, Bianco emphasises, explaining that in Latin America, many doctors equate a woman with a "reproductive machine", and ignore her rights as a person. In practice, she says, this means that HIV-positive women, for example, are discouraged from becoming pregnant ,or, they are pushed to undergo sterilisation. If an infected woman becomes pregnant, she may receive care to ensure that her baby is born healthy, but the follow-up of her disease is ignored afterwards, Bianco adds. Bianco, like many other women who have been working on HIV/AIDS issues for years, however, stresses that no measure would be as effective in fighting the disease as eradicating poverty, which disproportionately affects women. The feminisation of the epidemic is directly linked to the rising poverty among women and girls, she says. The
profile of an infected adult woman in Latin America today is not
that of a promiscuous woman, Bianco says, as social stereotypes
might suggest, but of a young woman who is poor, has children and
a stable partner, and who has contracted the virus through unprotected
sex. |
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