Women Of Color United Platform

Demanding Accountability on Violence Against Women and HIV&AIDS Globally

The global toll of HIV&AIDS in 2006 included 4.3 million newly reported HIV infections and 2.9 million AIDS-related deaths. In the United States, though Latinas and African American women comprise 25% of the population, they account for 81% of all persons who are HIV positive. It is of grave concern that African American Women are 23 times more likely to be HIV positive than white women. In addition, in recent years the number of AIDS diagnoses among Asians and Pacific Islanders documented by CDC has increased steadily.

Without concerted efforts to expand HIV prevention education, harm reduction strategies, improve healthcare worldwide, and provide economic opportunities, among other interventions, these numbers will continue to escalate. Marriage, economic dependence, poverty, physical and sexual violence, inadequate educational opportunities, limited access to contraception, and the challenge of negotiating safe sex are a handful of the many factors which contribute to elevated HIV risk for women and girls.

One out of every three women worldwide will be physically, sexually or otherwise abused during her lifetime, with rates reaching 70 percent in some countries in the Global South. Types of violence and abuse range from rape to domestic violence and acid burnings to dowry deaths as well as so-called honor killings. In the United States, 12.8% of Asian and Pacific Islander women reported experiencing physical assault by an intimate partner at least once during their lifetime, and 3.8% reported having been raped.

Native American/American Indian women experience the highest rate of violence of any other racial/ethnic group. 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. 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). Violence devastates the lives of millions of women and girls— in peacetime and in conflict and knows no national or cultural barriers.

According to the Women Won’t Wait Campaign, “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.”

To truly eliminate Violence Against Women (VAW) and HIV&AIDS, the strategy must be deep and systemic in nature, as societies and infrastructure must change in order to begin to remedy the structurally, culturally, and systemically perpetuated contexts and dynamics which support gender inequality.
The undersigned individuals and organizations support the following policy platform recommendations to address Violence against Women (VAW) and HIV/AIDS, particularly among women of color in the US and women in the Global South who are disproportionately affected by these pandemics:

1. Given the interconnectivity of VAW and HIV/AIDS, funding and policy initiatives must be dedicated to integrated VAW and HIV/AIDS programming in domestic and foreign policy initiatives which includes screening for VAW in HIV programs and screening for HIV in VAW programs.

2. Funding must be increased for the development and implementation of comprehensive approaches to HIV prevention in domestic and foreign policy.

Government financial support for research and access to female controlled prevention methods, including the female condom and microbicides, must be increased.

A strategy for ensuring affordable/free and unlimited access of microbicides, especially to particularly at-risk groups, must be developed.

The abstinence until marriage earmark in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief must be removed.

The anti-prostitution clause in the legislation for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief , which in practice results in the lack of access to prevention, care and treatment services for women who are commercial sex workers, voluntarily or by force, must be removed.

Pediatric HIV prevention programming must include clinical and psychosocial intervention for mothers, when necessary.

Prevention campaigns and strategies must include explicit goals to lessen and eventually eliminate structural risk factors that lead to community/population-level vulnerability, such as homelessness, high rates of incarceration, domestic and other gender-based violence, lack of adequate access to high-quality health care, and lack of a living wage or income.

Government support for the research and development of microbicides must be greatly enhanced.

3. The US Government must contribute at least $1 billion annually to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

4. Programming for Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS must be part of a holistic continuum of care that incorporates co-factors related to substance abuse, incarceration, maternal and child health, and poverty (domestically and globally).

5. The availability of “wrap-around” services, including housing, as well as comprehensive support services, including a full range of legal, social, mental and physical health services, must be supported and funded.

6. Education about women, violence and HIV/AIDS must be mandatory for the professional training of all health-care providers.

7. Involvement of women from all cultural backgrounds and life experiences in HIV/AIDS and VAW research should be proportional to our representation in these global epidemics. Funding for domestic and international research on the intersection of VAW and HIV/AIDS
should emphasize leadership by Colleges and Universities led by people of color and/or with high numbers of students of color (representing most affected communities in the US), as well as Universities based in affected countries. All research should be conducted ethically and adhere to culturally specific research principles with HIV positive members of communities represented on Ethics Review Boards.

8. Public acknowledgement must be made by all levels of the US government of the direct causal relationship between colonization, stigma and discrimination and Native American/Indian women’s susceptibility to HIV and Violence. According to the Native American Network, the families of Indian Country face poverty, unemployment, substandard housing and healthcare, and poor educational opportunity at levels unmatched by any other segment of the American population. Government and States must redress this historical legacy by ensuring that Native American/Indian groups have ample resources and funding to develop appropriate solutions.

9. The Federal Government has undermined the authority of tribal governments to respond to crimes committed on tribal land. Women who come forward to report sexual violence are caught in a jurisdictional maze that federal, state and tribal police often cannot efficiently resolve. The US government must:

Work in collaboration with American Indian and Alaska Native women to obtain a clear and accurate understanding about the prevalence and nature of the sexual violence that they experience.

Ensure that American Indian and Alaska Native women have access to adequate and timely sexual assault forensic examinations without charge to the survivor.

Provide resources to Indian tribes for additional criminal justice and victim services to respond to these crimes.

