International Women's Day

Just in time for International Women's Day this year, the Women Won't Wait campaign launched a timely report recognizing the intersectionality of violence against women and HIV/AIDS. "Show Us the Money: Is Violence Against Women on the HIV&AIDS Funding Agenda?" by an international coalition of human rights and health organizations, calls for changes in the policies, programming and funding streams of national governments and international agencies.

Other IWD information:

International Women's Day 2007

Women's E-news

Human Rights Watch: Women's Rights Division

Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, discusses the importance of promoting women's health this International Women's Day:

"On International Women's Day, I invite you to join me in celebrating women worldwide. Women are the backbone of all our societies - as leaders, as caregivers, and as mothers. Yet on this day and every day, we remember that too many women in the world lack access to the most basic health care.

Women have particular needs and face specific health issues. However, the health needs of women are given neither the attention nor the prominence they deserve. Each year, for example, more than half a million women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth alone - a number that has hardly changed in 20 years. In 2006, 74% of people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa were young women.

This year's International Women's Day is devoted to ending impunity for violence against women and girls. We know that intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence in women’s lives - much more so than assault or rape by strangers or acquaintances. The high level of physical and sexual violence committed by an intimate male partner has shocking consequences for women's health. Furthermore, one in five women reports being sexually abused before the age of 15, which is associated with ill health for years to come.

The health of women is given far too little space in plans for development and too little attention in many health agendas...."

Read entire statement

Women, HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Skills Building Workshop held in Toronto August 14-17, 2006.

CURRICULUM with ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY and CASE STUDY available online!

Online athttp://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/diana/women_hiv_aids/contents.htm

Table of Contents
1) Overview Articles

2) Sex, Gender & Social Context in the HIV/AIDS Pandemic
(a) Stigma, Discrimination, and Violence
(b) Gender, Sexuality, and HIV/AIDS
(c )Criminality and HIV/AIDS
(d) Sex Trade Work
(e) Women's Property and Inheritance Rights
(f) Orphan & Vulnerable Children in Changing Family Structures
(g) Neglected Population: Indigenous & Aboriginal Women

3) Challenges in Access to Prevention Treatment and Care
(a) Women and HIV Testing
(b) Sexual Violence
(c) Access to Post-Exposure Prophylaxis
(d) Access to Microbicides & Other Female-Controlled Prevention
(e) Access to Reproductive Health Services, including Abortion
(f) Neglected Population: Adolescent Girls
(g) Evidence-Based Practices and Policies
(h) Community and Family Based Care
(i) Gender Dimensions of Health Rationing

4) Accountability, Advocacy & Documentation

CASE STUDY:Treatment Action Campaign v. The Minister of HealthA case decided in 2002 by the Constitutional Court of South Africa whichfound that pregnant HIV-positive women had the constitutional right tomedication to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Online at: http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/diana/casestudies.html

CURRICULUM of our Spanish workshop held August 17,“Mujeres, VIH-SIDA y derechos humanos: explorando las intersecciones”,see the RED ALAS website:http://www.red-alas.org/click on: “Publicaciones”then click on: "Capacitación”

ICW: Reproductive Rights and Wrongs

The International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) is the only international network of HIV positive women and has 5000 members worldwide.

Our vision is a world where all HIV positive women:
Have a respected and meaningful involvement at all political levels, local, national, regional, and international, where decisions that affect our lives are being made;
Have full access to care and treatment; and
Enjoy full rights, particularly sexual, reproductive, legal, financial and general health rights;
Irrespective of our culture, age, religion, sexuality, social or economic status/class and race.

Here we feature the story of Sthemiso, an ICW member, whose experiences powerfully illustrate why the sexual and reproductive rights of HIV positive women are a key focus of ICW's advocacy work and communications.

For more information about ICW's work and for copies of publications please see www.icw.org . Or get in touch - info@icw.org.



My Story of Motherhood: Reproductive Rights and Wrongs

We all know that life circumstances change and feelings shift. Perhaps something that you felt certain about five years ago is not necessarily so certain now. Sthembiso* tells us the story of her daughter, born when she was only a girl. She describes the stigma of being the HIV positive mother of a disabled child who she now knows is also HIV positive. She explains why previously she did not want another baby. Today her life is very different and she longs to have one.

'For me motherhood is a complex issue. I have an HIV positive child who has another, completely separate disability. I feel guilty each time I talk directly about her. My daughter was born in 1993. In 1996 I had a stillborn child. In 1998 I had a termination of another pregnancy and was pushed into being sterilised. At the same time I was living with no hope for treatment, had an abusive partner, and was jobless with no real home of my own. At that point I would have said I absolutely did not want to have any more children.

