Gender and HIV/AIDS
URL: http://www.who.int/gender/hiv_aids/en/

HIV infection is the most devastating new disease to have emerged in
recent history. Although, worldwide, approximately as many women as
men suffer from HIV, this aggregate figure conceals marked
differences in the implications of the disease for men and women.
Some of these result from biological differences in sex between men
and women, but more result from socially defined gender differences.

• Women are probably more susceptible than men to infection
from HIV in any given heterosexual encounter, due to biological
factors – the greater area of mucous membrane exposed during sex in
women than in men; the greater quantity of fluids transferred from
men to women; the higher viral content of male sexual fluids; and the
microtears that can occur in vaginal (or rectal) tissue from sexual
penetration. Young women may be especially susceptible to infection.

• Gender norms may also have an impact on HIV transmission. For
example, in many places, gender norms allow men to have more sexual
partners than women, and encourage older men to have sexual relations
with much younger women. In combination with the biological factors
cited above, this means that, in most places where heterosexual sex
is the main mode of HIV transmission, infection rates are much higher
among young women than among young men.

• Forced sex, which all too many women (and some men)
experience at some point in their lives, can make HIV transmission
even more likely, since it may result in more trauma and tissue
tearing.
Women may remain ignorant of the facts of sexuality and HIV/AIDS
because they are not "supposed" to be sexually knowledgeable, while
men may remain ignorant because they are "supposed" to be sexually
all-knowing. Women may want their partners to use condoms (or to
abstain from sex altogether), but often lack the power to make them
do so. Women (who are often more socially, economically and
physically vulnerable than men) may be unwilling to learn and/or
share their HIV status for fear of violence and/or abandonment if the
results turn out positive.

Female family members already do the majority of caretaking for those
afflicted with HIV, and for those negatively affected by the disease
in other ways, such as AIDS orphans. Healthcare systems (perhaps
especially those undergoing reforms to lower costs) may add to this
burden by depending more and more on such unremunerated caretaking,
on the assumption that this is a role that women "naturally" fill.

Prevention of mother-to-child-transmission (PMTCT) efforts may fail
if they focus narrowly on women and their biological role in passing
along the illness. Beyond their roles as fathers, many men may
effectively control both family finances and their wives' ability to
use health care. Failure to engage men may thus leave women unable to
participate in PMTCT programs even if they, themselves, are
convinced. Furthermore, PMTCT programs that treat women only as the
bearers of children, and not as individuals who are themselves
deserving of treatment, risk both violating women's human rights and
failing to attract as many participants as possible. Due to the
importance of HIV/AIDS as a public health problem, and the many
gender issues that surround it, the Department of Gender and Women's
Health has made focusing on gender and HIV a priority. The following
is a list of recent GWH work on gender and HIV/AIDS:

The 2004 campaigns for the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based
violence and World AIDS Day both highlighted the intersections of
violence against women and HIV/AIDS. GWH Produced several briefs on
the intersection of violence against women and HIV AIDS .

http://www.who.int/gender/violence/sixteendays/en/

In collaboration with WHO's Department of HIV/AIDS and UNAIDS, GWH
developed a policy brief on ensuring equitable access to anti-
retroviral treatment for women.

- Ensuring equitable access to anti-retroviral treatment for women:
WHO/UNAIDS Policy Statement [pdf 166kb]
http://www.who.int/entity/gender/violence/en/equitableaccess.pdf

Integrating Gender into HIV/AIDS programmes, a review paper giving an
overview of the issues involved and recommendations for programme
planners.

- GWH: Integrating gender into HIV/AIDS Programmes [pdf 264kb]
http://www.who.int/entity/gender/hiv_aids/en/Integrating%5B258KB%
5D.pdf
Information on the links between violence against women and HIV/AIDS

- Violence against women and HIV/AIDS
http://www.who.int/gender/violence/vawandhiv/en/index.html

- FR IVP and HIV [pdf 197kb]
http://www.who.int/entity/gender/hiv_aids/fripvhiv.pdf

- IPV and HIV brief [pdf 106kb]
http://www.who.int/entity/gender/hiv_aids/frvawhivbrief.pdf

- FR conflict violence and HIV [pdf 141kb]
http://www.who.int/entity/gender/hiv_aids/frvawhivconflict.pdf

And watch this space for the upcoming release of Guidelines for
Integrating Gender into HIV/AIDS Programmes, a practical handbook for
programme planners to help them include appropriate attention to
gender in voluntary counselling and testing, prevention of mother-to-
child-transmission, care/treatment/support, and youth-and-HIV
interventions. For further information about HIV/AIDS, go to: -
WHO's "HIV-infections" links list
http://www.who.int/topics/hiv_infections/en/index.html

For more on gender and HIV/AIDS, go to:
-The United Nations UNIFEM gender-and-HIV/AIDS web site
http://www.genderandaids.org/