Public Agenda
(Accra)
Ama Achiaa Amankwah
6 October 2008
Accra — HIV and AIDS has been identified as significant to women's reproductive health and their rights. There is lack of access to information, education and health care which could prevent HIV&AIDS.
When people are deprived of education and opportunities, they will be even less able to protect themselves against AIDS.
An estimated 32.2 million people globally were living with HIV & AIDS in 2007 of which 15.4 million were women. Now, 17.5 million women are living with AIDS with 77% of them in Sub-Sahara Africa, 90% of these are children.
Former Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Mr. Kofi Annan, once stated that if the world wants to save Africa from two catastrophes- famine and AIDS- then it must do well to focus on saving Africa's women, adding, "In Africa, AIDS has a woman's face."
He noted that a combination of the two catastrophes is threatening the backbone of Africa - the women who keep African societies going and whose work makes up the economic foundation of rural communities.
He said education and prevention are still the most powerful weapons against the spread of HIV & AIDS and that new international efforts must put women at the center of the strategy to fight AIDS.
According to Mrs. Afua Ansre , the Ghana National Coordinator of UNIFEM, the situation above is compounded by lack of sex disaggregated data on effective monitoring systems and financially weak institutions.
She was speaking at a workshop by Women, Media and Change (WOMEC) to provide media women the skills to report effectively on women living with HIV/AIDS as well as provide relevant information about the prevention of the disease among the vulnerable groups, who are mostly girls and women.
She said women should be educated on HIV &AIDS, particularly prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) which is a responsibility of all.
"We need to work with government, NGOs and even individuals to implement structured programmes to prevent the spread of HIV & AIDS."
Mrs. Charity Binka, a facilitator of WOMEC, said the specific objectives of the workshop was to train female journalists on the gender and rights aspects of HIV/AIDS reporting, provide them the opportunity to collect first-hand information on the challenges of living with HIV and to create a network of media women reporting on HIV/AIDS in Ghana.
Dr. Oliver Commey of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital disclosed that, 10% of the global population know their HIV & AIDS status. In Ghana it is 8%.
He cited the biological make-up of women, economic empowerment, forced marriages and unstable environment such as conflicts as saome factors that contribute to women being are vulnerable to the disease.
"Because women have a bigger surface area and the virus thrives in body fluids, those with sexually transmitted infection get HIV easily."
According to Dr. Commey since HIV is a progressive disease, it takes between eight to thirteen years to move from HIV to AIDS, and three to four weeks to change from negative to positive.
He observed that the issues of concern to HIV positive women include marriage, stigma, disclosure and access to treatment and care.
Dr. Commey said the media has an important advocacy responsibility of being the voice for the voiceless.
"You need to gather, analyze and disseminate accurate information on HIV. This should be continuous to keep authorities on their toes".
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