HUMAN RIGHTS OF WOMEN

HUMAN RIGHTS OF WOMEN
110। Discrimination against women, de facto and de jure, renders them disproportionately vulnerable to HIV and AIDS. Women’s subordination in the family and in public life is one of the root causes of the rapidly increasing rate of infection among women. Systematic discrimination based on gender also impairs women’s ability to deal with the consequences of their own infection and/or infection in the family, in social, economic and personal terms.
With regard to prevention of infection, the rights of women and girls to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, to education, to freedom of expression, to freely receive and impart information, should be applied to include equal access to HIV-related information, education, means of prevention and health services. However, even when such information and services are available, women and girls are often unable to negotiate safer sex or to avoid HIV-related consequences of the sexual practices of their husbands or partners as a result of social and sexual subordination, economic dependence on a relationship and cultural attitudes. The protection of the sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls is, therefore, critical. This includes the rights of women to have control over and to decide freely and responsibly, free of coercion, discrimination and violence, on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health.44 Measures for the elimination of sexual violence and coercion against women in the family and in public life not only protect women from human rights violations but also from HIV infection that may result from such violations।Violence against women in all its forms during peacetime and in conflict situations increases their vulnerability to HIV infection. Such violence includes, inter alia, sexual violence, rape (marital and other) and other forms of coerced sex, as well as traditional practices affecting the health of women and children. States have an obligation to protect women from sexual violence in both public and private life.Furthermore, in order to empower women to leave relationships or employment which threaten them with HIV infection and to cope if they or their family members are infected with HIV, States should ensure women’s rights to, inter alia, legal capacity and equality within the family, in matters such as divorce, inheritance, child custody, property and employment rights, in particular, equal remuneration of men and women for work of equal value, equal access to responsible positions, measures to reduce conflicts between professional and family responsibilities and protection against sexual harassment at the workplace. Women should also be enabled to enjoy equal access to economic resources, including credit, an adequate standard of living, participation in public and political life and to benefits of scientific and technological progress so as to minimize risk of HIV infection.
HIV prevention and care for women are often undermined by pervasive misconceptions about HIV transmission and epidemiology. There is a tendency to stigmatize women as “vectors of disease”, irrespective of the source of infection. As a consequence, women who are or are perceived to be HIV-positive face violence and discrimination in both public and in private life. Sex workers often face mandatory testing with no support for prevention activities to encourage or require their clients to wear condoms and with little or no access to health-care services. Many HIV programmes targeting women are focused on pregnant women but these programmes often emphasize coercive measures directed towards the risk of transmitting HIV to the foetus, such as mandatory pre- and post-natal testing followed by coerced abortion or sterilization. Such programmes seldom empower women to prevent perinatal transmission by prenatal prevention education and an available choice of health services and overlook the care needs of women.