Key Population-led Organizations Must Expand Service Provision To Cover Domestic Violence and HIV-infection
This article was picked up from Uganda Human Rights Watch Website. The human disaster of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome), which has devastated the populations of countries worldwide, is having an increasingly disproportionate effect on women and girls. Women now constitute the majority of infected adults in sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East. In addition to an increased physiological susceptibility to HIV infection, violations of women’s rights heighten their vulnerability to AIDS. Women’s subordinate position in marriage; unequal access to economic opportunity, medical resources, information, and education; and, discriminatory property and legal rights, are just some of the factors that sustain the escalation of the pandemic, and make women particularly vulnerable to HIV infection. Unremedied domestic violence, which is itself a widespread and chronic abuse of women all over the world, plays a critical role i...