HIV and AIDS

After participating in an International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and CARE India project, sex workers in India’s East Godavari district reported that they had less sex against their will. More of them used condoms. Some enrolled in school to finish their education. And all pledged to delay their daughters’ marriages and first sexual encounters.

Those were among the results of the three-year project that were shared during a recent “Insight to Action” presentation in Washington, D.C., by Annie George, group director of health and development for ICRW’s regional office in Hyderabad, India; and Suman Bisht, manager of gender equity and diversity for CARE India in New Delhi.

Supported by MAC AIDS Fund, the program, called “Festival of Love,” aimed to reduce sex workers’ risk of HIV exposure by using harm reduction principals and a community empowerment framework.

The project largely was designed around activities that encouraged sex workers to share their experiences and focus on their rightful choices as women – instead of looking at their lives solely through the prism of their occupation.

Festival of Love ultimately reached about 1,700 sex workers who were on average 35 years old, from a low caste and mostly illiterate. They practiced their livelihoods on the streets and highways, in brothels and from home in East Godavari, where 25 percent of female sex workers were HIV positive in 2006. Nationally, less than 1 percent of Indians carry the virus.

ICRW and CARE India found that sex workers in East Godavari were more vulnerable to HIV because of their low social status as well as gender inequalities and social norms that exist in everyday society.

But when given the opportunity to reflect together on their lives and recognize the inequities they face – all while learning how to save money and protect themselves from harm – many sex workers were motivated to make changes in their lives.

Gillian Gaynair is ICRW's writer/editor.

In commemoration of World AIDS Day, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) urges the global community to improve efforts that coordinate HIV prevention and treatment programs with other services for women, such as family planning, reproductive and maternal health services.

“We must comprehensively address the complex economic and social inequalities that underlie women’s vulnerability to infection,” said Sarah Degnan Kambou, ICRW’s chief operating officer.

The world’s women remain highly vulnerable to HIV infection, according to UNAIDS 2009 AIDS Epidemic Update. They continue to be disproportionately affected by the virus in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounted for 71 percent of all new HIV infections in 2008. In Asia, the number of women living with HIV nearly doubled from 19 percent in 2000 to 35 percent last year. And women account for about half of all HIV infections in the Caribbean.

“One way women would be better able to protect themselves is if more HIV prevention programs were integrated into existing health and social services and the reach and quality of those services were improved,” explained Katherine Fritz, ICRW’s director for gender and HIV. “It’s critical for such efforts to also include effective screening, treatment and referral services for women affected by violence.”