By Christian Benoni
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3
Gender inequalities are "fuelling the spread of HIV/AIDS", stresses Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS executive director. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
 (IPS/TerraViva) Human rights violations and gender inequalities that continue to put women and girls at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS have come into sharp focus with concerns that this is jeopardising progress made in preventing HIV transmission.
“The growing inequalities are translating into brutality towards women and in the process fuelling the spread of HIV/AIDS,” said Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS executive director. His remarks followed the launch of a UNAIDS framework that seeks to fast-track country action towards eliminating the injustices. It is known as the Agenda for Accelerated Country Action for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV 2010-2014.
U.N. statistics indicate that violence against women and girls is a key driver of HIV/AIDS, with up to 70 percent of women having experienced violence in their lifetime. Further, these women are less likely to negotiate for safe sex, go for testing, or share their HIV status for fear of experiencing violence.
The framework largely stipulates adequate resources and a conducive environment by countries to ensure promotion and protection of women and girls in the context of HIV/AIDS. It further spells out empowerment of women to negotiate safe sex as well as engaging men and boys to end harmful definitions of masculinity that perpetrate violence against women.
“Changes in the attitudes and behaviours of men and boys, and in unequal power between women and men, are essential to prevent HIV in women and girls,” says the plan in part.
This goes hand in hand with addressing cultural and societal stereotypes, whose role in fuelling HIV transmission in women and girls cannot be underestimated, according to Sheila Tlou, former health minister for Botswana. For example, cultural practices such as wife/widow inheritance are common in sub-Saharan Africa, where 60 percent of the people living with HIV/AIDS are female.
The ball is in the governments’ court to ensure adequate resource allocation to awareness creation programmes to change such cultural attitudes.
“Our governments need to put money to our health and not guns,” Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, general secretary of the Young Womens’ Christian Association, said in reference to the huge budgets allocated to defence departments, compared to meagre funds apportioned to health sectors.
Despite a 2001 pledge by African leaders to increase the health budget to 15 percent, many countries are yet to reach this target.
Increased funds for HIV/AIDS, it was agreed, means investing in sexual and reproductive health rights, particularly for young women who are at greater risk of contracting the disease. In Africa for example, the prevalence among young women aged between 15 and 24 years is about three times higher than among men in the same age bracket.Â
“Young people need constant information about protection. They need increased access to sexual and reproductive health services and supplies including female condoms,” Anne Alinda of the Simama Vijana (Stand Up Youth) group in Kenya, told IPS.
While the new framework recommends similar action, the challenge is that health systems of many African countries have been characterised by massive stock outs of reproductive health supplies, questioning safe sex practices.
It is expected that countries will address these gaps and effectively tackle gender inequalities related to HIV/AIDS, to be able to score highly on the scorecard which will be announced after 2014. The chart will name the progress made by different countries, within the stipulated timelines, according to Sidibe.
