HIV prevention tools may be used earlier and more consistently during pregnancy if greater options are made available in pharmacies. This research paper quantified the preferences among Kenyan women of childbearing age regarding pharmacy-delivered HIV prevention services, which can greatly inform programmatic work and service delivery in this area.
Content Type
FOUND 651
The HIV Prevention Choice Manifesto represents the voices of African women and girls in all their diversity, feminists, and HIV prevention advocates who call for global political and financial support for HIV prevention choice. The manifesto outlines several points for action that will enable future prevention programs to emphasize individual choice, rather than individual products.
This study demonstrated the safety and efficacy of the dapvirine vaginal ring, as well as oral PrEP regimens with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine, for use during pregnancy. The safety of the oral PrEP methods has previously been established for pregnant cisgender women, but data has been limited for the dapivirine ring. This represents an important step for reducing HIV infection amongst pregnant women, who are three times…
Lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable PrEP medication, was proven to be completely effective in preventing HIV infection in cisgender women. Developed by Gilead Sciences, this is the first HIV prevention drug that resulted in zero new human infections during Phase 3 trials. Lenacapavir holds great promise for the future of HIV prevention, as it represents an alternative that can mitigate challenges of adherence and stigma associated with a…
Although disproportionately affected by HIV, adolescent girls and young women, particularly those living with HIV, are often the strongest advocates and leaders in the response. Ensuring they know their rights and have the skills and opportunities to claim them is crucial to removing barriers to life-saving HIV services, achieving gender equality, and ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
The publication documents results,…
UN Women Rwanda Strengthens National Advocacy for an Increased Response to HIV Among Women and Girls
As part of national efforts to enhance the livelihood status of rural women living with HIV, UN Women provided financial and technical support to 8 cooperatives composed of 317 farmers (217 women, 100 men) of which 269 are HIV+. These cooperatives received coaching RRP+ to improve their agricultural skills as well as cooperative management (saving, investment, marketing, and reporting), use of financial resources and reporting.
Between 2010 and 2013, with support from the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, UN Women implemented a regional programme, "Action to Promote the Legal Empowerment of Women in the Context of HIV," to increase women's access to property and inheritance rights in nine sub-Saharan Africa countries (Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe) as a means to reduce vulnerabilities to and mitigate the…
This living report details the various global responses of organisations providing harm reduction and auxiliary services to women who use drugs. Responses to COVID restrictions for WUD have been mapped and are presented here.
Throughout the world, people who inject drugs experience stigmatization, vulnerability, marginalization and higher risk of acquiring HIV. The situation is even worse for women who inject drugs as detailed in this Policy Brief. In addition to highlighting the importance for services specifically responding to the needs of women who inject drugs, the companion…
The brief highlights the intersections between age, gender, and drug use, making the case for why young women who use drugs are particularly at risk of HIV transmission and not adequately reached through mainstream health services. The brief also offers some recommendations for how our HIV response can better meet the needs of young women affected by HIV and drug use.
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…
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…
Incorporating gender analysis into the rapidly developing scholarship on drug use, drug trade, drug science, drug treatment, and drug policy in the United States, the special issue showcases articles that are part of a vibrant body of historical, sociological, and anthropological scholarship. The differential effects of drug policy are explored, focusing on how gender – in dynamic relationship to race, class, and sexuality – is integral to…
Misinformation, stigma and discrimination contribute to the promotion of ideas that any type of drug use during pregnancy will result in harm to the foetus. Criminalisation, stigma and discrimination associated with illicit drug use during pregnancy also results in many women keeping their pregnancy concealed and prevents them from accessing a range of services, such as antenatal care, harm reduction services including voluntary drug…
Intersectionality refers to the ways in which different aspects of a person’s identity can expose them to overlapping forms of discrimination and marginalization. The concept is useful for understanding and addressing inequities experienced by women who use drugs.
Also available in Russian, Indonesian and Ukrainian
The mantra ‘Nothing about us without us’ speaks to the imperative of HIV service providers considering the needs of those served. Despite the increased risk of women who use drugs acquiring a blood borne virus and experiences of state and social forms of gender-based violence, there is a distinct lack of women focused harm reduction services. This interview highlights how the use of feminist theory frameworks with art and story telling…
The meaningful involvement of the Women’s Advisory Group has been critical in increasing the active participation of women who use drugs in harm reduction services in MdMs harm reduction programming in Myanmar. This interview highlights the strategies used by the group and the rationale driving their activities and ambitions.
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…
Young women and girls who are affected by punitive drug policy face unique age-related as well as gender-specific risks, barriers and rights violations that are not well recognized or responded to by policymakers or service providers. Parental consent combined with minimum age restrictions to medical treatment as well as harm reduction services create access barriers for this cohort. This article examines these issues to highlight the…
Addressing gender inequality as a structural impediment to preventing HIV and mitigating its impact on women and girls is widely recognized, including strong commitments made in the UN General Assembly “Political declaration on HIV and AIDS: Ending inequalities and getting on track to end AIDS by 2030”. Yet, less is known about financial investments to advance gender equality in the HIV response to implement those commitments.In 2019, UN Women,…