This report details select results of the EVAWUD campaign of 2024, a campaign to eliminate violence against women and gender diverse people who use drugs. This campaign coincides with the UN's 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence to amplify the focus on this historically forgotten population.
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Nomonde Ngema, a young HIV activist, shares her experiences as a young woman living with HIV. She discusses her journey to advocacy, her mission and accomplishments, including her unique and powerful use of TikTok to spread awareness and empower others.
This study identifies HIV-related inequalities among adolescent girls and young women of different socioeconomic backgrounds in Latin America and the Caribbean. The results indicate increased vulnerability amongst economically disadvantaged young women, due to less comprehensive knowledge about HIV, transmission mechanisms, and prevention methods.
Bahati Thomas Haule, a feminist activist and HIV advocate, shares her powerful reflections on World AIDS Day.
This study assesses the merits of an economic strengthening program for HIV prevention among adolescent girls and young women. The program showed great promise, as participants gained valuable skills, increased confidence and hope, and demonstrated shifts away from risky behaviors to protective ones.
Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, strongly entrenched patriarchal structures deprive young women of their agency and autonomy. This impedes their ability to safely navigate sexual experiences and engage in protective health behaviors, exacerbating their risk of acquiring HIV. Conducted in Uganda, this research paper explores the understudied relationship between limited autonomy and higher rates of HIV infection among young women.
This report highlights the multiple linkages between HIV and gender-based violence, emphasizing the need for reprioritization of HIV in peace support operations. Opportunities for integration are recommended.
This research paper describes the particular vulnerability of women living with HIV in the context of armed conflicts. Disruption to regular testing, treatment regimens, and SRHR services plays a significant role in the worsened health outcomes experienced by WLHIV during conflicts.
Women living with HIV experience disproportionate and alarming rates of coercive practices, mistreatment, and abuse particularly while exercising their sexual and reproductive health and rights. This report seeks to understand women living with HIV's experiences of these human rights violations, highlighting stories from women in over 60 countries, and identifying the persistent and widespread nature of this problem.
This study assesses the prevalence of HIV-related and/or risky behaviors among male partners of AGYW. The results highlight the need for targeted HIV prevention interventions for men to reduce both their own risk and the risk of transmission to their female partners.
This report shares the findings from the Stigma Index, a community-led research initiative to gather the most extensive and reliable measures of stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV.
This review aims to synthesize existing evidence of the mental health burden on women living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. It explores the contributing stressors, protective factors, and effects of mental illness on viral suppression rates, providing a clear argument for the integration of increased mental health care services in the HIV response.
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.
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,…
According to a study from McGill University researchers, women who experience recent intimate partner violence (IPV) are three times more likely to contract HIV. In Sub-Saharan Africa, women face an intersecting epidemic of IPV and HIV.
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A new UNAIDS report delineates a clear path that ends AIDS, and helps prepare for and tackle future pandemics. The report cautions, however, that ending AIDS will not come automatically. Women and girls are still disproportionately affected, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, 4,000 young women and girls became infected with HIV every week in 2022.
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Recent data gathered from the People Living with HIV Stigma Index 2.0 indicates that women living with HIV are at an increased risk of reproductive coercion by healthcare professionals across sub-Saharan Africa, eastern Europe, and central Asia. HIV positive women who are sex workers, use drugs and/or are migrants are more likely to receive poor quality and stigmatising reproductive care.
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