Significant Risk Factors AIDS in Bangladesh and Pakistan
Mohammad Khairul Alam
Executive Director
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
24/3 M. C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh rainbowngo@gmail.com
Tell: 880-2-8628908
Mobile: 01711344997
In 1987, Pakistan was reported first HIV/AIDS case in Lahore. During the late 1980s and 1990s, it became evident that an increasing number, mostly men, were becoming infected with HIV while living or travelling abroad. Several reasons due to increase HIV-AIDS in Pakistan, such as (i) lack of political will due to lack of advocacy among the political leaders and the bureaucracy, (iii) inadequate data due to limited surveillance (iv) lack of awareness in the rural areas (v) no clear policy on care and support of affected individuals and the management of full blown cases and (v) no proper training for all medical/paramedical faculties and the non medical field workers. The majority of the program activities were concentrated in the urban areas.
The Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation identified four major approaches in a groundbreaking study on spread out HIV in Asia. This study undertook by comparing of social-economic norm, family pattern, economic dependency, cause of mounting sex industries, gender discrimination status & global analysis fact. There are four factors that appear to play a crucial role in HIV transmission in Asian countries: Injection/ intravenous drug use (By sharing needle), female sex work (Due to lack of safe sex knowledge), gender discrimination (which indirectly force females commercial or non-commercial sex), Same sex/ homosexually/ Hijara (Due to lack of HIV/AIDS information, because they act invisible in this society). Poverty & illiteracy fueled it proportionally.
In Pakistan, the intravenous drug users (IDU) are the most potential carriers of HIV/AIDS among the vulnerable groups in the country, high HIV infection levels among groups of IDUs could cross over into other populations, including male and female sex workers. In Larkana, 8% of injecting drug users were HIV-infected in 2005, as were at least 6% in Faisalabad, Lahore, Sargodha and Sialkot, where a majority of injecting drug users were either married or sexually active. In Karachi, 26% of injecting drug users participating in a 2005 study were found to be HIV-infected. The majority of infected drug users had one risk factor in common: they used non-sterile injecting equipment. Even the most basic elements of effective harm reduction are lacking. Only one half of the injecting drug users taking part in a study in Karachi and Rawalpindi, for example, knew that HIV could be transmitted through using unclean needles—and as many of them said they had used non-sterile injecting equipment in the previous month.
Bangladesh is still considered as a low HIV/AIDS prevalent country; by the way Bangladesh is passing at a critical moment, the majority of AIDS cases in here are the result of needle sharing. Of 500 injection drug users questioned in central Bangladesh during the fourth national surveillance, 93.4 percent said they had shared needles in last week. Providing clean needles is also considered important because it decreases the spread of HIV from injection drug-users. It is also important to bring a behavioural change among commercial sex workers (CSWs) by promoting the use of condom.
In generally, Bangladeshi women or girls are basically getting sexual experience through marriage and for the most part, premarital sexual contact is mostly confined to their future husband or lovers. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation found, sexual behaviour among Bangladeshi women is changing. Adolescent girls may not remain in the traditional sexual confinement of the previous generations and casual sex among them is on the rise. This may encourage AIDS to acquire alarming proportions in Bangladesh.
After several investigate on sex industries have identified more then 1,00,000 various category commercial and non-commercial sex workers in Bangladesh who are most of them illiterate. Some female brothel sex workers have an average of 20-25 clients per week, Female hotel sex worker meet an average of 44 clients in a week, the highest number of clients in commercial sex than any other counties in South-East Asian region. Moreover the residence sex workers and floating sex workers are present in large number though the precise distribution and prevalence is still unknown. By a study ‘Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation’ also found that a substantial proportion of some young and single textile, garment workers, tea garden female workers, house key-per supplement their low wages by occasional prostitution. Consensual sex or non-commercial sex exists in rural societies, particularly when husbands are absent for a long time.
