An International Women’s Day message from the UNAIDS Caribbean Regional Support Team
PORT OF SPAIN, 8 March 2013 -- As we celebrate the worth and accomplishments of women and girls across the world, violence against them continues to affect our societies. Even as we recognise women’s strides in education, employment and empowerment, we must forthrightly confront many enduring challenges. One of these is the direct and reciprocal relationship between abuse and HIV. This issue is critical in the Caribbean where an estimated one in three women will experience domestic violence and where national rape rates are often higher than the global average.
Obviously sexual violence including rape and child sexual abuse carries an HIV risk. Less overt are the many ways in which a woman’s experience of violence can undermine her ability to protect herself from HIV. Women who endure violence or intimidation from a partner have a harder time negotiating safe sex or refusing sex altogether. Women who are living with HIV have a greater probability of experiencing violence.
Abuse has longer term effects as well. Recent regional studies confirm a strong link between girls’ experience of various forms of violence (physical, psychological, sexual or economical) and an increased risk of acquiring HIV later on. There is a correlation between past abuse and behaviour risks such as substance addiction, mental illness and unprotected sex.
The AIDS response is increasingly addressing the relationship between gender inequality, violence and the capacity of women and girls to protect themselves from HIV. That means moving beyond ensuring people’s access to sexual health information, products and services including HIV testing and treatment. It also involves engaging men and boys to help build safe and equitable societies. In addition, our families, communities and social services must do more to address the long-term psychological impacts and practical needs of all women and girls who have experienced abuse and violence.
Our social problems are not isolated; neither are the solutions. On this International Women’s Day, let’s work together to end violence against women and girls as a major contribution to ending AIDS.
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