Women's Rights Equals Women's Lives - from Mexico

Women’s rights and gender based violence (GBV)seemed to be everywhere at Mexico 2008 – from the March to Zocolo square to the fashion range produced by sex workers as an income generation enterprise to the almost dazzling range of sessions on gender equality, gender based violence, sexual and reproductive health, women on the margins and stigma and discrimination. We heard that 61% of all cases of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are still in women and that violence and HIV go hand in hand as parallel epidemics feeding off one another. There were calls for zero tolerance to gender based violence: as one speaker put it “when the world denies women their most basic human rights, the world is vulnerable to HIV”.

Sessions on rape as a method of war in the DRC, Zimbabwe, Darfur, Rwanda and more recently in Kenya discussed some good NGO responses but ultimately pointed to the failure of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and more recently UN Resolution 1820 to protect women and girls. Paula Donovan of “AIDS Free World”, a US based advocacy group, was visibly outraged by the appalling levels of violence in Bukavu in eastern DRC and the corresponding levels of impunity afforded to perpetrators of these crimes. She called the recently signed Peace Accord “a triumph for impunity and a trading of women for peace” and ended by saying that the sad reality is that none of what has been agreed, declared or committed to has had an effect on a single girl in the Congo.

I went along to Paul Spiegel’s talk on HIV rates in conflict settings knowing that his findings are controversial and while scientific, seem to defy logic. His study shows that there is no additional risk of contracting HIV in conflict despite the appalling levels of sexual and gender based violence in these situations. There are a number of possible reasons for this but none of it takes away from the need to provide full services and protection to women and men who suffer such a basic violation of their rights. Speakers from the floor commented that if the international community is having difficulty understanding the findings then surely there’s a danger that the press will misinterpret them – which is a fair point.

Violence against women of course is not confined to conflict. Sex workers spoke of discrimination of women and abuse suffered at the hands of the authorities in Cambodia, where police are rounding up women in rehabilitation centres. They suffer many violations of their rights in these settings – cut off from medication and services and often subject to rape by police and prison officers. This story is repeated in many countries and points to the need for legislative change, adequate services and for groups to self-organise and be part of the solution. The criminalisation of transmitting HIV knowingly is also worrying – 15 African counties, including Sierre Leone and Zimbabwe, have enacted laws which extend to a woman who might pass the virus onto her child. Edwin Cameron from South Africa spoke of how this legislation will hit women hardest and far from protecting them will victimise and oppress them further.

Speakers also talked of the shared risk of gender based violence and HIV and the need to programme these areas together. The “Image Project” from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine linked a microfinance programme with one targeted at addressing HIV and GBV. The programme has been very successful at empowering women, reducing their risk to HIV and gender based violence and reducing poverty levels and is about to be scaled up. It’s worth watching.

The academic presentations were fascinating but the women themselves could not fail to move you with their courage, resilience and commitment. We heard from a woman in Rwanda who had been raped in the genocide and went on to set up a peer support group, from HIV positive women in Kenya who organised themselves in camps to ensure that vulnerable groups received HIV medication and from the strong women living with HIV who wanted to get on with their lives, to invest in relationships and have children. A young woman from Argentina spoke of her desire to have a baby and the stigma she faced when she shared this news with family and friends. A man in the audience queried why there wasn’t a man on the panel and commented that men struggle with the same issues as potential fathers – perhaps something for AIDS 2010?

There is little to report in the line of new methods to protect women. The microbicide and vaccine trials have failed. Male circumcision may have a long term protective effect for women as the number of infections decreases in men but does not have an immediate benefit for women. There is some concern that it does not require men to change their behaviour in a way that will support a woman to have greater control over her sexual health. The combination prevention that has been pushed so strongly at this conference is perhaps the best hope for women until the science catches up with their daily reality.
Posted by Finola Finnan