7,000 women across the world:
It is a shocking fact that despite the world having 25 years experience of dealing with an HIV epidemic that grows exponentially every year, we are far from finding the solution to the disease. One of the greatest barriers to preventing HIV is that awareness alone cannot prevent its spread. Throughout the world, those who experience poverty and poor healthcare are most at risk.Bianca Jagger/Guardian UK 01.Dec.06
For women and girls, poverty can mean financial dependence on a partner or on sex work. This often means they cannot insist on using condoms, particularly in countries where a woman's value is measured by her fertility and a choice has to be made between motherhood and HIV. Neither can they insist on abstinence or faithfulness, as the threat of violence, abandonment or destitution is a by-product of their dependence. For millions of adolescent girls in poor countries, susceptibility to rape, forced marriage, dependence on "sugar daddies" and trafficking also put them at high risk.
Addressing poverty and gender inequality among women worldwide is no easy task, but it is one that must be pursued vigorously, as the lives of millions of women are at stake. In many countries, women are leading the way in responding to the HIV epidemic, grandmothers are taking charge of small children whose parents have died of Aids and women and girls are disproportionately involved in caring for sick and dying relatives. So it is not the case that women are powerless victims, yet by focusing on condoms or abstinence in our global response to HIV, we exclude women because these are factors often out of their control.