The presence of significant risk factors such as the very low use of condoms among vulnerable populations including female sex workers, men who have sex with men, as well as the low use of sterile syringes among injecting drug users in both countries. In addition increased number of migrant workers, unsafe practice in health service, unsafe sex practice etc. movement of population, less use of condom, polygamy, homosexuality, extra-marital relations, further increases the susceptibility.
Commercial female sex workers don’t use condom regularly. Fewer than one in five female sex workers—and one in 20 of their male counterparts—in Karachi and Rawalpindi said they had consistently used condoms during the previous month. In an earlier study in Karachi, one in four sex workers could not recognize a condom. In addition, a 2005 study has confirmed that HIV transmission is occurring within the sexual networks of male and eunuch (hijra) sex workers in Karachi. The study found 7% of the male sex workers and 2% of the hijras were HIV-infected. In another study in Karachi, 4% of male sex workers and 2% of hijras tested positive. Very high levels of other sexually transmitted infections indicate widespread sexual risk-taking. In the latter study, 23% of the male sex workers had syphilis and 36% had gonorrhoea, while among the hijras, 62% had syphilis and 29% gonorrhoea. Indeed, only 4% of male sex workers and less than 1% of the hijras said they used a condom the last time they had sex with a man. Also of note is the finding that one in four of the male sex workers said they also bought or sold sex to women. Such high-risk behaviour must be addressed in order to limit the further spread of HIV in and beyond those sexual networks.
HIV/AIDS is a three dimensional disease. It spreads out by three major causes:- such as unconscious or unsafe sexuality, blood exchange(needle) /transfusion for patients, infected mother to child. HIV/AIDS direct by impact on the human body - it paralyze the physical condition, psychological morbidity and destroy social value. It also wipes out three things, such as it affects adults in their productive prime, severely hampers economic growth of person, and hampers his family, at last by rotation it destroys country’s progress. Every one can protect it by avoiding risk behavioral sex (multi-partner sex, unsafe sex practice etc), by avoiding injectable drug (needle sharing is a burning cause of it), by avoiding getting blood without test. Nation wide programme is also needed to take three major strategies:- top to bottom awareness programme of HIV/AIDS, gender discrimination programme to ensure girls and women rights, poverty reduction programme
HIV/AIDS becomes progressively concentrated among poor populations in the less develop countries. Although, the develop countries learn to protect themselves and have the resources to make HIV/AIDS into a chronic, not deadly, disease, but the poor remain vulnerable. This is both a result of the characteristics of poverty itself - low education levels, gender discriminations, stigma, limited access to HIV/AIDS information or to health services - and the consequence of the lack of finances to fight the disease.
Poverty and gender discrimination are both strongly linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS. The poor regions in Africa, about 8 percent of all adults in this age group are HIV-infected. About 14,000 infections each day in the world and more than 95 percent of these new infections occurred in developing countries, and nearly 50 percent were among women. Gender and age analysis shows the ways in which women and girls of various ages are vulnerable to the infection and in need of support to enable the survivors to overcome the economic and social effects of the epidemic. In fact, HIV/AIDS and poverty alleviation strategies are interconnected.
Certainly, adolescent girls’ prostitution is booming in Bangladesh. Adolescent girls engage or are forced into prostitution for trafficking or socio-economic reasons. But in addition to sexual exploitation, they face all sorts of violence. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation carried out a recent field investigation, the research confirmed that adolescents girls’ prostitution is widespread in Bangladesh, although hidden at first sight from foreigners, especially in Dhaka city. Adolescent girls involved in prostitution are to be found in residence homes converted into brothels or in hotels. The majority are aged 15-18.
Women empowerment can prevent gender discrimination, which justifies a holistic approach of policies and programmes to reduce poverty and address HIV/AIDS. For example, poverty leads women into unsafe sexual encounters, and speeds the onset of AIDS-related illnesses. Violence against women and girls is common in societies with high instability or conflicts. All these factors establish the fact that more females than males are being newly infected every day. It also indicates that women are more likely to contract HIV and fall sick with AIDS at a younger age than men.
