Feminization of AIDS, Gender Inequality. 14/03/07

Catholic Online

In a March 13 lecture, “The Female Face of HIV and AIDS, Jesuit Father Michael J. Kelly pointed to the steady global increase in the numbers and proportions of women and girls infected, the doubling of the number of people living with HIV or AIDS * from about 20 million in 1996 to almost 40 million in 2006 * and the inadequacy of leadership and the low sense of urgency of current prevention and treatment programs.

“No response to the AIDS epidemic will succeed until specific, strong action is taken eliminate the prejudice, discrimination and unequal treatment that women experience,” said the former professor of education at the University of Zambia, at the annual Lenten lecture of Trocaire, the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

“Without a frontal attack on the injustice of gender inequality * in church, state, and every walk of life * the dominance of the epidemic will continue,” he said, noting that Pope Benedict XVI highlighted “persistent inequalities between men and women” and “exploitation of women” in his 2007 World Day of Peace message.

He sketched for those gathered at St. Patrick’s College here the contours of the female face of the epidemic and poverty, noting that “globally, and in every region of the world, more adult women than ever before are living with HIV infection,” with 17.7 million so afflicted.

The global HIV-AIDS epidemic claims the lives of more than five lives each minute of every day, grows with the addition of 500 new infections every hour and leads to millions of children being orphaned, Father Kelly said.

“It leaves in its wake millions of men, women and children, experiencing a heartbreaking mixture of fear and anxiety, bodily pain and physical disability, isolation and rejection, loneliness and depression, anger and guilt,” he said.

“In every severely affected country, the epidemic continues to: reverse decades of health, economic and social progress; reduce life expectancy; slow economic growth; deepen poverty; contribute to and exacerbate food shortages; create a growing human capacity crisis; and augment gender inequalities by affecting women and girls more than men and boys,” he added.

The feminization of the AIDS crisis is worsened by “extensive stigma and discrimination and by silence and denial at national, community and individual levels,” Father Kelly stressed.

The “underground silence, secrecy, shame and self-recrimination” tied to global AIDS-related health efforts focused primarily on short-term measures aimed at immediate results ultimately prevent dealing with the root causes of the epidemic’s growth, he said.

“The environment of poverty, malnutrition, the powerlessness in many societies of women and young girls, inadequate health support services, lack of job opportunities and the absence of recreational outlets,” he said, all “provide fertile ground for the transmission and development of the disease.”

He added that there has been “insufficient attention” to the needs of youth. “The AIDS epidemic will only be reversed when it is reversed among the youth * no sooner, no later,” he said.

“Like a very powerful spotlight, the epidemic reveals this weakness in almost all societies where a legacy of systematic discrimination against women is embedded in economic, social, political, religious and linguistic structures,” the Jesuit priest said. “The central HIV issue is not technological, biological, behavioural or sexual. It is the inferior status or role of women.”

While the Catholic Church “has played a significant service role” in reaching out to orphans and in providing one-third of global AIDS care, more is needed to be done, Father Kelly said,

“The female face of the epidemic is a real challenge to it to do so,” he said.

The Catholic Church must move away from its own discrimination and gender stereotypes toward women and promote their “active empowerment” within it and in society, he said.

“Because our mother the church herself has AIDS, because our sisters are carrying the brunt of the epidemic and at the same time providing the most significant response,” Father Kelly said, “HIV and AIDS challenge the entire church to move more boldly towards affirming the participation and contribution of women.”

He stressed that “the feminization of AIDS calls for the feminization of ecclesial identity, with an equal role for women in the exercise of ministry, authority and decision-making.”

This time of AIDS, while being “a moment of monumental human suffering and anguish,” is “a moment of special grace, a unique kairos moment when God calls us to move from our set ways and be converted personally and structurally,” he said.

The “vicious assault” of AIDS must compel the church to act, the priest said.

Hastening the day when full equality between women and men will be recognized will “also hasten the day when the stranglehold of HIV and AIDS will be loosened so that men, women and their children can experience a life of dignity and fulfilment,” Father Kelly concluded.

During the evening lecture event, Trócaire launched its annual Development Review, which this year focused on the issue of gender equality and development.

In its comprehensive analysis of global gender inequality, the 2007 review calls for moving gender equality to the top of the development agenda. It asks why, despite so much effort and extensive public commitment to gender equality, have real progress and actual achievement been minimal and why, with major advances in many parts of the world, women continue to suffer oppression and inequality.

“This year’s Trócaire Development Review and its coverage of gender is very timely,” said Justin Kilcullen, Trócaire director. “As new development challenges, such as climate change, rightly take on greater significance in the media, it is vital that we keep our attention on other enduring inequalities which do not grab newspaper headlines in the same way. The persistent inequality between women and men throughout the world is the most obvious and prevalent manifestation of such injustice.”

For more than 20 years Trócaire’s Development Review has drawn together policy analysis and research findings from academics and its staff, mapping Ireland’s evolving role in international development with particular focus on the impact of Ireland and the European Union policies on the developing world.