Women and HIV/AIDS - Empowerment through Equity
by Judith King - HIVAN Media Office
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Photo?Joanne Bloch/Beyond
Awareness Campaign
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Moving beyond Barcelona, the month of August focuses on women. Researchers, activists and people living with HIV/AIDS engaged at the 14th World AIDS Conference around the theme of "Knowledge and Commitment for Action". However, correspondents and delegates alike noted a disturbing hiatus since the AIDS 2000 Conference in Durban in progress regarding women's biological and socio-economic vulnerability to HIV infection, and the devastating implications this bears for the spread of the epidemic.
Knowledge about the scale of the epidemic amongst women is readily available - at least 16 million women worldwide are infected with HIV and in our own province of KwaZulu-Natal, approximately one in four women, many of them very young, are HIV-positive. Commitment for action, however, has been tragically lacking. Whilst the scale and urgency of the needs of women are well-known, how they will be met and who will lead such action remain unresolved.
Extreme poverty, armed conflicts, rampant child and women abuse, lack of access to basic education, health services and denial of human rights have obviated the options and opportunities of women on our continent to cope with HIV/AIDS. Graca Machel said in her stirring address to the Barcelona Conference: "We have not been integrated and comprehensive in our strategies. Unlike the virus, we have not been unrelenting in our commitment."
It would seem that HIV/AIDS has cruelly violated the innately feminine physiological and psychological quality of receptivity. Endless presentations and "research about research" bring women at grassroots level no nearer to empowering solutions. The onset of the Information Age, with its rapid pace and potent connectivity, is not securing prevention, treatment and care for women in resource-poor settings, or at least, not rapidly enough.
Nonetheless, within this huge potential for disseminating information are the keys to mobilising a more action-orientated response to the epidemic. Interestingly, these keys also happen to be feminine in character, and have been demonstrated, particularly by African women, through the ages: the ability to network for survival, a stoic strength of purpose, unbridled creativity, enduring optimism and enormous courage.
In seeking social cohesion, let us not dwell on the mixed messages and dangerous delays on commitment and action around HIV/AIDS that have been attributed to the few women leaders in our governmental structures. Let us not fail to acknowledge those women and men who are speaking out for a united response to the epidemic. Let us not discount the millions of voiceless women who are supporting themselves and their communities, day by arduous day, through their suffering.
On International Women's Day in March this year, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said: "Equity in all fields ... is essential if women are to act to protect themselves from HIV and AIDS." and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan concluded that "...achievement of women's rights is not the responsibility of women alone - it is the responsibility of us all."
The issue of leadership is central to the gender-biased environment of HIV/AIDS. This Millennium sees male-led governments devising collaborative means to ensure global progress and prosperity, yet it is women who understand the art of partnership. Human rights and development activists call for a more caring society - and it is women who know about nurturing. Perhaps future behaviour-change interventions should be premised on the concept that those who respect and value women are self-respecting, confident human beings. Society could wish for no better form of equality and balance.
In solidarity with the vision of a gender-balanced, united stance against HIV/AIDS, as this month unfolds, our site will foreground articles with a specific bearing on women's issues as they relate to the epidemic. We welcome your input on topics such as: business and the buying power of women, governance from the ground, women and the land, nurses and their engagement with HIV/AIDS, and our country's true champions: the unassuming home-based caregivers who work on through poverty and disease despite overwhelming odds.
Do explore and contribute to this content: connect via our discussion boards, delve into our database and determine which organisations and individuals could help you and your loved ones, or whom you could assist in coping with the effects of HIV infection. From the ground up, let us commit to action against HIV and AIDS.
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