FOUND 627
The AIDS response has taught the world the importance of protecting human rights and promoting gender equality when fighting a disease. COVID-19 has amplified that lesson. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, UNAIDS has repeated the call that governments must protect human rights and prevent and address gender-based violence—an issue that is even more vital now that lockdowns are putting women and girls at an even higher risk of intimate…
The analysis demonstrated that adolescent girls and young women with the higher vulnerability profiles, including the impact of unequal gender norms, have increased odds of negative health outcomes and experiences. The analysis calls upon tailoring community-based HIV prevention efforts by deferentially targeting/tailoring interventions and health services for sub-populations in higher versus lower HIV vulnerability profiles. Across…
The new joint policy brief by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS sets out the steps needed to improve and integrate HIV prevention and contraceptive services in order to reduce new HIV infections among women. This brief has been developed in response to the ECHO study which found extremely high HIV incidence rates among women frequenting contraceptive services in parts of East and Southern Africa. Recommending a woman-centered…
UNAIDS report on the global AIDS pandemic 2020  shows that women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa continue to be the most affected and accounted for 59% of all new HIV infections in the region in 2019, with 4500 adolescent girls and young women between 15 and 24 years old becoming infected with HIV every week. Young women accounted for 24% of new HIV infections in 2019, despite making up only 10% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa. 
The aim of the present study was to assess the level of self-esteem and Hope among HIV positive Adolescents across gender. The researcher considered perinatally infected Adolescent boys and girls who are HIV Positive, currently living in a HIV care and support centre.
Gender inequalities affect women’s access to and experience of HIV/AIDS programmes and services. The current study focused on Female Injecting Drug Users with human immunodeficiency virus positive status, residing in Champai district of Mizoram - known as transit hub for illegal drugs.
On Zero Discrimination Day this year, UNAIDS is challenging the discrimination faced by women and girls in all their diversity in order to raise awareness and mobilize action to promote equality and empowerment for women and girls.
Across the world, gender inequality, violence, poverty and insecurity continue to stoke excessive HIV risk among women and girls, especially those in marginalized and excluded communities.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) undermines women’s uptake of HIV services and violates their human rights. In a two-arm randomized controlled trial we evaluated a short intervention that went a step beyond IPV screening to discuss violence and power with women receiving HIV testing services during antenatal care (ANC).
In sub-Saharan Africa, four out five new HIV infections among 15-19 year olds are in girls according to UNAIDS 2019 estimates. Surveys during 2011- 16 showed that more than half of rural women aged 15–24 in sub-Saharan Africa had been pregnant before their 18th birthday, and as recently as 2016, 40% of young women in sub-Saharan Africa and 30% in South Asia were married while still children. These examples highlight how gender power relations…
Young women in sub-Saharan Africa remain at the epicentre of the HIV epidemic, with surveillance data indicating persistent high levels of HIV incidence. In South Africa, adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) account for a quarter of all new HIV infections. Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS) is a strategy introduced by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) aimed at reducing…
Women and gender non-conforming people are disproportionately impacted by law enforcement in the context of punitive and prohibitionist drug policy. In addition to their over representation in global incarceration rates, women who use drugs experience forms of violence including penalisation for drug use in pregnancy and parenthood, extortion and sexual and physical abuse by law enforcement officials and, in the extreme extra judicial killings.…
From South Africa to Myanmar, from Brazil to Kyrgyzstan, women are resisting the war on drugs. Killings, criminalization, incarceration, denial of medical care, and social stigma are just a few of the effects the war on drugs has had on communities around the world. It targets particular groups, with gender-specific impacts. For example, the long history of the medical establishment’s sexist and abusive treatment of women provides a strong…
From South Africa to Myanmar, from Brazil to Kyrgyzstan, women are resisting the war on drugs. Killings, criminalization, incarceration, denial of medical care, and social stigma are just a few of the effects the war on drugs has had on communities around the world. It targets particular groups, with gender-specific impacts. The war on drugs is clearly a feminist issue. Yet the effects of repressive drug policies on women, trans and gender-…
In alignment with the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) goal to reach ‘95-95-95’ targets – that 95 percent of all people living with HIV will know their status, 95 percent of all those with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy (ART), and 95 percent of all those receiving ART will have viral suppression by 2020 – a gender analysis is an important planning tool for the development of…
Voices from the Field features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This post is authored by Lanice C. Williams, advocacy and partnership manager, and Mark P. Lagon, chief policy officer, at Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
According to the Equal Measures 2030 report, Harnessing the power of data for gender equality, no country has yet achieved full gender equality. The Lancet Series on Gender Equality, Norms, and Health shows that this inequality impacts heavily on global health outcomes, laying out the role of gender norms in perpetuating inequities, and HIV is no exception.
Increasing and sustaining engagement in HIV care for people living with HIV are critical to both individual therapeutic benefit and epidemic control. Men are less likely to test for HIV compared with women in sub-Saharan African countries, and ultimately have delayed entry to HIV care. Stigma is known to impede such engagement, placing an importance on understanding and addressing stigma to improve HIV testing and care outcomes. This study aimed…
The purpose of this Technical Brief is to assist Global Fund applicants in their efforts to include and expand concrete and effective programs to remove human rights-related barriers to HIV prevention, diagnosis and treatment services. This brief discusses the barriers to access and uptake of HIV services that these programs help to remove, the investment approach to these programs, the various forms the programs take, the need to cost and…
Communities of people living with HIV across the world refused to accept the slow pace of progress against HIV. Local peer support groups grew into national and international activist movements, demanding their right to the highest attainable standard of health, and to be treated with dignity and respect.