In prevention strategies, adolescent girls do appear as a target group. The education sector, and schools in particular, should be often a major target for HIV/AIDS prevention programmes, via sex education and knowledge of condom-use. By the way we have to address or find out those who didn’t get chance to enrol in these institutions. We have to evolve different strategies to reach the messages to them. In addition, health education programmes which aim to empower women and girls to use condoms often fail adequately to tackle the actual problems because of imbalanced power relations. The desired changes in the behaviour of adolescent girls and boys cannot happen without programmes addressing such issues like how a girl can say no, but also why boys, teachers and other adults should respect the human rights of girls.
Recent research in North region’s three districts in Bangladesh by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation has shown that while provide HIV information with discussions of safe-sex and gender issue may be discouraged for young girls and women because of the ordinary belief that to inform them about sexuality and safe-sex is to encourage sexual activity. Even though that for fear of encouraging sexual activity, mothers deny imperative information about sexual-live, safe sex, reproductive health information from their daughters.
Health and education sectors can work together to develop prevention programmes in schools/colleges, which enhance awareness of gender inequality among boys and school/college staffs, as well as girls themselves. Such programmes also need to expand beyond the school boundaries to reach adolescent girls and boys who do not attend school/college or have dropped out. This may help reduce girls’ continuing vulnerability to violence, coercive sex and HIV infection.
Bangladesh, HIV incidence is low, including among sex workers as with other populations, however, the incidence rises dramatically among those who use intravenous drugs. There are fifteen brothels, where 38000 sex workers are registered, and several NGOs regularly screened for various STDs, the few found to be HIV positive reported that they were drug users or had sexual partners who were. Unprotected sex between sex workers and their clients, needle sharing and unprotected sex between men would become Bangladesh in a vulnerable reason.
In view of, the threat of AIDS and its possible consequences, all communities and NGOs involved in providing preventive & curative health services should give top priority to STD/STI & HIV/AIDS services, and increase the required resources sufficiently. There is also an urgent need to integrate reproductive health services with current family planning and maternal health services to expand their accessibility mainly to women.
Reference: Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
Social, cultural and economic forces make women more likely to contract HIV infection than men
Mohammad Khairul Alam
Executive Director
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
24/3 M. C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh rainbowngo@gmail.com
Tell: 880-2-8628908
Mobile: 01711344997
THE view of poor and developing countries is that women and adolescent girls are more vulnerable to HIV infection on each sexual encounter because of the biological nature of the process and the vulnerability of the reproductive tract tissues to the virus, especially in adolescent girls. By a study ‘Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation’ also found that a substantial proportion of some young and single textile, garment workers, tea garden female workers, house key-per supplement their low wages by occasional prostitution. Consensual sex or non-commercial sex exists in rural societies, particularly when husbands are absent for a long time.
For example, young women are generally disadvantaged by gender disparities in terms of food intake and access to health care. Growth patterns of girls are often worse than that of boys. The inequalities become evident soon after the birth, and by adolescence many girls are grossly underweight. Social, cultural and economic forces make women more likely to contract HIV infection than men. Women are often less able to negotiate for safer sex due to reasons such as their lower status, economic dependence and fear of violence.
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation’s reveal extremely high levels of infections among adolescent girls, which are higher than those for boys. This is mainly because of the fact that at young age, boys have sex with girls of similar age, while girls have relations with older men, who are more likely to be infected. Sexual harassment of schoolgirls by older men sometime may be the cause of HIV infection. Poverty also drives many adolescent girls to accept relationships with ‘sugar daddies’ (older men who are prepared to give money, goods or favors in return for sex).