When I went into labour we were building a little mud house outside the main house. When I felt the pain and saw things coming out I told my mother but she insisted that I work even harder. I had to fetch and carry a 25-litre container of water from the tap at the main house. (That mud house is where my daughter and I ended up sleeping because my mother did not want the noise of the baby to disturb her.) I worked the whole day mixing the mud, fetching the water and cooking. According to my mother this was to help the labour process. Obviously I couldn't complain – I had committed the worst sin ever by falling pregnant at 16 without being married. My parents were doing me a favour keeping me at home when they could have rightfully kicked me out. After 3 pm when the pain was unbearable my mother allowed me to have a bath and to
take a taxi to the clinic – on my own. When I got there they shouted at me for arriving late.

After being examined they called an ambulance – I needed medical attention at the hospital. But the baby came before the ambulance. She was a girl and she did not cry – I was told she was too tired. Finally we were ferried to hospital where she was kept in the nursery for five days. I only learned nine months later that loss of oxygen at birth caused her disability. I do not want to blame my mother but there is a part of me that says if she had not made me work so hard, things would have turned out differently. Had she sent me to the clinic earlier my daughter would probably not be disabled. I would have felt better had she at least accompanied me to the clinic. I do not know why I am writing this. It is the first time I am actually acknowledging this
disturbing reality of my life.

Changes and challenges

My life has changed now. My daughter is almost 15. She is in care after I realised it was the best option for her as her needs are becoming more complex the older she gets.

It was after coming to terms with my HIV diagnosis, meeting other women in similar situations, and beginning a new life, that the desire to have another child cropped up. Having another child (if I do have one) would give me the opportunity to enjoy being pregnant by choice and to be a mother in different circumstances. I think of my daughter too; I am her only family. What will happen if I die? I would pass on peacefully if I knew that I was not leaving her alone no matter how long it took her sibling to grow enough to understand there is a sister who needs love and nurturing.

My desire for another child has thrown up many challenges. The first is to get a partner. I am in my 30s, have HIV, a disabled child, and I am a feminist. HIV helped me to discover myself as a woman and I am finding it really hard to find and keep relationships with men. I have explored in vitro fertilisation (IVF) as an option. It turns out that male partner participation in treatment is essential. One boyfriend agreed to take the treatment with me. However, he refused to go for a fertility test, arguing that he did not need to as he already has children. In the end he went after I negotiated and traded off a fair degree of my power in the relationship. The results showed that his sperm count was low and he needed fertility treatment for the IVF to
be successful. He did not receive the news very well, and he blamed me for bringing it to his attention. A couple of months later the relationship was over.

The question is, do I wish to meet another man and tell him my story, beg him for his sperm and loose some power in the process? The answer is, I would rather not, but what choice do I have? Maybe I should try the sperm bank, but will they take me if I disclose my HIV status?

Pain and Joy

All those years ago when I was sterilised I felt as though I was being punished and judged. I did not want to have a child then. But I did not want to be sterilized either. Recently my doctor suggested that perhaps we could reverse the sterilisation. Two weeks ago I learned
with shock that the sterilisation was irreversible. I am still dealing with this. I have not lost hope. I will continue to explore the options and the possibilities I have.

I draw strength and support from a woman living with HIV who is in a similar situation. We talk and cry over the dramas as they unfold. I always claim my case is the worst, but she tells me no, because she is married and hasn't told her husband she was sterilised. If she had revealed this, her husband's family would not have paid lobola (bride price) for her. She is worried about what will happen to her if she discovers her sterilisation cannot be reversed either, as this is her only solution.

As I live and grow with HIV, I see other women with HIV having healthy children. I feel joy and pain when I learn that someone has had a baby. I do not go anywhere near baby shops. I avoid places with infants.

I love my daughter very much, I love her gorgeous smiles, I enjoy the way she creatively uses her body to communicate her needs, wants and emotions with me using MAKATON (a communication technique she uses as she cannot speak). I enjoy the way she propels her wheelchair to dangerous places in the house to attract my attention, the way she is self-aware, how she will not take on another activity before you clean her hands, how she will behave when she sees another disabled child, how she is when I am with her alone or with her carers and teachers, how she learns and copies games from able-children and imitates them using the abilities she has, and how she recognises anything said and sung in her home language Zulu although she has not spoken or lived in a community that speaks the language in years. I love the way she portrays my character and how our interests and behaviour are the same sometimes. I love reading her school reports. Dear daughter. I cannot begin to say how grateful I am that she's almost fifteen. My daughter and I are very lucky. I know many children in her situation no not have access to what she has.

HIV has become less of a worry as far as my desires are concerned. I am on treatment and receive high quality care. All my medical professionals are supportive. My state of health is excellent. Unlike many women, I have access to information, services, resources and support. For me the most stigmatising thing was having a disabled child and having HIV. Now with support and love from other HIV positive women, and professionals, I am surviving that double stigma. There is no way I could be brought down by the stigma of being HIV positive and pregnant.'

