Counting on Gender Development

Containing Spread of AIDS

Anirudha Alam
HIV/AIDS is not merely a health issues. It is sorely a development issues undoubtedly. The
vulnerability to HIV/AIDS has a grave and in-depth impact on every aspect of life. So the
responses from all the levels and parts of the societies are very much necessary to curb the
spread of HIV/AIDS any how. In this regard, centering upon the collective action, gender
development should be well-defined involving the particular roles of government, civil
society and the private sections.

It is deeply depressing thinking that sixty per cent of new HIV transmissions are to women
and fifty two per cent to young adults worldwide. To get rid of this pernicious situation,
gender development is the gateway to salvage commitment to making headway in integrating
responses to subdue the AIDS epidemic. Entering upon the partnership developed to flourish
collaboration with GOs, NGOs and communities across assorted sections and at
miscellaneous levels, gender development activities have to be tooled up to contribute to the
national fight against HIV/AIDS.

In the development countries, self-sustained development is being hampered by gender

inequality. As per the findings of an in-depth research entitled ‘Vulnerability to AIDS due to
Gender Discrimination’ conducted by BCC Network in 2006, 80% rural young people who
are severely vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh are certainly women. They do not have
enough livelihood education to win over the war of poverty at all. So they have to choice the
easy way for earning their livelihood apparently engaging themselves in risky behaviors.

Coping with time and need paying heed to gender development, AIDS prevention may entail
a multi-pronged approach which integrates reproductive health literacy, women
empowerment, provision of such protective measure as condoms, prevention of sexual
violence as well as safeguarding human rights. Assessing specific responses to non-
discriminatory practices and identifying the risk factors for HIV/AIDS for both women and
men along with defusing the associated stigma and gender-based violence come in containing
the impact of HIV/AIDS on a sector comprehensively. As a result, AIDS education and
work-place prevention underpinned by well-founded gender policy are able to internalize the
gender development effectively.

It is likely that spread of AIDS is more than a social problem. It is the curse due to the lack of
changing societal values, attitudes and behavioral patterns that fuel the endemic. Poverty
associated with gender discrimination and stigma contributes to swelling the onslaught of
HIV/AIDS as a whole. In many countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates, the available
evidence indicates that gender-based disparities sustain the impact of HIV/AIDS robustly.

Gender discrimination has magnified the AIDS endemic into an economic and social
calamity, mostly in greater Africa. For instance, by now 57 per cent of all HIV-positive adults
are women, and 75 per cent of young people living with HIV are women and girls in Sub-
Saharan Africa. If gender development is ensured through life skill development, the

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vulnerable people, especially women, will be empowered financially and socially. They will
not be compelled by hunger and poverty to be engaged in risky behaviors.

According to a survey conducted in Central Asia, one third of young women had not still
heard of HIV/AIDS – yet globally the rate of infection among women is mounting
inexorably. In the light of the recent study conducted by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallayan
Foundation, inclusive initiatives have to be taken on the urgent basis in Bangladesh to
empower women and enhance their abilities to withstand health threats like HIV/AIDS.
Catering to the vulnerable groups especially the destitute and disadvantaged women, there is
a need for generating different pilot interventions and educational effort in response to
campaign of AIDS prevention.

Strategies and interventions should tune in to sensitizing policy makers, senior health
planners, program managers and other implementers to create a willing and friendly
environment for achieving equality in every sector. There is no doubt that gender equality is
the key way to sustainable development. So it is necessary to ensure that both women and
men have to have equal access to information, treatment, care, support and productive
resources. Then in true sense, gender development will be meaningful all along in preventing
HIV/AIDS.

Anirudha Alam
Deputy Director (Information & Development Communication) & Trainer
BEES (Bangladesh Extension Education Services)
183, Lane 2, Eastern Road, New DOHS
Mohakhali, Dhaka 1206
Bangladesh.
Website: http://anirudhaalam.onsugar.com/
Phone: 01718342876, 9889732, 9889733 (office), 8050514 (res.)
E-mail: anirudhaalam@yahoo.com
Ref: UNAIDS, World Bank, Amnesty International, UNESCO

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