From newsdesk@igc.apc.org Tue Mar 21 11:55:03 2000
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 22:27:23 -0600 (CST)
From: IGC News Desk <newsdesk@igc.apc.org>
Subject: HEALTH-INDIA: 2000 UNAIDS Theme Gender Biased, Say Women Activists
Article: 91654
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
X-UIDL: 5b040eed6f15587339da1fdff4f1fc6a
MEXICO CITY, (IPS World Desk, Mar 19)—Women health activists in India have criticised the theme for this year’s global campaign to combat acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), charging that it is gender biased.
The criticisms were levelled soon after the United Nations department
dealing with AIDS (UNAIDS) launched the international drive in New
Delhi, the Indian capital, this month. The 2000 World AIDS Campaign
has as its theme, Men Make a Difference.
What troubles the Indian activists is the total emphasis on male
behaviour. By highlighting the role of men and their issues, it may
result in women getting further marginalised and their spaces taken
away,
says Radhika Chandiramani, the director of Talking About
Reproductive Sexual Health Issues (TARSHI), an independent health
body.
According to Anjali Gopalan of the NAZ Foundation, a non- governmental
organisation (NGO) that works with homosexuals, the consequences of
such an effort has the potential of resulting in an uneven
outcome. It has been lopsided from the word go,
she observes.
For both Chandiramani and Gopalan, what is required is a healthier
strategy that emphasises gender equality than a gender-targeted
programme. It is a holistic approach that is needed.
UNAIDS officials, however, see this issue in a different light. Akhila Sivadas maintains that such a reaction stems from the apprehensions about how the campaign’s theme will be interpreted.
The theme paper of UNAIDS has been at pains
to explain that
there is no intention to exclude women
, that the campaign is in
fact motivated by a desire to better women’s capacity for
sexual negotiation with their partner,
says Sivadas, a spokeswoman
at the UNAIDS office in India.
Furthermore, she feels, women need to take note of the central idea behind this international drive: that it is an effort to underscore the importance of men to take on responsibility in the fight against AIDS.
Adds Dominique De Santis, the press officer at the UNAIDS
headquarters, This year’s World AIDS Campaign does not mean
an end to prevention programmes for women and girls. Rather, the aim
is to complement these by work which more directly involves men.
In his estimation, the current efforts to help women will be more
effective when they are accompanied by parallel efforts directed at
men. This push by UNAIDS to prevent the spread of the killer disease
can be understood in light of the high numbers that link men as
contributing factors
to the epidemic. Since AIDS surfaced, over
70 percent of the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) infections
world-wide have occurred through sex between men and women, 10 percent
through sex between men, and a further five percent among people who
inject drugs, 80 percent of whom are men.
In addition, a report released by UNAIDS for the launch of the global
campaign reveals that HIV infections and AIDS deaths in men outnumber
those in women on every continent except sub-Saharan Africa. Young
men are more at risk than older ones,
it notes. About one in
four people with HIV is a young man under the age of 25.
Furthermore, it calls for greater attention
to be given to the
needs of millions of men, in particular to those living with HIV/AIDS.
By the end of last year, the number of victims provided a dismal picture about the impact of AIDS. Since the disease surfaced, 16.3 million people have died and currently, close to 33.6 million men, women and children are living with HIV or AIDS.
In 1999, there were 5.6 million new infections world-wide, of which 3.8 million were in sub-Saharan Africa, the worst hit region, and 1.3 million in South and Southeast Asia.
Through the current campaign, UNAIDS hopes to shift the focus to the
way men have been perceived in relation to the disease. The time is
ripe to start seeing men not as some kind of problem but as part of
the solution,
remarks Peter Piot, the executive director of
UNAIDS.
Male sexual behaviour will be one area that health activists will
concentrate on in an effort to influence change during the campaign,
given that men have more sex partners than women,
The objective is to get men to realise that they increase their own
and their primary partners’ risk of ontracting HIV
, a risk
compounded by the secrecy, stigma and shame surrounding the resultant
disease, AIDS.
Long distance truck drivers in parts of Africa, Central America and Asia will be among those who will be approached to change their behaviour, since they have been identified as having multiple sex partners and practising unsafe sex.
Male violence is another area due to be addressed, since it drives
the spread of HIV through wars and the migration they cause, as
well as through forced sex.
Studies conducted by UNAIDS reveal
that millions of men a year are sexually violent towards women and
girls,
and world-wide, close to one woman in three has been
beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.
Furthermore, the international drive also seeks to shape the way men
relate to their families, by adopting positive behaviours
and
playing a greater part in caring for their partners and
families
.
This stems from what numerous studies world-wide have shown: Men
generally participate less than women in caring for their children.
This has a direct bearing on the AIDS epidemic, which has now left
over 11 million children orphaned and in need of adult help to grow up
clothed, housed and educated.
The choice of Asia to launch this year’s campaign is the outcome
of the region having the potential to greatly influence the course
of the global epidemic
, according to the UN body. Currently, an
estimated 6.5 million people are living with HIV in Asia, and the
major force driving the epidemic has been attributed to heterosexual
behaviour. The AIDS virus has been spread through truckers,
traders, contract labourers, sailors and their sexual partners, many
of whom are sex workers.
For Abha Joshi, of the Indian-based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, the male emphasis of this year’s campaign will be effective only if it includes men without any detriment to women.
Women should not take such hard lines on gender specific focus as
we are generally the ones who keep insisting on gender focus most of
the time,
she says.
A departure from an inclusive
stance, she adds, will contribute
to a problem, exposing how shortsighted
UNAIDS is, since
suffering has no gender.