HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS
• EQUAL SHARING OF RESPONSIBILITIES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN INCLUDING CAREGIVEN IN THE CONTEXT OF HIV/AIDS
BY
Racheal Okegbola

Objectives

• Look at the statistics of the HIV/AIDS and implications of the epidemic for men and women
• The scope of sharing responsibilities between men and women analyzing the causal factors, and most serious consequences of inequalities in sharing responsibilities which are exacerbated in the HIV/AIDS Context
• Recommendations for the government, communities and individuals
Definition

GENDER AND HIV/AIDS IN NIGERIA

• AIDS – Acquired Immune deficiency Syndrome: is a deadly incurable disease caused by the Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) This virus destroys the body’s own ability (antibodies) to fight infections. Hence the infected person will eventually die. AIDS is a worldwide health problem (disease). In Nigeria 530 cases of AIDS were reported between 1986 and 1992 (AIDS monitor- May, 1993). In 1999 the national AIDS/STIs control programme indicated that 5.8millions and 4% Nigerians are still HIV positive in 2005. HIV/AIDS is spread through
•
• Virginal, oral or anal sexual intercourse with someone who is infected with HIV
• Use of unsterilized needles, blades and knives which have been on or by an infected person.
• Sharing of needles and syringes with HIV infected persons.
• Transfusion of HIV-infected blood.
• An infected mother to her unborn child
• Breast feeding by an infected mother.

Today Nigeria is losing too many breadwinners, experienced workers and future leaders to HIV/AIDS- related infections when appropriate treatment and care can keep them alive and productive for many years. Most importantly stigma and discrimination affect PLWA negatively, decreasing their quality of life, it’s an immense barrier to effective responses to the epidemic, thus addressing stigma and discrimination remains a major challenge in the national responses against HIV/AIDS.
Statistical Background
• Women in Africa not only live with AIDS but also care for infected relatives and orphaned children.
• As the AIDS epidemic sweeps across developing nations with a vengeance, woman is the hardest hit. African women are hit even harder. Research finding indicate that 55percent of adults infected with HIV/AIDS in Africa are women. Statistics show that women and girls 15to24 years show the highest rates of increase.
• Women in Africa are bearing the brunt of the epidemic, not only as people living with AIDS, but also as the ones caring for infected relatives, orphaned children, and others.
• The many male-female inequalities also make women increasingly vulnerable to HIV infection.
• Without treatment, 25percent to 35 percent of children born to HIV-positive women in less developed countries become infected.
• More than a million children are living with HIV ore AIDS round the world
From policy issue
• Surveys consistently showed that unpaid household work was the largest sector of a nation’s economy, but the United Nations guide on the conduct of those surveys made it difficult to determine how much time was devoted to care work. It was not helpful if figures were constructed to fit hours worked into a tidy 24-hour day since that was not how women lived their lives. Nor was using estimation to measure and value unpaid work.
• For example, if a caregiver for someone with HIV made six trips, three times a day to secure water, it was not important to know the market value of the water carried, she said. What were important were when the woman travelled, where she went and whether she carried the water. The nature of the work done in the giving of care was more important for policymakers. Further, if one third of primary health care was provided at home, as demonstrated by local surveys, then one third of federal primary health-care budgets must be directed to those people. That was not a difficult concept to understand in terms of human rights.
• But as long as household work was excluded from national accounts, women would not make progress. construct gender policies that promoted men’s involvement in care giving.
• While research showed that men were participating more in care giving of their children than was commonly thought, they still spent relatively little time on it