10. Transgender people must have specialized prevention, care and treatment services.

Data from needs assessment and risk behavioral studies have found that HIV prevalence in transgender and transsexual women ranges from 14% to 30% in 8 cities. In a Washington DC Survey of the transgender community, 25% of all participants self-reported as HIV positive, with another 22% not knowing their HIV status. Transgender women sex workers are at particularly high risk, since they are often financially induced to engage in barrier-free sex.

11. Immigration status should not be a barrier to care for HIV/AIDS and/or VAW. No questions should be asked about immigration status in order to receive post-violence services as well as HIV screening, care, and treatment. Service providers must use culturally competent translators, not family members or friends, for women whose first language is not English.

12. Ensure that federal legislation (such as the Violence Against Women Act) include funding specifically directed to Community of Color based organizations to ensure that these communities are given the opportunity to develop and provide community driven services, interventions and preventions to address Violence against Women in their own communities.

13. Every American must be insured by the year 2010 to address one of the underpinning factors leading to the proliferation of these pandemics. Over 46 million Americans are uninsured. 33 percent of Hispanics, 20 percent of Black Americans, and 17 percent of Asians are uninsured, compared with 15 percent of whites.

14. Funding for violence prevention and mitigation programming in domestic and foreign policy must be increased. Congress should cap the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) at a minimum of $667 million for FY ‘09 in order to restore victim assistance funding while protecting the VOCA Fund for the future and providing services for victims nationwide. The President’s attempt to empty out the VOCA Fund should be rejected since rescinding the entire Fund would mean no available funds to support victim services at the start of the next fiscal year and Congress would likely have to use taxpayer funds to maintain victim services. Full funding for all Violence against Women Act (VAWA) programs should be maintained.

15. Explicit funding and guidance for VAW programming must be included as part of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Funding for violence prevention and mitigation programming in domestic and foreign policy must be increased.

16. HIV/AIDS treatment programs offered by governments, healthcare institutions and providers must address the barriers to women accessing confidential, culturally and linguistically relevant HIV/AIDS treatment and treatment information.

17. US participation in trade talks must prioritize access to affordable medicines for persons living with HIV/AIDS globally.

18. Testing policies and programs must meet standards for addressing dynamics and risks around disclosure of HIV status for women, including stigmatization and violence, domestically and globally.

19. HIV surveillance policies must be created to include an acquisition category that would capture information on comprehensive socioeconomic and environmental factors known to elevate women’s-particularly women of color and low-income women-risk of HIV infection, irrespective of presumed or identified behavioral risks. According to the National Women’s AIDS Collective, “An outdated HIV surveillance data-collection system yields policies, programs and funding levels that are tragically inadequate to address the true magnitude of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among women in the US. As such, the current design of the CDC’s HIV/AIDS surveillance system has profound implications for women at risk of, or living with HIV/AIDS.” This systemic deficit disproportionately disadvantages women of color.

20. Policies must be enacted to ensure that girls worldwide have universal access to education. Studies have demonstrated the multiple social benefits of a girl’s education including: increasing incomes with benefits for families and nations as a whole, reducing the number of children that she will have and ensuring that they will be healthier, decreasing her risk of HIV infection, reducing domestic violence, and fostering democracy and women’s political participation. 60% of the 100 million children currently out of school are girls.

21. Policies ensuring measures to prevent the use of women as weapons of war, as well as impact mitigation for women who are abused in war time must be instituted and/or strengthened.

22. Many impoverished nations are paying more in servicing illegitimate debt to the IMF/World Bank than they are in taking care of the disease burden of HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, malaria, and other illnesses. Also structural adjustment programs by the World Bank and IMF are preventing country spending in health and education sectors, which would allow the hiring of adequate doctors, nurses, and teachers, to care for their citizens. The US Treasury must use its influence to advocate for 100% debt cancellation for impoverished nations as well as ensure that the IMF and World Bank lift restrictive fiscal policies that keep impoverished nations from adequately investing in health and education.

23. The Convention on the Status of Women calls on governments to remove barriers to substantive gender equity. This requires countries to examine the actual conditions of life for women and girls and to report on structures and customs that discriminate against them and on actions taken to eliminate those barriers. As a result of the Treaty, hundreds of laws have been put in place to improve the basic human rights of women around the world. The United States of America is one of only 5 countries that have refused to sign the treaty. We must sign onto this critical treaty.

24. Policies must advance economic empowerment of women and girls globally. Research has found links between economic status and VAW, as it relates to economic dependence placing women in vulnerable situations, and similarly with HIV/AIDS. Women of color and women in the Global South are disproportionately economically disadvantaged.

For example:

In the US, the tax code should be restructured so that the burden falls less heavily on the economically disadvantaged.

Corporations must pay their fair share of taxes.

Measures must be taken to ensure that women and girls are able to secure property and inheritance rights globally.

25. Women’s political participation must be increased. The perspective of women at all levels of decision-making is necessary to ensure that interests of women are taken into account in the development of policies that affect them, including those related to HIV/AIDS and VAW. Women occupy only 17% of parliamentary seats around the world. In the US, though women of color constitute 29% of the US population, we only comprise 4.6% of the total 7,382 state legislators.

Civic education and advocacy programs should educate and motivate women to participate in the political process by educating them about their rights and their role in shaping policies that affect their lives.

Women candidates for public office and elected women leaders should be provided with training and ample resources to help them effectively compete and work in the political sphere. In the US, leadership of women of color should be actively promoted.

For more information, please contact Jacqui Patterson at coordinator AT womenofcolorunited.org