Gender roles continue to influence HIV/AIDS spread

Nov 01, 2008 News

Gender issues in Guyana continue to contribute to social, economic, and political problems, since women carry a disproportionate burden, relative to men, in economic and social terms.

Additionally, gender roles and relations powerfully influence the course and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, since these factors shape the extent to which men, women, boys and girls are vulnerable to HIV infection, and the ways in which AIDS affects them.

In acknowledgement of this, Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy noted that reversing the spread of HIV necessitates that women are empowered in all spheres of life. As it stands, women’s socially defined roles as caregivers, wives, mothers and grandmothers mean that they bear the greatest part of the AIDS-care burden.

They also bear the brunt of the epidemic in other ways, since they are most likely to lose jobs, income and schooling.

Against the backdrop of the growing ‘feminisation’ of AIDS in Guyana, Minister Ramsammy said, special programmes have been put in place, through collaboration with other organisations, to address the specific factors that contribute to women’s vulnerability and risk.

These include insuring that adolescent girls have access to information, services and treatment; that violence against women is not tolerated, and that prevention interventions target vulnerable women.

Institutionally, attention to women’s rights and to gender issues has been bolstered by a nascent women’s movement linked to regional Caribbean organisations, international conventions, and UN conferences.

Donor support, particularly from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Gender Equity Programme, has been an important stimulus for improving the legal foundation for gender equality and building programmes to deal with gender issues, the minister said.

However, men and young boys are also vulnerable.

In a recent Gender Assessment Report for USAID/Guyana, a non-governmental organisation working to prevent transmission reported that the principal gender issue in dealing with HIV/AIDS is the case of young men, devoid of employment opportunities or achievement and with low self-esteem, who consider themselves to be invincible but are also reluctant to seek information and advice.

The recent Behavioural Surveillance Survey (BSS) reported that of the 702 male out-of-school youths surveyed, 47.8% felt that their chances of being infected were low or non-existent.

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Gender roles continue to influence HIV/AIDS spread

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