Violence Against Women of Color and HIV&AIDS Background

Women in the Global South, Violence and HIV/AIDS: (Data from the World Health Organization, United Nations Population Fund, Population Council, U.S. State Department, and UNAIDS)

One in three women around the world will be coerced into sex or physically or sexually abused in her lifetime.

A multi-country study by the World Health Organization (WHO) found that 59% of women in Ethiopia and 50% in Bangladesh reported sexual violence by an intimate partner; and 34% of women in Brazil and 47% in Tanzania said they had experienced physical violence.

According to UNAIDS, 30% of South African girls say their first sexual intercourse was forced, and 71% have experienced sex against their will.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that 85 to 114 million women and girls, mainly living in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM).

Population Council estimates that every day an estimated 3,500 girls are married as children before the age of 15.

The U.S. State Department reports that out of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls.

WHO and UNAIDS report that 77% of the 17 million HIV-positive women worldwide, or about 13 million, live in sub-Saharan Africa.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 57% of adults with HIV are women, and young women aged 15-24 are over three times as likely to be infected as young men.

Studies from Rwanda, Tanzania, and South Africa indicate that the risk for HIV among women who have experienced violence may be up to three times higher than among those who have not.

Women of Color and Violence in the U.S.: (Data from the Asian and Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence and the National Violence Against Women Survey)

According to the Asian and Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence 41-60% of API respondents reported experiencing domestic violence (physical and/or sexual) during their lifetimes.

An estimated 29.1% of African American females are victimized by intimate partner violence in their lifetime. African American females experience intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and at about 2.5 times the rate of women of other races combined. An estimated 70% of sexual assaults are not reported. For every white woman that reports rape, at least 5 white women do not report. For every African American woman that reports rape, at least 15 African American women do not report. Approximately 40% of Black women report coercive contact of a sexual nature by age 18.

According to the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS), in a lifetime 23.4% of Hispanic/Latino females are victimized by intimate partner violence (IPV), which is defined as rape, physical assault or stalking.

The NVAWS found that Native American and Native Alaskan women and men report higher rates of intimate partner violence than do women and men from other minority backgrounds. According to NVAWS, 37.5% of Native American/Native Alaskan women are victimized by IPV in a lifetime.

Women of Color and HIV/AIDS in the U.S.: (Data from the US Census, CDC, and the Office of Minority Health)

Data from the 2005 US Census show that African American and Hispanic women represent 24% of all US women. However, they accounted for 82% of the estimated total of AIDS diagnoses for women in 2005. The rate of AIDS diagnosis for African American women was approximately 24 times the rate for white women.

In recent years, the number of AIDS diagnoses among Asians and Pacific Islanders documented by CDC has increased steadily. In focus groups, Asian and Pacific Islander women noted cultural taboos against discussing sexual topics and power differentials between genders as reasons for difficulty in getting their partners to use condoms.

Young Asian and Pacific Islander women aged 15-24 are more than 3 times as likely to be HIV positive as young men.

According to the Office of Minority Health, American Indian/Alaska Native women have 3 times the AIDS rate of non-Hispanic white women.

Linking Violence and HIV/AIDS

In a statement made by the Women Won‟t Wait Campaign at the meeting of the G8, “Gender-based violence, and particularly intimate partner violence, is a leading factor in the increasing “feminization‟ of the global AIDS pandemic. Simultaneously, HIV/AIDS is both a cause and a consequence of the gender-based violence, stigma and discrimination that women and girls face in their families and communities, in peace and in conflict, within and outside of intimate partnerships, and by state and non-state actors.

Women and girls encounter violence in their homes, communities, schools, workplaces, streets, markets, police stations and hospitals. And women who are HIV-positive face an additional danger: the stigma and threat of violence against people living with HIV and AIDS. Yet agencies continue to treat HIV/AIDS and violence against women and girls as separate issues – so that not only are efforts to address violence as a cause and consequence of HIV infection under-funded, but also the strategic imperative for integrating these efforts continues to suffer from a dangerous and dysfunctional split.”

Domestic violence and abuse are largely viewed as a private matter. Women in violent relationships are much less likely to seek health care, or HIV/AIDS related counseling, testing or treatment.

Fear of violence often prevents women from negotiating condom use.

Rape often involves physical violence and is usually without a condom, thereby increasing the risk of HIV infection.

Women in violent relationships are less likely to disclose their status to their partner.

Women who disclose their status are frequently beaten by their partners, lose their homes, jobs and children and are rejected by the community.

To truly eliminate violence against women of color (VAWOC) and HIV/AIDS, strategies must be deep and systemic in nature. Societies and their infrastructure must change in order to begin to remedy the structurally, culturally, and systemically perpetuated contexts and dynamics that support gender and racial inequality.