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NEWS & LETTERS, October 2004Woman as ReasonViolence against women is a cause of AIDSby Terry Moon Women are getting AIDS and dying from it in far greater numbers than men. That isn't only because women's bodies make them more vulnerable to the disease. It has everything to do with how women are considered less than human, and how women's liberation is under direct attack from the Right. A new study published in the prestigious medical journal, LANCET, confirmed what so many of us suspected: it is because women do not have control of their own lives and bodies that they end up sick and dying. The LANCET study showed "clear evidence that South African women whose male partners are violent or controlling face a 50% higher risk of becoming infected with HIV than other women." This appears to be true worldwide. Human Rights Watch (HRW) studied Uganda, a country held by the Bush administration as an example of a successful campaign against AIDS, and found "that Ugandan women are becoming infected with HIV, and will eventually die of AIDS, because the state is failing to protect them from domestic violence." THE FEMINIZATION OF AIDS Rates of women's infection in Asia have increased sharply in just a few years and are expected to continue to rise. Even in the Middle East, where often women's traditional role is strongly enforced, 55% of those infected are women. Stephen Lewis, U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, put it most succinctly: "[G]ender inequality is what sustains and nurtures the virus causing women to be infected in ever greater, disproportionate numbers." In sub-Saharan Africa, where almost 30 million of the 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS live, 58%, or about 17 million, are women. If you break it down further, women account for 75% of those between the ages of 15 and 24 living with HIV/AIDS. Lest anyone think this is only a problem overseas, women have risen from 7% to over 25% of those in the U.S. diagnosed with AIDS. African-American women are 23 times more likely to get AIDS than white and account for almost 72% of new HIV cases even though they are only 6% of the population. The Bush administration's response to this tragedy is to politicalize AIDS funding--as he has politicalized all funding--using the deaths of hundreds of thousands as a way to push his extreme right-wing anti-human retrogressionist agenda. Rather than spend the $15 million over five years that the U.S. promised to fight AIDS in scientifically proven ways--empowering women and promoting condoms and making them available--the needed funds are going to abstinence-only programs and reactionary religious organizations. Women are paying with their lives because Bush has targeted for destruction the very notion that women should have "reproductive rights." Uganda is the poster child of this effort as it has significantly reduced new HIV infections. Uganda's ABC program--standing for "Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms"--has been mischaracterized by the Bush administration as putting a greater stress on abstinence than on monogamy and condoms, when all three are stressed. The ABC program is endlessly touted by the U.S. administration as the reason for the decline in AIDS. CRIMES OF BUSH'S 'ABSTINENCE ONLY' The truth is that Uganda aggressively got the word out about AIDS in a way that took away the disease's stigma and made AIDS a subject of discussion throughout society, including in grade schools. The education of the population is the basis of its success. But even here, as HRW warned: "Programs focusing on fidelity, abstinence, and condom use minimize the complex causes of violence, and incorrectly assume that women have equal decision-making power and status within the family." Those who have worked for years fighting the disease and ground themselves in proven scientific studies, condemn Bush's policies as ineffective and deadly. Abstinence does not speak to women's reality where young brides in Africa get AIDS from husbands who are often years older; where one-fifth to one-half of women and girls worldwide are forced into their first sexual encounter; where over a third of young South African women fear refusing men's sexual advances; where poverty leads to prostitution; and where rape is a systematic weapon of war. Given this actuality, those closest to the epidemic turn to science or the law for answers. Stephen Lewis hopes for a breakthrough on microbicides "in five to 10 years" so "that women will have a way to reassert control over their sexuality and defend their health." HRW insists the Uganda government "enact and enforce laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination against women to bring Ugandan practices into accord with international human rights standards and constitutional provisions." Although science and legal reforms must be pursued as a means to stop the mounting deaths, they leave intact the reality that must be confronted, challenged and transformed: that women are considered less than human; that we do not have control over our lives and bodies. The needed solution is a human one, a new human society built on totally new foundations. |
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