“WOMEN
IN PARTNERSHIP”
Strengthening our response to HIV / AIDS
A
joint initiative of the POLICY Project and the HIV/AIDS and STD Directorate of
the Department of Health, South Africa.
“One
of the most striking features of the response to the HIV epidemic to date is how
few of the policies and programmes we have developed relate to women’s life
situations. The daily lives of
women and the complex network of relationships and structures which shape them
are well known to women and well documented.
Despite this, our theories, research agendas, policies and programmes
have not been grounded in and informed by these experiences”
(Elizabeth Reid )
Currently there are approximately 4.2 million South
Africans living with HIV. It is
estimated that in 2000 over 2 500 people will be infected with HIV each day –
translating into more than 900,000 people infected each year.
The primary means of HIV transmission – sexual intercourse – has been
known for well over a decade now, but that information does not prevent
thousands of men and women from contracting the H I virus everyday.
Women, however are the most vulnerable group, with young
women aged 20 to 30 years having the highest prevalence rates of HIV infection.
In fact, as with STI’s, women are at least four times more vulnerable
to becoming infected than men. Women are also socially, culturally and
economically more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. In
this regard, social, cultural and economic power relations play a major role,
with many women still not able to discuss or make decisions about sexual
matters. Because women are more vulnerable and marginalized and because of their
perceived inferior status, their ability to negotiate safer sex and counter
sexual violence remains difficult. By
the year 2005, there will be 6 million South Africans infected with HIV leaving
almost one million orphans under the age of 15 whose mothers will have died of
AIDS.
With an estimated current national prevalence rate of
22.4 % the support of political, government, and community leaders is critical
to the implementation of an effective HIV/AIDS and STD campaign.
The importance of gaining inter-sectoral commitment and support to the
HIV epidemic was highlighted as a key recommendation in the National HIV/AIDS
Review (July 1997). As a result of
this the Government AIDS Action Programme (GAAP) was established in 1998 and
President Thabo Mbeki launched the Partnership against AIDS initiative to broaden
and formalize the participation by all sectors, including civil society, in
response to the epidemic. In the previously adopted AIDS Plan for South Africa
(1994 – 1995) one of the guiding principles was that the vulnerable position
of women in society needed to be addressed to ensure that they do not suffer
discrimination, nor remain unable to take effective measures to protect
themselves from HIV infection
In
both the former AIDS plan for South Africa (1994-1995) and the current plan for
the country it is important for women and women’s organisations throughout the
country to mobilize to form a strong voice to effectively combat the pandemic.
Government has realized that the strategic position women occupy in society can
effectively and positively contribute to a winning response to the pandemic.
The aim is not only to unite women, but to assess where they can best
participate and assist especially in areas such as home and community based care
and counseling.
The
‘WOMEN IN PARTNERSHIP AGAINST AIDS” initiative has run workshops in each of
the 9 provinces with participants from women’s organizations across the
spectrum and sectors and have set up local provincial committee’s
who’s task it will be to coordinate decision making, planning and
action within each province.
At
the national level a Summit is planned for end March 2001 at which a national
consultative forum will be established to ensure that these plans and activities
of the ‘Women in Partnership against AIDS ” in the provinces are recognized,
heard and supported at the highest level, in this instance at SANAC.
he
POLICY Project – in collaboration with the Department of Health and funded by
USAID – developed these one day workshops, which have assisted in determining
women’s needs and thereby strengthening the
responses of women’s organisations to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The
objectives for the workshops were as follows:
