Put violence against women at the centre of all HIV responses
The theme of the XVIII International AIDS Conference, which is taking place this week here in Vienna is ‘Rights Here, Right Now’ and certainly women’s rights are high on the agenda. One of the biggest issues in relation to women's rights violations, that of violence against women is a key area of discussion at the conference and in many of the sessions to date, there have been stark and challenging reminders of the need to put the issue of violence against women at the heart of the HIV and AIDS response.
At this morning’s plenary session, row after row of shocking statistics on violence against women unfolded on the huge PowerPoint screens in front of an audience of up to 20,000 delegates, accompanied by the haunting lyrics of Tracy Chapman telling one woman’s story of abuse. The effect was powerful.
The links between violence against women and HIV have been made clear in numerous WHO, UNIFEM and other studies over the past few years, with violence acting as both a cause and a consequence of HIV. It is well documented that fear of violence is for many women a huge barrier to seeking treatment or indeed adhering to treatment. We also know that a lack of economic autonomy education and decision making power often makes a woman more vulnerable to violence and HIV.
Everjoice Win, the plenary speaker, stressed that women are not innately vulnerable to violence, but are ‘made’ vulnerable due to gender inequality, gender norms and power disparities between women and men. She reminded us that culture, so often used to maintain the status quo, or indeed to roll back the gains in relation to women’s rights, is not above human rights and not above the law.
In spite of the fact however that the links between HIV and violence are well highlighted and well documented, the need to address these ‘twin pandemics’ in an integrated and effective way still remains a huge gap and challenge to policy makers and practitioners alike. She reminded us that many are still doing HIV related programming as if there was no violence against women which posed some important and challenging questions such as: “How can we talk about universal access to treatment if we do not remove the barriers to treatment-such as violence against women? How voluntary is the ‘v’ in ‘Voluntary Counseling and Testing’ in the context of violence against women? How often do partner notification interventions consider repercussions of violence against a woman?” Her message was loud and clear to all present. If we are serious about women’s rights and about universal access to treatment, then we must integrate a response to violence against women in all HIV related interventions. The challenge is there. It is up to all of us involved in HIV related prevention, care and support to take this message firmly on board, and to hopefully come back to the next International AIDS conference in 2012, with much more documented evidence of effective well integrated HIV and violence against women programmes that are making a life changing difference to both women’s and men’s lives.
