Editorial

A woman dies alone on a city pavement, abandoned by her husband and family, and ignored by state agencies because she is infected with HIV.

A grandmother struggles to feed her four grandchildren, who have already lost their mother to AIDS, while caring for their bedridden father.

These women illustrate the triple jeopardy of HIV/AIDS for women. As individuals, we are at risk of infection because of a host of biological, social and economic factors that make us particularly vulnerable to HIV. As mothers, we can infect our children with the virus. And as society’s traditional caregivers, we are expected to care for family members with AIDS while somehow finding a way to support our families.

According to the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC):

 The Caribbean has the highest incidence of HIV and AIDS among women in the Western Hemisphere.
 Young women 15 to 24 years old are particularly vulnerable.
 2-3 per cent of pregnant women in the region is estimated to be HIV positive.
 2-3 infants were infected with HIV every day through ’mother-to-child’ transmission. (Matlin and Spence of the Commonwealth Secretariat point out that ’parent-to-child’ transmission is a more appropriate, gender-neutral term, since, while the mother is the immediate source of the infection, the majority of women have acquired their infection solely from a monogamous relationship with their partner.)
 The major feature of the epidemic is the growing number of people living with HIV/AIDS and affected families requiring care and support.

We know how the virus is transmitted and who is most vulnerable, but this knowledge fails to reduce practices that increase women’s rate of infection. Why? As the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has argued, "the answer lies, to a large degree, in understanding how values and traditions often prevent women and girls from saying ’NO!’ to unwanted and unprotected sex and being heard."

Essential to reducing women’s vulnerability to HIV infection is freedom from violence and sexual coercion. Physical violence, the threat of violence and the fear of abandonment act as significant barriers for women who have to negotiate the use of a condom, discuss fidelity with their partners, or leave relationships perceived to be risky.

Young women and girls are at greater risk of rape and sexual coercion because they are perceived to be more likely to be free from infection, or because of the baseless but popular belief that sex with a virgin can cure sexually transmitted infections.

In this edition of CAFRA News, we present a snapshot of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean and its impact on women and issue a challenge to women’s organisations to make HIV/AIDS a priority area for action. We can do this by:

 Monitoring the progress of HIV/AIDS in our countries, including its specific impact on women
 Speaking out and acting in order to deal with the factors influencing women’s susceptibility to HIV/AIDS
 Encouraging a wide range of community groups to incorporate HIV/AIDS into their programmes
 Challenging stereotypes that portray women as transmitters of HIV
 Advocating for improved health education and public awareness and the adoption of all measures that will limit HIV transmission including safe sex, equal access to information regardless of age or gender, and monogamy and abstinence as appropriate
 Showing more compassion and support for people living with HIV/AIDS
 Advocating for the rights of HIV positive people, regardless of gender
 Networking with people living with HIV/AIDS in order to make their plight better understood
 Liasing with and supporting the work of National AIDS Programmes in our countries
 Contributing our experience towards reviewing ongoing and developing programmes targeting women and adolescents
 Calling for the collection, analysis and use of sex-disaggregated data in all sectors and at all levels.

As Geeta Rao Gupta of the International Centre for Research on Women reminds us: "Empowering women and guaranteeing them their economic and social rights is not an option. In the AIDS epidemic it prevents deaths."

Cathy Shepherd

Information Officer