(Source ICW News 34 -please link to http://www.icw.org/files/ICW%20English%2034%20Web.pdf)

*Sthembiso's name has been changed

HRW: World AIDS Day 2006: Ideology Trumps Action as Epidemic Worsens

Governments Must Respect Rights to Advance AIDS Fight

(New York, November 29, 2006) – Twenty-five years after AIDS was first identified, programs to fight the disease continue to be undermined by conservative ideologies and moralistic approaches, Human Rights Watch said ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1.

“The most effective approaches for preventing HIV/AIDS are not being used,” said Joe Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS program at Human Rights Watch. “Governments are refusing to adopt evidenced-based programs that respect individual rights, and are instead promoting ideological campaigns that make people more vulnerable to infection.” Human Rights Watch identified a number of examples from around the world affecting those most at risk of HIV infection, including youth, women, and injecting drug users.

• In sub-Saharan Africa, a majority of young adults lack adequate knowledge of HIV transmission. Yet some governments emphasize “abstinence-only” approaches and promote inaccurate information about the effectiveness of condoms. For example, in Uganda the government promotes “virginity parades” and restricts the availability of condoms to youth while the epidemic – in a country once considered a “success story” – has worsened dramatically.
  
• Women are increasingly recognized as the “face” of AIDS, but governments refuse to address the human rights abuses that cause their vulnerability. One in three women will face some form of gender-based violence in her lifetime, and studies have found that women who experience violence are up to three times more likely to become infected.
  
• One in three new infections outside Africa affects injecting drug users. Few governments, though, are adopting such proven strategies as substitution therapy for drug addiction or the provision of clean needles. In Russia, where the epidemic is concentrated among injecting drug users, the government has refused to permit the use of methadone and has hindered the widespread availability of clean needles.

Six months ago, UN members signed a declaration recognizing that the protection and realization of human rights is essential in the global fight against AIDS. “The theme for this year’s World AIDS Day is ‘Keep the Promise,’” Amon said. “But unless governments adopt effective approaches that respect the rights of those most vulnerable to the disease, their broken promises will add up to millions more infected with HIV.”

At the International AIDS Conference in Toronto last August, Human Rights Watch collected audio testimony from AIDS activists and individuals living with HIV worldwide, who present personal stories and perspectives on what is needed in the global AIDS fight. “Listen to their stories and you can begin to understand the impact of the AIDS epidemic and the failure of the world’s governments to address it,” Amon said. To hear the testimonies of AIDS activists and those living with HIV which Human Rights Watch recorded at the 16th annual International AIDS Conference, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/aids/2006/toronto/audio.htm

For broadcast-quality audio interviews of other leading AIDS activists around the world, as well as a 30-minute radio program produced by Human Rights Watch for the International AIDS Conference, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/aids/2006/toronto/audio2.htm

Lancet on Maternal Mortality

From time to time we’ll include issues related to health and human rights that go beyond HIV/AIDS.

In an upcoming issue of the British medical journal Lancet are a couple of articles which advocate for increasingly focused approaches to the problem of maternal mortality.

In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals proposed to reduce maternal mortality by two-thirds by 2015. An article in this week’s Lancet says that this will best be done by adopting a “core strategy of intrapartum care based in health-centres”. The authors contend that not enough international attention has been directed towards maternal health and that the international donor community should “channel funds through sector-wide support”.

But in a related comment, researchers from University College London call the argument a “one-size-fits-all” strategy and suggest instead that maternal health policies be “context-specific” and community-based. Just strengthening the health services will have little effect on poor people who may not have access to the health centers, the Comment says.

Human Rights Watch recently reported on women turned away from care in Burundi, and imprisoned after giving birth for failing to pay their hospital fees. This report shows that clearly we must act both to strengthen the availability of appropriate, quality care, and the accessibility of it.

Kristof’s “The Deep Roots of AIDS”

Nicholas Kristof searches for the roots of HIV [Op-Ed, “The Deep Roots of AIDS”, September 19] and finds them in poverty and gender inequality. He tells the story of a man in Cameroon who falls ill and eventually dies of AIDS. The family, unable to gather the funds to pay for consistent treatment, is now destitute: the man’s wife is alone and disenfranchised, his daughters have dropped out of school and have few choices ahead of them.

Yet Kristof’s solution isn’t to address the root causes he identifies—poverty and gender inequality—but to promote routine HIV testing. Expanding testing programs alone will not ensure antiretroviral treatment for the lower-class. It will not end violence against women, which helps fuel the epidemic, nor will it diminish the lure of sugar-daddies to pay school fees or put food on the table.

In preaching abstinence until marriage and fidelity, the U.S. program on AIDS has turned a blind eye to these issues. We do need a more aggressive approach to the global AIDS crisis, but it must be built around protecting human rights, empowering women and girls, and expanding access to antiretroviral drugs. Only then will people seek HIV testing - and be able to do something about the result.