HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS has become one of the major health problems affecting people around the world. As of 1998, more than 33 million people are currently living with HIV, and 14 million have died of AIDS.¹

HIV is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV is a disease that is mainly transmitted through blood, semen, and vaginal fluid in four ways:

• Unprotected sexual intercourse -- vaginal, anal, or oral.
• Sharing needles or injection drug equipment
• Mother-to-child during pregnancy, childbirth, or breast-feeding
• Blood transfusions^{2, 3}

HIV is not transmitted through casual contact such as shaking hands, hugging, sharing glasses or food, kissing, using a drinking fountain, mosquito bites, sneezing, coughing, or using a toilet. Skin provides a natural barrier to HIV, and the virus cannot live for long outside the body.²

HIV attacks the immune system, which is the body's defense system to fight off diseases. HIV works very slowly to prevent the body from making new defense cells, called T4 cells. This makes it harder for the body to fight off infections.³

Testing is the best way to find out if a person has HIV. Many people with HIV have no symptoms at all, or symptoms similar to having a cold or the flu. If the test indicates that a person has HIV, they are often called HIV-positive or sero-positive.²

AIDS is the collection of illnesses or symptoms caused by HIV. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. An HIV-positive person is diagnosed with AIDS when her immune system cannot easily fight off infections. This may be when she is infected with certain types of infectious diseases or when she has a very low T4 cell count. ²

HIV/AIDS affects everyone: women and men, young and old, poor and rich. However, HIV/AIDS has often been termed "The Gay Plague", "The African Problem", or "The White Man's Disease."⁴ These terms hide the fact that HIV/AIDS is everywhere and can affect anyone.

Women's risk for HIV/AIDS is increasing. Women currently account for 43% of the HIV infections worldwide.¹ Developing countries are hit hardest: 90% of infected women live in developing countries.¹ Women usually contract HIV through unprotected sexual intercourse with a male partner.⁵

Women are most likely to care for family members who are infected with HIV, and may become caregivers for children whose parents have died of AIDS. HIV/AIDS represents yet another burden for these women.⁶

Women are especially vulnerable to HIV infection for biological, economic, and social reasons. These reasons apply to most women, especially those who are poor.

Biology:

UNAIDS proposes "Six paths to empowerment" to empower vulnerable women at risk for contracting HIV. These strategies can be used be activists, health care workers, scientists, teachers, lawyers, politicians, women, and men.

Six paths to empowerment⁵

1. Combat ignorance: Make sure girls get educated.
2. Provide women-friendly services: Make sure girls and women receive health care and prevention, such as HIV testing and counseling and distributing condoms. These services must be accessible to women, and not embarassing.
3. Develop female-controlled prevention methods: Conduct or support research for the female condom and vaginal microbicides. The female condom can prevent HIV transmission. Vaginal microbicides can prevent HIV transmission without killing sperm, so that women can still get pregnant.
4. Build safer norms: Support women's groups that fight traditional male dominance.
5. Reinforce women's economic independence: Support training opportunities, credit and loan programs, and women's cooperatives to increase women's economic independence.
6. Reduce vulnerability through policy change:Support policy changes that protect human rights and basic freedoms, and improve economic independence and legal status. Support women in politics who can help make this happen.

Current solutions for HIV/AIDS often focus on:⁶

• reducing the number of partners
• using condoms
• faithfulness

These solutions are not appropriate for most Third World Women; their economic and social positions do not give them the power to use these suggestions.

Current Projects: