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Facing the AIDS epidemic with a sexual and reproductive rights approach


Document type: article
Download file(s): 122938 (444 KB)
Abstract: Comprehensive approaches to HIV do not only address risk reduction but also try to identify and deal with the causes of vulnerability that limit the ability of individuals and communities to protect themselves and others from HIV infection. They move beyond raising HIV/AIDS awareness to some form of social change, be it more political advocacy of women, transformation of gender notions and behaviour, or community action to tackle local HIV/AIDS-related problems. This article discusses how the initial approaches to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s were based on an essentially biomedical conception, thus dissociating the disease from social relations. In the 1990s, new approaches placed the health and illness process within the context of social, cultural, political, and economic systems, allowing this issue to become central to the struggle for human rights of people living with HIV. Hence, this epidemic offers the opportunity for in-depth reflections and networking in struggles for citizenship and social change. In the last two decades, the women’s movement and especially the feminist one has worked in this field, with educational actions and also by producing knowledge. They seek to understand the meaning, and above all, the impact of the AIDS epidemic on women, particularly those who live in poverty. Resulting from these experiences, feminist analyses bring forward new perceptions about the exercise of human rights in the framework of the AIDS epidemic.
Authors: Rocha, S.
Category: General
End Page: 4
Serial number: 4
ISSN: [1871-7551]
Journal: Exchange on HIV/AIDS, sexuality and gender
Keywords: HIV and AIDS , disease prevention and control , gender , human rights
Language: eng
Organization: KIT - Royal Tropical Institute
Year: 2006
Right: © 2006 KIT
Subject: Health and Nutrition
Start Page: 1
Title: Facing the AIDS epidemic with a sexual and reproductive rights approach