Equality for women helps fight AIDS
Prof. (Dr) Fatima Parveen Chowdhury
WORLD AIDS Day is observed every year on December 1 throughout the world. "Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS," is the theme of this year 2004. It reflects how the effects of HIV/AIDS have significantly increased among women. AIDS is still a major problem worldwide and the number of new cases is rising. Globally women and girls are becoming infected with HIV at a faster rate than men and boys. In recent years, the overall proportion of HIV-positive women has gradually increased particularly in the Sub-Sharan African region. In 1997, women were 41 per cent of the people infected with HIV; by 2003 this figure reached to almost 50 per cent. In household survey in sub-Saharan Africa, 15-24 years old women and girls were found to be 2.7 times more likely to be HIV-infected than their male counter parts. Many women and girls are vulnerable to HIV because of the high-risk behavior of others. Girls and young women have less access to knowledge and information than boys on sex, sexuality and are denied the tools to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. Studies also suggested that marriage and long term monogamous relationship do not protect women from HIV. Faithfulness is only protective when neither partner is infected with HIV and both are consistently faithful. This year the campaign, with the strap line 'have you heard me today?' Explores how gender inequality fuels the AIDS epidemic and seeks to raise awareness about and help to address many issues affecting women and girls around HIV and AIDS. In Bangladesh HIV prevalence among most vulnerable population groups is less than 1 per cent except among Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) where it has reached 4 per cent, in central area of Bangladesh. This could be the epicenter of an HIV/AIDS epidemic. Though Bangladesh is still a low prevalent country, however, it demonstrates all the factors, which makes the country highly vulnerable to HIV epidemic. Early and forced marriage, high marginalization of women, significant gender issues and some sensitivity surrounding condom promotions prevail in our society. Percentage of women in mainstream economic activities is very low and economic dependencies of women on the men make them vulnerable to domestic violence. Death of the husband and widowhood may lead to women to sexual exploitation; violence or she may end up to selling sex to feed her children. Instances of rape, wife beating, burn injury, acid throwing etc. are not uncommon. Thus there is a clear need to focus on gender issues and integrating it in HIV prevention programming in Bangladesh. We know one of the best means of protecting girls from HIV exposure is to keep them in school. Girls and women can gain greater control over their own lives if they are given access to credit, business and life skill education. Therefore HIV programming in Bangladesh requires a well-designed framework for addressing such issues and should provide a cohesive response on national policies, agreed principles and international covenants to which Bangladesh has promised. Through girls' education, gender-based development movements, and some legal acts Bangladesh has made great progress in this area in the past two decades. However, much remains to be done. While we observe World AIDS Day, we reiterate to strengthen our commitment to combat HIV/AIDS. Let us jointly take the unique opportunity to save our nation specially mothers, sisters and daughters from eminent HIV epidemic. Prof. (Dr) Fatima Parveen Chowdhury is Director, CME and Line Director, National AIDS/STD Programme.
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