Adolescent girls in poor families in developing countries often do not have the option to make real choices about their sexual and reproductive lives, such as when and whom to marry, whether and when to have children and how many to have, and whether to use contraceptives. Women tend to marry very young: nearly two thirds of adolescents in most South Asian countries marry before 18 years of age, and many even before 15 years, despite laws prohibiting such early marriage.
In many poor regions women’s limited economic opportunity and relative powerlessness may force them into sex work in order to survive through household financial disaster. This exposes them to HIV infection and they in turn transmit HIV to their clients. In those areas girls are particularly vulnerable to HIV infections because of intergenerational sexual relationships, violence, and limited access to information. In addition, discrimination and stigma obstruct adolescent girls” access to health services. Poverty causes increased migration to look for work.
Gender analysis in relation to HIV/AIDS has tended to focus on women of reproductive age, and infrequently on young girls, because young women and girls are increasingly being targeted for sex by older men seeking safe partners and also by those who erroneously believe that a man infected with HIV/AIDS will get rid of the disease by having sex with a virgin. So HIV/AIDS epidemic has been fuelled by gender inequality or discrimination. Unequal power relations, sexual coercion and violence are widely faced by women of all age-groups, and these have an array of negative effects on female sexual, physical and mental health.
In many developing countries poverty and gender discrimination between women and men are both strongly linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS. Gender and age analysis shows the ways in which women and girls of different ages are vulnerable to the infection, and it requires support to help the survivors overcome the financial and social effects of the epidemic. The approach for checking HIV/AIDS and that of poverty alleviation are interconnected. Therefore health and development workers should work on a set of integrated policies and programmes to reduce poverty and address HIV/AIDS. They should emphasize the need for special efforts to protect women and girls exposed to the risk of HIV/AIDS and ensure that the legal, civil and human rights of those affected and infected are duly protected and that women have access to treatment, counseling and support on an equal footing with men.
References: UNAIDS, World Bank, Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
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Significant Risk Factors AIDS in Bangladesh and Pakistan
Mohammad Khairul Alam
Executive Director
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
24/3 M. C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh
rainbowngo@gmail.com
Tell: 880-2-8628908
Mobile: 01711344997
In 1987, Pakistan was reported first HIV/AIDS case in Lahore. During the late 1980s and 1990s, it became evident that an increasing number, mostly men, were becoming infected with HIV while living or travelling abroad. Several reasons due to increase HIV-AIDS in Pakistan, such as (i) lack of political will due to lack of advocacy among the political leaders and the bureaucracy, (iii) inadequate data due to limited surveillance (iv) lack of awareness in the rural areas (v) no clear policy on care and support of affected individuals and the management of full blown cases and (v) no proper training for all medical/paramedical faculties and the non medical field workers. The majority of the program activities were concentrated in the urban areas.
The Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation identified four major approaches in a groundbreaking study on spread out HIV in Asia. This study undertook by comparing of social-economic norm, family pattern, economic dependency, cause of mounting sex industries, gender discrimination status & global analysis fact. There are four factors that appear to play a crucial role in HIV transmission in Asian countries: Injection/ intravenous drug use (By sharing needle), female sex work (Due to lack of safe sex knowledge), gender discrimination (which indirectly force females commercial or non-commercial sex), Same sex/ homosexually/ Hijara (Due to lack of HIV/AIDS information, because they act invisible in this society). Poverty & illiteracy fueled it proportionally.
In Pakistan, the intravenous drug users (IDU) are the most potential carriers of HIV/AIDS among the vulnerable groups in the country, high HIV infection levels among groups of IDUs could cross over into other populations, including male and female sex workers. In Larkana, 8% of injecting drug users were HIV-infected in 2005, as were at least 6% in Faisalabad, Lahore, Sargodha and Sialkot, where a majority of injecting drug users were either married or sexually active. In Karachi, 26% of injecting drug users participating in a 2005 study were found to be HIV-infected. The majority of infected drug users had one risk factor in common: they used non-sterile injecting equipment. Even the most basic elements of effective harm reduction are lacking. Only one half of the injecting drug users taking part in a study in Karachi and Rawalpindi, for example, knew that HIV could be transmitted through using unclean needles—and as many of them said they had used non-sterile injecting equipment in the previous month.
Bangladesh is still considered as a low HIV/AIDS prevalent country; by the way Bangladesh is passing at a critical moment, the majority of AIDS cases in here are the result of needle sharing. Of 500 injection drug users questioned in central Bangladesh during the fourth national surveillance, 93.4 percent said they had shared needles in last week. Providing clean needles is also considered important because it decreases the spread of HIV from injection drug-users. It is also important to bring a behavioural change among commercial sex workers (CSWs) by promoting the use of condom.
In generally, Bangladeshi women or girls are basically getting sexual experience through marriage and for the most part, premarital sexual contact is mostly confined to their future husband or lovers. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation found, sexual behaviour among Bangladeshi women is changing. Adolescent girls may not remain in the traditional sexual confinement of the previous generations and casual sex among them is on the rise. This may encourage AIDS to acquire alarming proportions in Bangladesh.
After several investigate on sex industries have identified more then 1,00,000 various category commercial and non-commercial sex workers in Bangladesh who are most of them illiterate. Some female brothel sex workers have an average of 20-25 clients per week, Female hotel sex worker meet an average of 44 clients in a week, the highest number of clients in commercial sex than any other counties in South-East Asian region. Moreover the residence sex workers and floating sex workers are present in large number though the precise distribution and prevalence is still unknown. By a study ‘Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation’ also found that a substantial proportion of some young and single textile, garment workers, tea garden female workers, house key-per supplement their low wages by occasional prostitution. Consensual sex or non-commercial sex exists in rural societies, particularly when husbands are absent for a long time.
The presence of significant risk factors such as the very low use of condoms among vulnerable populations including female sex workers, men who have sex with men, as well as the low use of sterile syringes among injecting drug users in both countries. In addition increased number of migrant workers, unsafe practice in health service, unsafe sex practice etc. movement of population, less use of condom, polygamy, homosexuality, extra-marital relations, further increases the susceptibility.
Commercial female sex workers don’t use condom regularly. Fewer than one in five female sex workers—and one in 20 of their male counterparts—in Karachi and Rawalpindi said they had consistently used condoms during the previous month. In an earlier study in Karachi, one in four sex workers could not recognize a condom. In addition, a 2005 study has confirmed that HIV transmission is occurring within the sexual networks of male and eunuch (hijra) sex workers in Karachi. The study found 7% of the male sex workers and 2% of the hijras were HIV-infected. In another study in Karachi, 4% of male sex workers and 2% of hijras tested positive. Very high levels of other sexually transmitted infections indicate widespread sexual risk-taking. In the latter study, 23% of the male sex workers had syphilis and 36% had gonorrhoea, while among the hijras, 62% had syphilis and 29% gonorrhoea. Indeed, only 4% of male sex workers and less than 1% of the hijras said they used a condom the last time they had sex with a man. Also of note is the finding that one in four of the male sex workers said they also bought or sold sex to women. Such high-risk behaviour must be addressed in order to limit the further spread of HIV in and beyond those sexual networks.
