HEALTH-KENYA: Gender Equality Key to Combating AIDS

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Mar 11 2004 (IPS) - The importance of placing gender equality at the heart of efforts to combat AIDS was highlighted in Kenya this week, with the release of a new plan by the gender sub-committee of the National AIDS Control Council.

Entitled “Mainstreaming Gender Into the Kenya National HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan 2000-2005”, the document was released on Wednesday (Mar. 10). It details the factors which put women at a greater risk of contracting HIV than men, and outlines actions which should be taken to ensure all AIDS policies acknowledge this fact.

According to the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), 1.4 million women in Kenya between the ages of 15 and 49 years were infected with HIV in 2002. This was compared to 0.9 million men in the same age group.

Another study conducted in the same year by the National HIV/AIDS and STD Control Programme indicated that the infection rate amongst girls aged 15 to 19 was 24 percent – while the rate for men was 13 percent.

AIDS researchers ascribe these disparities to a number of factors, including the fact that cultural and economic circumstances often lead to a situation where men wield more power in relationships than women. This reduces the extent to which women have a say in sexual matters.

“Due to the prevailing social and economic dynamics that make women unable to negotiate safer sex, as well as a female’s biological vulnerability, the overall impact is that women are contracting HIV at a faster rate than men,” says the new AIDS Control Council document.

It adds, “Sexual prowess, multiple partners and control over sexual interactions, define masculinity. Often men are required to prove their masculinity by being dominant or having many sexual partners.”

The document notes that men frequently become violent when these gender norms are challenged, something that received attention in another report launched earlier this month (Mar. 5) by a network of rights groups in Kenya. According to this earlier publication, more than 90 percent of violence in the country is committed against women. A large percentage of these attacks take the form of sexual assaults.

“Mainstreaming Gender Into the Kenya National HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan” suggests ways in which women can become more financially self-sufficient – and confident in demanding that their partners use condoms. But women’s groups have called for a more concerted approach to eliminating gender inequalities.

“This strategy needs the backing of other proposed laws such as the pending domestic violence bill, which will ensure total protection of the female gender (in) all spheres,” says Jacinta Barasa, Chairwoman of Sisters Beyond Boundaries. This organisation works to ensure women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

“We desperately need this law to be approved soon and authorities to ensure its enforcement. It is one thing to pass a bill, and it is another to make sure it is effected. Upon enacting it, government must devise monitoring mechanisms to guard against its violation,” she adds.

Kenya’s Minister of Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Service, Najib Balala, says efforts to end violence must also involve men. “If we empower one gender at the expense of the other, then we are creating a time bomb. The challenge should be 50-50,” he observed.