AIDS and violence against women, two pandemics to eradicate.

-The UNAIDS report indicates that in the world more than 50% of HIV cases correspond to women and girls

Spain, 2011-December by having HIV live every day as if it were the last. Me I became infected with in the 1980s, he was very young and he knew little about sex, my partner of that then exercised on me psychological violence so that he had unprotected sex. I never dared even to suggest that we use condom ”. The above story is one of many that we can hear not only in our country but in different contexts where sexual and reproductive rights of women are violated. Women may suffer violence in varying degrees and figures that again more vulnerable to various stigma, discrimination and HIV/AIDS and other STIs.

30 years after the notification of the first cases of AIDS, the overall number of women infected with HIV, over 50%. Unfortunately, this figure continues to rise: in sub-Saharan Africa, currently 61% of adults with HIV are women, according to UNAIDS.

The figures are worrisome and even more, the stories behind. In our country, violence is a factor of context that favors the increase of HIV cases. Furthermore, women living with HIV need to add other violence associated with their illness as discrimination. thus indicates it the gender group of REDVIH, which is composed of more than 80 activists people in the prevention and treatment of HIV, some are professionals of the item and/or living with HIV. Its mission is to incorporate the gender perspective in the programmes of care and prevention of the pandemic.

For María Luisa García, a psychologist and member of the genus group of REDVIH, bidirectionality between HIV and violence against women is, on the one hand, increasing potentially the risk we have women infected with HIV, and on the other hand, the potential increase of gender violence exercised by men and institutions towards HIV-positive women, understanding that violence against women is a violation of human rights, and they therefore have to seek the necessary mechanisms for its eradication ”.

Although interest in understanding the link between HIV and sexist violence has grown in recent years, the truth is that the data in this regard are still relative due in part to the silence and invisibility that often accompany these two pandemics.

This link between HIV and violence against women generates vulnerabilities added for women. So is reels of data offered by ONUMujer, where they emphasize the macho violence or the fear of the couple as a main impediment or consequence for the realization of the HIV test, as well as access to services and measures of prevention and containment against possible exposure to virus treatment adherence.

The violence of gender and other socio-economic and cultural factors make the global HIV pandemic impact greater in women. All kinds of violence including sexual assault, sex under coercion, violence, marriages of convenience or early, mutilation or female genital mutilation, and all kinds of discrimination and less visible violence towards women that make women more vulnerable to the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

This violence, subtle and standardized, which are usually more difficult to identify and therefore eradicate. María Lorenzo was infected with HIV in 1992. The situation of women HIV carrier has made joining in this fight against the established structures and incorporate the gender perspective into their life. The difficulty lies in that it is extremely complex work in the prevention of gender-based violence, either from Government and from non-governmental agencies, as it is the system that prevents this prevention to be effective, due to patriarchal rule established in our society ”. And adds that the visibility of HIV-positive women involves many times the perpetuation of this type of structural violence to us: hinders us access to the world of work, affects our emotional and sexual relationships and adds, as a consequence, one point of vulnerability, not to mention much less protected societies ”.

In response, Maria has been planted and does not want to continue perpetuating what she calls such as micromachismos and constant violence ”, must work against the established structure, although it is a complex job. We must begin this change from each one of us, and stop blame women for the situations we face ”.