HIV/AIDS is a three dimensional disease. It spreads out by three major causes:- such as unconscious or unsafe sexuality, blood exchange(needle) /transfusion for patients, infected mother to child. HIV/AIDS direct by impact on the human body - it paralyze the physical condition, psychological morbidity and destroy social value. It also wipes out three things, such as it affects adults in their productive prime, severely hampers economic growth of person, and hampers his family, at last by rotation it destroys country’s progress. Every one can protect it by avoiding risk behavioral sex (multi-partner sex, unsafe sex practice etc), by avoiding injectable drug (needle sharing is a burning cause of it), by avoiding getting blood without test. Nation wide programme is also needed to take three major strategies:- top to bottom awareness programme of HIV/AIDS, gender discrimination programme to ensure girls and women rights, poverty reduction programme
Women empowerment can prevent HIV/AIDS
Mohammad Khairul Alam
Executive Director
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
24/3 M. C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh
rainbowngo@gmail.com
www.newslerrer.com.bd
Tell: 880-2-8628908
Mobile: 01711344997
HIV/AIDS becomes progressively concentrated among poor populations in the less develop countries. Although, the develop countries learn to protect themselves and have the resources to make HIV/AIDS into a chronic, not deadly, disease, but the poor remain vulnerable. This is both a result of the characteristics of poverty itself - low education levels, gender discriminations, stigma, limited access to HIV/AIDS information or to health services - and the consequence of the lack of finances to fight the disease.
Poverty and gender discrimination are both strongly linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS. The poor regions in Africa, about 8 percent of all adults in this age group are HIV-infected. About 14,000 infections each day in the world and more than 95 percent of these new infections occurred in developing countries, and nearly 50 percent were among women. Gender and age analysis shows the ways in which women and girls of various ages are vulnerable to the infection and in need of support to enable the survivors to overcome the economic and social effects of the epidemic. In fact, HIV/AIDS and poverty alleviation strategies are interconnected.
Certainly, adolescent girls’ prostitution is booming in Bangladesh. Adolescent girls engage or are forced into prostitution for trafficking or socio-economic reasons. But in addition to sexual exploitation, they face all sorts of violence. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation carried out a recent field investigation, the research confirmed that adolescents girls’ prostitution is widespread in Bangladesh, although hidden at first sight from foreigners, especially in Dhaka city. Adolescent girls involved in prostitution are to be found in residence homes converted into brothels or in hotels. The majority are aged 15-18.
Women empowerment can prevent gender discrimination, which justifies a holistic approach of policies and programmes to reduce poverty and address HIV/AIDS. For example, poverty leads women into unsafe sexual encounters, and speeds the onset of AIDS-related illnesses. Violence against women and girls is common in societies with high instability or conflicts. All these factors establish the fact that more females than males are being newly infected every day. It also indicates that women are more likely to contract HIV and fall sick with AIDS at a younger age than men.
In prevention strategies, adolescent girls do appear as a target group. The education sector, and schools in particular, should be often a major target for HIV/AIDS prevention programmes, via sex education and knowledge of condom-use. By the way we have to address or find out those who didn’t get chance to enrol in these institutions. We have to evolve different strategies to reach the messages to them. In addition, health education programmes which aim to empower women and girls to use condoms often fail adequately to tackle the actual problems because of imbalanced power relations. The desired changes in the behaviour of adolescent girls and boys cannot happen without programmes addressing such issues like how a girl can say no, but also why boys, teachers and other adults should respect the human rights of girls.
Recent research in North region’s three districts in Bangladesh by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation has shown that while provide HIV information with discussions of safe-sex and gender issue may be discouraged for young girls and women because of the ordinary belief that to inform them about sexuality and safe-sex is to encourage sexual activity. Even though that for fear of encouraging sexual activity, mothers deny imperative information about sexual-live, safe sex, reproductive health information from their daughters.
Health and education sectors can work together to develop prevention programmes in schools/colleges, which enhance awareness of gender inequality among boys and school/college staffs, as well as girls themselves. Such programmes also need to expand beyond the school boundaries to reach adolescent girls and boys who do not attend school/college or have dropped out. This may help reduce girls’ continuing vulnerability to violence, coercive sex and HIV infection.
Bangladesh, HIV incidence is low, including among sex workers as with other populations, however, the incidence rises dramatically among those who use intravenous drugs. There are fifteen brothels, where 38000 sex workers are registered, and several NGOs regularly screened for various STDs, the few found to be HIV positive reported that they were drug users or had sexual partners who were. Unprotected sex between sex workers and their clients, needle sharing and unprotected sex between men would become Bangladesh in a vulnerable reason.
