Gender Inequalities, Power Relations, and HIV/AIDS: Exploring the Interface

Although the HIV epidemic affects, directly or indirectly, all segments of the population regardless of age, sex, religion, and socioeconomic status, women are the most affected group in Sub-Saharan Africa and most other parts of the developing world. While slightly more than 50% of all HIV cases worldwide in 2010 were women, up to three times as many women as men aged 15-24 years were infected in Sub-Saharan African countries (UNAIDS 2010). The difference is the result of inequitable gender norms that influence male interactions with females on many issues, including HIV prevention, sexual intercourse, and physical violence (WHO 2007), as described in Chapters 1 and 2. Interventions to promote women’s health and control HIV/AIDS and most laws and policies either neglect women’s rights or, if they do mention them, are not implemented. This complacency is illustrated by the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Right of Women in Africa (the African Women’s Protocol), which was adopted by the African Union in 2003. However, only 29 out of 52 countries had signed and ratified the protocol by 2011, and while it provides a strong framework for women’s reproductive rights in the African context, it fails to include specific protections for girls and young women as it does for older and disabled women. Even for those countries that adopted the protocol, major hurdles remain in implementing its provisions (Gerntholz et al. 2011).