HIV & AIDS

Strengthening Resistance focuses on the points of intersection in the social, political and public health crises of violence against women and HIV/AIDS. The report uses a human rights lens to focus on critical political challenges and on innovative strategies used by activists worldwide as they respond to the links between violence and HIV/AIDS. From street theater to telenovelas/soap operas to traditional lobbying, activists in both VAW and HIV/AIDS communities are beginning to work together to focus attention to ways both crises are causes and consequences of each other. Neither can be addressed adequately without taking into account the links between them and the human rights implications of each crisis on its own, and in conjunction with the other.

According to the latest (2008) WHO and UNAIDS global estimates, women comprise 50% of people living with HIV.

In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute 60% of people living with HIV. In other regions, men having sex with men (MSM), injecting drug users (IDU), sex workers and their clients are among those most-at-risk for HIV, but the proportion of women living with HIV has been increasing in the last 10 years

 A workshop on gender violence and HIV/AIDS organised by Gender and Child's Right Initiative (GCRI), a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) dedicated to uplifting the status of women and young persons, has ended in Lagos.

The workshop took place at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos, in conjunction with Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international NGO that manages Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation project on African Women. The workshop, tagged Engaging Business and Corporate Organisations in Health and Social Issues held under the distinguished chairmanship of Professor Osita Eze, Director General, Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos. The objective of the project was to advocate for change in public policy while sensitising corporate organisations on gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS. It was also to build strong networks of business and corporate organisations to lend their voices to advocacy work in this area. The workshop attracted several corporate organisations which include MTN, NGOs, Government representatives and Journalists.

 Prevention is a word that draws considerable controversy among AIDS experts. Billions of dollars have been poured into treatment programs and vaccine research, but prevention strategies - things like condoms, education, and clean needle exchanges - rarely receive comparable attention. Prevention does not require vast research capabilities. Its success is not dependent on feats of technical ingenuity such as refrigeration in remote, off-grid villages. But in Africa, prevention has nonetheless baffled the medical establishment. Meanwhile, the most recent in a long string of research disappointments have caused scientists to forecast a long wait for a vaccine breakthrough. In its absence, it is increasingly apparent that prevention will have to be at the forefront of any HIV/AIDS response.

The Minister of Education Naledi Pandor and 23 public higher education institutions have adopted a policy which will guide schools and tertiary institutions to improve their current HIV and AIDS prevention programmes.

Young people in South Africa face the highest rate of HIV infection.

The Policy Framework on HIV and AIDS for Higher Education Institution in South Africa, adopted at an event in Johannesburg on Thursday, recognises that institutions must act to prevent new HIV infections and provide access to treatment, care and support for staff and students infected or affected by the pandemic.

Adopting the policy, Minister Pandor said South Africa was a country with one of the highest HIV and AIDS rates, and therefore there was a need to support those infected and affected by the disease.

Young people in higher education institutions are facing peer pressure, alcohol and drug abuse, said the minister, adding that she was hoping to see chancellors taking a leading role in the implementation of the framework.

"We can do no less if we were to save young people to this serious threat, I'm looking forward to the concrete plans to the framework which will see the reduction of the epidemic," she said.

Teens gathered at Islamic Center Nyamirambo, a city suburb for a one day Anti-AIDS competition organised by the international organisation Right to Play on Tuesday, asked their parents to talk about issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in their homes.

Teens that spoke to The New Times yesterday say that one of the reasons HIV/AIDS is still high among youth is that parents shy from speaking to their children about relationships and the pandemic.

"Few of us have tried to join and form anti-AIDS clubs at our schools but those are disadvantaged because most parents don't want to talk about relationships, issues surrounding sexuality," Moses Habimana, a student a from Ecole secondary de Kanombe, said at the competition venue.

The account by Beatrice Tonhodzayi of the experiences of an HIV positive man raises a lot of issues which l feel should be discussed more than is done in the diary. I will start by saying upfront that in this critique l am taking a woman centred approach to the issues raised. In particular, I have always been concerned that in a lot of the discourse around infection within a marital relationship, there seems to be an inordinate amount of emphasis on people not seeking to blame their sexual partners, rather being exhorted to "just accept the result and move on".

HIV infections among women and girls have risen in every part of the world in recent years. The numbers point to a fundamental and startling reality-the HIV/AIDS pandemic is inextricably linked to the brutal effects of sexism and gender inequality, most pronounced in Africa.

Consider these statistics: The latest reports from the UNAIDS (Dec. 2007) show 33.2 million people are living with HIV throughout the world. Sub-Saharan Africa has more than two-thirds (22.6 million) of the total number of HIV infections. Sixty-two per cent (14 million) of those infected are women and adolescent girls. Seventy-five per cent of all HIV-positive women in the world are African.

Why are we allowing women and girls to die from this preventable and treatable disease? What is a woman worth in our world today?