Causes and consequences
• In the patriarchy of family, the men are considered the head of the household and responsible for the care of his family, extended and nuclear family
• Across many cultures, women are not expected to discuss or make decisions about sexuality, so suggesting condom use is out of the question.
• They are also expected to trust their husbands unconditionally. Feelings of love and trust often paralyze women and prevent them from perceiving the real risk taking preventive measures, and seeking safer sexual relations.
• In some societies, women cannot object to their husbands having multiple partners, because this is culturally accepted.
• In some cultures, men believe that sex with young virgins can cleanse them of sexually transmitted disease (STDs) and HIV.
Causes of unequal role in HIV/AIDS
• As the epidemics of HIV and AIDS have developed over time, international organizations, national authorities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have recognized that social inequalities and power relations have an important impact on HIV care given role.
• the vulnerability of individuals and groups include social background, age, race, gender and sexuality. Not infrequently, these different variables interact with one another so as to render some groups systematically more vulnerable and other groups more protected
Issues in HIV/AIDS
• Unequal gender relations can be seen in many ways but are particularly visible in the special vulnerability of women to HIV and AIDS in developing countries, and in men's risk taking behaviors.
• Economic and social vulnerability, as well as stereotypical HIV/AIDS gender roles, influence women's and men's vulnerability to HIV infection, while fuelling the overall course of the epidemic.
Consequences of inequalities in gender relations
• women in many parts of the developing world are less likely to control how, when and where sex takes place, thereby increasing the likelihood of unwanted pregnancy, STDs and HIV (see, for example, International Center for Research on Women, 1996).
• Women's vulnerability to HIV infection is enhanced for several reasons including their economic dependence on men, lack of access to education, poverty, sexual exploitation, coercion and rape, as well as by the fact that women are more likely than men to sell sex in order to survive
• Surrounding and to some extent legitimating these inequalities are ideologies of masculinity and femininity which make it seem 'natural' that men should have the upper hand when it comes to economic decision making, opportunities for advancement, expressing their sexual desires and satisfying their sexual needs.
Consequences ctd
• Across many cultures, women are not expected to discuss or make decisions about sexuality, so suggesting condom use is out of the question. They are also expected to trust their husbands unconditionally. Feelings of love and trust often paralyze women and prevent them from perceiving the real risk taking preventive measures, and seeking safer sexual relations. This automatically affects gender roles in care given
Consequences cotd
• Once a woman is HIV positive, she faces stigmatization. She is rejected by even her own family, regardless of whether or not it was the husband who brought the infection home. She is especially subjected to the violation of her sexual and reproductive rights. She is forced to suspend or change her sex life and will not be allowed to have children. In many instances, HIV-positive married women are abandoned by their husbands with no legal or economic recourse.
Consequences cotd
• Recently, a Kenya man ejected his HIV-positive wife from their main house to live in modestly furnished servants’ quarters. The wife, a 34-years-old bank cashier, had contributed through mortgage payments to the buying of their home. However, when she tested HIV-positive, the husband kicked her out. He went to court and sought estrangement from his wife, saying that her HIV status had put his life in danger. He also claimed cruelty, assault, abuse, and other matrimonial offences.
• In s landmark ruling on July 31 this year (2000) that was hailed as a good precedent and practical policy statement on AIDS, three Court of Appeals judges hearing the suit ordered the husband to take back his wife. They noted that although they sympathized with the husband’s fears, it would have been morally wrong for him to desert his spouse until a court decreed otherwise.
Consequences
• This case was, however, more the exception than the rule. Many women cannot pursue their legal rights. Often, after being widowed by AIDS, a woman loses her property to greedy relatives and finds herself abandoned by the whole family. She has to take care of her children in addition to buying drugs to manage her HIV status (if she is infected). Many such widows turn to prostitution to generate income, or they encourage their female children to take up prostitution. As is common, sex workers often cannot ensure their clients’ practice of safe sex or their own.
• In other cases, infected women, including single mothers, are not only faced with the task of expensive management of their status but also of caring for their children. During a recent World AIDS Day celebration, a single mother living with AIDS confessed that she had to breastfeed her baby, although had warned her that in doing so, she risked infecting the child. She had no money to buy him milk. She said it was a struggle in her slum life to raise the 600 shillings (US 8) required for her monthly dose of AIDS drugs. She asked the crowd whether they could blame her for breastfeeding when nobody was willing to give her money to buy milk for the baby.
Recommendation
• Living up to society’s definition of a good woman may be hazardous to one’s health, at least when it comes to AIDS. Being passive, submissive and naïve in sex matters, as well as too unquestioning of a partner’s peccadilloes have made women more vulnerable to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, experts have noted.
• Economic dependence also forces women to endure forced sex, early marriage, and incest, all of which might cause vaginal tearing and expose young women to HIV. For the same reason, most women accept their partner’s extramarital affairs though these put them at risk. Most HIV cases are rooted in heterosexual contact involving monogamous women and their philandering husbands. Low social status is at the root of woman’s vulnerability.
• “We will not achieve progress against HIV until women gain control of their sexuality”-Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General World Health Organization
Lessons learned from Nigeria
• The work of caregiving in the home, be it to raise a young child or nurse a relative sick with HIV/AIDS, must be valued by society, financially supported by Governments and shared more equally between women and men, gender equality experts
Lessons learned
• Women and girls shouldered most of the burden of unpaid care worldwide, spending on average of twice as much time on it as men, she pointed out. That was particularly challenging in low-income countries where the lack of such basics as modern appliances, running water and indoor electricity meant women spent hours fetching water and fuel. Wealthy women could afford maids and nannies, but poor women bore the burden alone, leaving them little or no time for training, education, political activities and leisure.
• And women caring for relatives could not strike for not being paid or because Government’s were unresponsive. There is a need for strong constituencies to demand accountability on the issue.