In view of, the threat of AIDS and its possible consequences, all communities and NGOs involved in providing preventive & curative health services should give top priority to STD/STI & HIV/AIDS services, and increase the required resources sufficiently. There is also an urgent need to integrate reproductive health services with current family planning and maternal health services to expand their accessibility mainly to women.
Reference: Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
Social, cultural and economic forces make women more likely to contract HIV infection than men
Mohammad Khairul Alam
Executive Director
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
24/3 M. C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh
rainbowngo@gmail.com
Tell: 880-2-8628908
Mobile: 01711344997
THE view of poor and developing countries is that women and adolescent girls are more vulnerable to HIV infection on each sexual encounter because of the biological nature of the process and the vulnerability of the reproductive tract tissues to the virus, especially in adolescent girls. By a study ‘Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation’ also found that a substantial proportion of some young and single textile, garment workers, tea garden female workers, house key-per supplement their low wages by occasional prostitution. Consensual sex or non-commercial sex exists in rural societies, particularly when husbands are absent for a long time.
For example, young women are generally disadvantaged by gender disparities in terms of food intake and access to health care. Growth patterns of girls are often worse than that of boys. The inequalities become evident soon after the birth, and by adolescence many girls are grossly underweight. Social, cultural and economic forces make women more likely to contract HIV infection than men. Women are often less able to negotiate for safer sex due to reasons such as their lower status, economic dependence and fear of violence.
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation’s reveal extremely high levels of infections among adolescent girls, which are higher than those for boys. This is mainly because of the fact that at young age, boys have sex with girls of similar age, while girls have relations with older men, who are more likely to be infected. Sexual harassment of schoolgirls by older men sometime may be the cause of HIV infection. Poverty also drives many adolescent girls to accept relationships with ‘sugar daddies’ (older men who are prepared to give money, goods or favors in return for sex).
Adolescent girls in poor families in developing countries often do not have the option to make real choices about their sexual and reproductive lives, such as when and whom to marry, whether and when to have children and how many to have, and whether to use contraceptives. Women tend to marry very young: nearly two thirds of adolescents in most South Asian countries marry before 18 years of age, and many even before 15 years, despite laws prohibiting such early marriage.
In many poor regions women’s limited economic opportunity and relative powerlessness may force them into sex work in order to survive through household financial disaster. This exposes them to HIV infection and they in turn transmit HIV to their clients. In those areas girls are particularly vulnerable to HIV infections because of intergenerational sexual relationships, violence, and limited access to information. In addition, discrimination and stigma obstruct adolescent girls” access to health services. Poverty causes increased migration to look for work.
Gender analysis in relation to HIV/AIDS has tended to focus on women of reproductive age, and infrequently on young girls, because young women and girls are increasingly being targeted for sex by older men seeking safe partners and also by those who erroneously believe that a man infected with HIV/AIDS will get rid of the disease by having sex with a virgin. So HIV/AIDS epidemic has been fuelled by gender inequality or discrimination. Unequal power relations, sexual coercion and violence are widely faced by women of all age-groups, and these have an array of negative effects on female sexual, physical and mental health.
In many developing countries poverty and gender discrimination between women and men are both strongly linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS. Gender and age analysis shows the ways in which women and girls of different ages are vulnerable to the infection, and it requires support to help the survivors overcome the financial and social effects of the epidemic. The approach for checking HIV/AIDS and that of poverty alleviation are interconnected. Therefore health and development workers should work on a set of integrated policies and programmes to reduce poverty and address HIV/AIDS. They should emphasize the need for special efforts to protect women and girls exposed to the risk of HIV/AIDS and ensure that the legal, civil and human rights of those affected and infected are duly protected and that women have access to treatment, counseling and support on an equal footing with men.
References: UNAIDS, World Bank, Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation