The main focus of this paper is on how staff from a microfinance institution can interact with potential clients in a more gender-sensitive manner. Microfinance is a mechanism for triggering or sustaining social and economic development by supporting entrepreneurial activities, and can have multiple spin-off benefits, including the potential to be a component of poverty reduction strategies, thus contributing to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Whilst clients who use microfinance services differ according to age, income, ethnicity and whether they access microfinance services as individuals or in groups, typical microfinance clientele in many parts of the world have been resource poor female entrepreneurs.

The continued increase in HIV/AIDS infections across Africa and its disproportionate impact on women have a lot to do with unequal power relations in society. Until inequality is recognised and addressed, it is likely that AIDS will continue to persist, writes ANGELA KYUNGU.

Today, AIDS is acknowledged as a global crisis and in Africa it is the biggest health problem for healthcare workers, policy makers and ordinary citizens. Managing and coping with the reality of AIDS is a never-ending struggle.

It is evident that “the medical and social policy writing, political rhetoric, media representations and public debates around AIDS ignores, sidelines and misrepresents women” who are more vulnerable to the disease than men. “The discourse also repeats the common erasure of women, treating them as differentiated ‘people’ as if their gender were invisible and unimportant. The AIDS discourse also reproduces culture definitions of women as incarnations of sexual danger, biological power and victim-hood” (Squire, 1993). These representations of women in the AIDS discourse serve to construct the experience of AIDS for women.

These factors are reflected in many African countries where the discrimination of women begins at birth. As they grow up, they are socialised into caring roles of cooking, taking care of the home, looking after the siblings, among other household duties. In education, the boy child is schooled whereas the girls get married and do not inherit property from their parents. If the girl child went to school, she would later have to drop out in order to go through the passage of rites, which, in many African countries, involves female circumcision.

There is a lack of recognition for women – as individual beings – as they are more often categorised as ‘prostitutes’ or ‘vehicles of transmission’. They are placed in a precarious position as their role is defined in terms of their potential to infect another person rather than in terms of their own needs. Women are referred to as vectors transmitting HIV to men, or vessels for its transmission to the next generation. Their recognition as women therefore does not exist. This continues to undermine their efforts to create any meaningful changes geared towards their empowerment in life (Squire, 1993).

Currently women constitute 58% of those infected in Sub-Saharan Africa. In almost every country in the continent, the prevalence rates are higher among women than men. The transmission of AIDS among young women is more likely to occur between the ages of 15-44. This is the case as most women are not screened for the HIV antibodies when they attend maternal child health care, as there are no facilities available and no trained personnel to carry out these tests especially in rural areas. It is also the case that 50% of pregnant mothers go to Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs’) most of whom are not tested for AIDS. With unhygienic conditions, for example, unsterilised equipment and no gloves used, it is inevitable that the number of infected women continues to escalate.

It is also the case that women’s professional lives are more likely than men to include working in services such as childcare, social work, teaching and health care. Many women also perform important health educational roles, both in the public and community services. Due to this factor women need to be aware, and put into practice what they learn about the AIDS transmission as a measure of protecting themselves from the infection. They need access to comprehensive services covering contraceptive and reproductive advice; including information on ‘safe sex’ as well as caring for AIDS infected children and partners (Honigsbaum, 1991).

Another major factor that can be used to explain the high prevalence rate in the number of females infected is that of female circumcision. This is referred to as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This is a common traditional cultural practice that has in recent times come to be associated with the rapid spread of AIDS in Africa. It includes “traditional doctors” who use unsterilised equipment to carry out their ‘activities’ therefore making females more prone to AIDS. It is estimated that over 100 million women in Africa have undergone the practice with many ethnic groups, from the East to the West Coast of Africa, being victims. Other activities carried out are those such as ritual cleansing and healing which involves bodily cuttings or puncturing as well as tribal beauty marks and tattooing (Gatei and Onyunga, 1999).

Debates around the origin of AIDS have sparked considerable interests and controversy since the beginning of the epidemic. This has not helped solve the problem; instead it has raised more questions in relation to its origin and rapid spread. In 1993, the World Health Organisation estimated that over 10 million people were infected with AIDS, and that a third of this population were women. Ten years later, more than 40 million people were said to have AIDS (and these were the reported cases only).

It is also reported that more than half of Africa’s population live under the poverty line. With traditional practices still being carried out, gender discrimination still prevailing, lack of proper treatment for most of the infected, among other important factors such as education, the problem still continues to prevail. AIDS prevention therefore is not simply a matter of “infusing large amounts of international aid, educational outreach or even condom subsidization. Until the “global, national, and community antecedents of chronic inequality are recognised and meaningfully addressed” (Craddock, et al: 2004) AIDS will continue to persist across much of Africa and the number of infected persons will continue to rise.

* Angela Kyungu is a gender studies student at Northampton University in the UK but originally hails from Kenya.

* Please send comments to

Sources:
Craddock, S. et al (2004) HIV and AIDS in Africa – Beyond Epidemiology, Oxford: Blackwell.
Gatei, M. and Onyunga, P. (1999) Partner – Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium, Vol. 5, No. 2 p. 2-3.
Honingsbaum, N. (1991) HIV and AIDS a cause for concern, London: Saxon Printing.
Squire, C. (1993) Women and AIDS Psychological Perspectives, London: SAGE Publications.

This toolkit aims to offer guidance to those seeking to establish legal justice for survivors of Gender Based Violence (GBV), as well as for those in settings where legal justice is not yet a possibility. It addresses three programmatic areas namely: Minimum GBV Prevention and Response Services; Structure of Law; and, Legal Aid. These three areas incorporate the primary GBV programming sectors of health care, psycho-social support, security/police/protection, and legal justice.

This graphic testimonial document highlights the horrific issue of rape as a form of warfare in Darfur, Sudan. It includes numerous first hand accounts of women who were abused and raped, and uses these to highlight not only the ongoing problem of rape itself, but the cultural mores and beliefs that condition how women are treated following rape. The paper outlines the frequency and dynamics of rape as a tool of conflict in the ongoing civil war.

Women's investment company Khomelela chairwoman Brenda Madumise has called for a "women's empowerment index" to measure the economic upliftment of women. Madumise's call is linked to the lack of statistics on the empowerment of women in South Africa, whereas figures for overall black economic empowerment are always available.

Tens of thousands of African women are employed in the export horticulture sector where fresh fruit, vegetables and cut flowers are grown for foreign, mainly European, markets. A two year multi-institutional research project co-ordinated by the UK's Institute of Development Studies examined the employment conditions of workers, particularly women, in the export horticulture sector in South Africa, Kenya and Zambia. The research report highlights the gap between the requirements of the ethical trade codes and the reality of women work.

The African Women's Leadership Institute (AWLI) is a regional networking, information and training forum, which trains women aged 25-45 in critical thinking on gender issues, organisational and resource development and strategic planning. The AWLI was established as a program of AMwA in 1996, as a contribution towards the post-Beijing initiatives in the Africa region. The AWLI has two main features. First, it serves as a network of young African women (25-45) for professional support, advice and information, and sharing of expertise. Second, the AWLI convenes an intensive three-week residential leadership-training institute every year.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa is exposing the deadly consequences of gender inequities, writes CHINUA AKUKWE. Practical solutions are needed to a problem that will only get worse if nothing is done.

The UNAIDS report on the HIV/AIDS pandemic highlights the growing rates of infection among women worldwide. Women now account for nearly 50% of all individuals living with HIV/AIDS. However, in Africa, the situation is more ominous. Almost 57% of all individuals living with HIV/AIDS in Africa are women. For Africans ages 15-24 living with HIV/AIDS, women account for 76% of all infections. In South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, young women ages 15-24 have rates of infection that are between three and six times that of their male peers.

The so-called feminization of AIDS appears to be in full swing in Africa. The key question is whether African leaders and elite are ready to make hard choices that would slow down the rate of infection among women. I briefly review these choices. The key is to focus on practical solutions to a problem that can only get worse if nothing is done.

First, are African leaders and governments ready to mount a comprehensive and sustained information, education and communication campaign against risk-behaving practices of men that put women at risk of HIV infection? I am not aware of any African country that is currently implementing a sustained, nationwide campaign against sugar daddies, the use of large sums of money by male clients to encourage sex workers to engage in unprotected sex, the rape of young girls by school teachers, the molestation of young girls by family members and the molestation of street children. African men who have disposable income are at the root of sexual networking in various communities that spread HIV, according to the UNAIDS.

Second, are African leaders and governments ready to address cultural practices that may put women at disadvantage in the fight against HIV/AIDS? These practices include lack of proactive opportunities for women to discuss sexual mores and risks with their husbands, cultural expectations of subservience in sexual matters, the culture of wife inheritance after widowhood, and, the lack of property rights for widows or single women even when they have to take care of small children.

Third, are African leaders and governments ready to invest for the long term on female education? According to latest data from the World Bank, 45% of women ages 15 and above in Sub-Sahara Africa are illiterate. While 94% of boys are enrolled in primary schools only 81% of girls are in school. For starters, primary and secondary school education should be free in Africa to allow young people, including girls, to have a head start in life.

It is also important for African women to have increased access to university education, especially those from poor families. However, to ensure quality education for African women, African governments and rich nations such as the United States and other Western democracies should provide increased, targeted development assistance for Africa. Rich nations and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should provide comprehensive debt relief for Africa with a major condition that significant portions of the savings from debt relief should go toward social welfare programs such as the financing of education initiatives for girls and young women.

Fourth, are African leaders and governments ready to create enabling environments for empowering African women? Limited economic choices and opportunities constrict the capacity of African women to negotiate safer personal behaviors, including sexual relations. Although African women are major sources of economic wealth in many rural parts of Africa, these women have limited control over their generated income due to cultural taboos and traditional practices. African governments should end cultural practices that deny women the right to benefit from their toil and labor. It is also important for African governments to create micro-credit facilities for enterprising rural women so that they could become stable, small-scale entrepreneurs and accumulate disposable income. Women with disposable income are likely to make better personal choices for themselves and their children.

Fifth, can African leaders and governments create political space for women? Unlike many official statistics that cite token numbers of national ministers and top government officials that are women, I believe that in order to fight AIDS, women must be in decision making organs in local and state governments throughout Africa, and also have leadership roles in key national government institutions such as the ministries of finance, national planning and justice.

In addition, African women should be in decision making positions in civil society, local chambers of commerce and local youth organizations that directly interface with the grassroots. It is important to state without equivocation that female representation in national cabinets in Africa should go beyond the obligatory “Ministry of Women or Gender Affairs.”

Sixth, are African leaders and governments ready to create the necessary legal climate and framework that protects women from discrimination and lack of due process? UNAIDS estimates that more than 50% of African countries do not have laws against discrimination of individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

In Africa, according to the UNAIDS, the fear of a HIV test by women, including pregnant mothers, is the beginning of wisdom, since negative societal consequences and an uncertain future may lie ahead if they test positive. For women living with HIV/AIDS, the prospect of dealing with family, community and government indifference and sometimes hostility, can be insurmountable. Legal reforms on rape, sexual molestations, domestic violence, favors-for-forced sexual relations, property rights, and ownership of business are crucial in the fight against feminization of HIV/AIDS.

Seventh, are African leaders and governments ready to invest in public health services that are friendly and accessible to women? National spending on public health services is low in Africa, about US$30 per capita, according to the World Bank. Women face formidable challenges in accessing public health services for conditions such as sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis that are important facilitators of HIV transmission. Privacy and confidentiality is rare in African health institutions, according to the UNAIDS. Societal stigma is common when women become linked to sexual transmitted diseases. In addition, fear of violence may keep women from utilizing HIV preventive services or even showing up for AIDS clinical care, according to the UNAIDS. It is important for the international community to support African nations that seek to implement female friendly health systems and programs.

Eight, are African leaders ready to position gender issues as a major priority of international development assistance? Declarations, statements and formal speeches about gender issues must be coupled with specific policy and program initiatives to end gender inequities in Africa. African leaders, continent-wide institutions and the civil society should make gender equity a cardinal feature of their relationship with bilateral and multilateral agencies.

There is a tendency to point to token appointments of women to prominent positions as celebratory signs of progress on gender issues in Africa. While this is important, the focus should be on hundreds of millions of African women who toil away anonymously, unsung and uncelebrated despite their significant contributions to the economy of the continent.

In particular, African governments should make ending gender inequity a top priority of their partnership with donor agencies. A good measure of serious commitment is the proportion of resources requested by African governments to deal with gender inequities in proposals sent to donor agencies. National budgets should also reflect increased resources devoted to ending gender inequities and creating income-generating opportunities for women.

Nine, can African leaders lead the fight against sexual violence against women. Official, societal and personal silence on sexual violence against women is deafening in many parts of Africa. In particular, perpetrators target female teenagers in some parts of Africa, thereby potentially setting off a chain of events that may leave the young women not only emotionally scarred for life but also the ever possible risk and danger of HIV/AIDS.

To end sexual violence, African governments would have to deny perpetrators of sexual violence, political, economic, legal and social sanctuary. Zero legal tolerance against sexual violence should be enforced and perpetrators subjected to the long arm of the law. Women should be encouraged to come forward with cases of sexual violence and the society should treat them with compassion while the legal system runs its course.

Ten, African leaders and governments must win the battle against widespread poverty in the continent. Poverty is a major reason why individuals, including women, knowingly engage in high risk behaviors that facilitate the spread of HIV. Feminization of HIV/AIDS is closely intertwined with poverty and harsh living conditions.

African leaders and governments should create opportunities for poor women to escape poverty through sustainable macroeconomic policies that improve their vocational skills, provide access to literacy programs, provide incentives for self-employment and allow them to accumulate capital and properties.

Rich nations, including the United States, should work closely with African leaders in this regard. Comprehensive debt relief, increased access to trade for African farmers and businesses, and comprehensive micro-credit programs are also critical policy issues that rich nations can assist African nations as part of a comprehensive fight against poverty.

Conclusion

Efforts to end the feminization of AIDS in Africa must be African-based and African-implemented. For the African woman at the receiving end of HIV/AIDS, the solution lies principally in changing societal beliefs and practices within her family, community, country and the continent.

The solution to gender inequities lies in the capacity of African governments to confront societal beliefs and practices that wittingly or unwittingly put women at risk of physical, emotional and mental harm. The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa is exposing the deadly consequences of gender inequities. As the toll of HIV/AIDS mounts in Africa and the epidemic gradually assumes a feminine connotation, every policy maker in Africa should work toward the end of all practices that prevent African women from becoming full partners in the titanic struggle ahead. Any serious advocate for comprehensive AIDS remedial efforts in Africa cannot afford to watch from the sidelines the increasing feminization of AIDS in the continent.

* Chinua Akukwe is a member of the Board of Directors of the Constituency for Africa, Washington, DC and an adjunct professor of public health at the George Washington University, Washington, DC. He has written extensively on HIV/AIDS and development issues in Africa.

* Please send comments to

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. UNAIDS (2004). AIDS Epidemic Update: 2004. November. Geneva, Switzerland: Author. Available at the UNAIDS website, www.unaids.org This is the latest update on the global AIDS situation and is dedicated to the feminization of AIDS. Data used in this article are available in the PDF format of the update under the following sections and pages: INTRODUCTION, pages 2-6; WOMEN and AIDS, pages 7, 9-17 dealing on issues such as gender inequities, problems with accessing preventive and clinical care, power imbalances, fear of violence, lack of property rights, cultural taboo about discussing sexual mores and risks with husbands; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, pages 19, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29 on issues that affect women in Africa and how it impacts on the spread of HIV.
2. UNAIDS (2004). 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic. July. Geneva, Switzerland: Author. Available at the UNAIDS website, www.unaids.org This document released during the Bangkok AIDS conference in July 2004 contains series of information on the epidemic. The PDF format includes an executive summary that also discusses continued discrimination against women and the lack of enabling legislation that outlaws stigma and discrimination against individuals living with HIV/AIDS.
3. World Bank (2004). African Development Indicators 2004. Washington, DC: Author. This is widely considered the authoritative database on Africa’s development. Data cited in this article are found in pages 320, 322, 323 on healthcare expenditure per capita, illiteracy levels and primary school enrollment. The female economic situation in Africa is shown in page 330 of the document.
4. Chinua Akukwe, Melvin Foote (2001). HIV/AIDS in Africa: It is Time to End the Killing Fields. Foreign Policy in Focus, April.

African Union (AU) personnel in the western Sudanese state of North Darfur have started providing armed escorts for displaced women and girls to protect them from attacks, an AU official told IRIN on Wednesday. "The women from Abu Shouk IDP [internally displaced person] camp in North Darfur are escorted by AU soldiers once a week, when they venture outside the camp to collect firewood," said Justin Thundu, AU’s public information officer at El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.

The Women's World Summit Foundation Betty Makoni award considers the context of different countries and communities, pertinent activities and significant events aiming the prevention of child abuse; encouraging ongoing efforts by organizations to develop and increase prevention measures; and catalysing new energies.

Women and girls who have fled ethnic cleansing in Darfur are being raped and subjected to sexual violence around the camps where they have sought refuge, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper: "Rape and sexual violence have been used to terrorize and uproot rural communities in Darfur," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director of Human Rights Watch. "Donors urgently need to set up programs to protect women and girls from sexual violence and address the needs of those who have been raped."

The APC Women's Networking Support Programme is proud to announce GenderIT.org, a new information and communications technology (ICT) policy portal for women and policy-makers. GenderIT.org is a practical tool for women's organisations and policy-makers so that ICT policy meets women’s needs and does not infringe on their rights.

Sudanese women's groups have come together to demand a minimum 30 percent representation for women in a post-conflict Sudan. The women's groups came up with a series of recommendations at a meeting held under the auspices of the Norwegian government, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Maternal mortality in Tanzania has remained unacceptably high, claiming the lives of 529 women for every 100,000 live births, Anna Abdallah, the country's minister of health told IRIN. This death rate, she said, had remained unchanged since the 1990s and the underlying cause for this included malaria, anaemia and HIV/AIDS. She also said the number of pregnant women with access to health services had dropped from 44 percent in the early 1990s to 36 percent today.

The HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women in Swaziland increased to 42.6% in 2004 from 38.6% in 2002, according to preliminary findings from the country's latest HIV sentinel survey, IRIN News reports. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, which conducted the survey in 2004 among women attending prenatal clinics, said in a statement that the results showed "signs of hope as well as indications of huge challenges ahead".

A government plan to give conservative Chad a new family law banning practices such as beating wives has provoked uproar. "At Friday prayers, Muslim preachers have taken to saying that President Idriss Deby and his family will burn in hell because it is against the Koran to say a woman is equal to a man," the weekly newspaper Notre Temps observed. The draft code is a 246-page document drawn up with the help of funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Deby pledged to speedily adopt it in a speech on 8 March to mark International Women’s Day.

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) has raised serious concerns with the government of Cameroon regarding its respect for the due process of law following the acquittal of a military police captain on charges of arbitrary arrest and torture of a member of the Mbororo pastoralist community. The rights group has complained directly to the government about the actions of a military tribunal and called for an independent appeal hearing, highlighting a list of judicial irregularities, which cast doubts over the validity of the acquittal.

Former South African first lady Graca Machel has called on women in southern Africa to tackle traditional practices that may contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS. Addressing delegates from the region at a gender equality conference in Ezulwini, just outside Swaziland's capital, Mbabane, Machel highlighted the impact of the virus on women. "We are the ones who are most affected by AIDS: of the people infected with HIV, 58 percent are women; of the people dying of AIDS, 58 percent are women - it is time to say, 'enough!'"

The General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA) has launched a nationwide campaign to organise women, the priority target group being women in the textile sector. Alongside this organising drive, the UGTA is also leading a campaign against sexual harassment and a campaign for the revision of Algeria's family code, as executive member Souad Charid explains.

Back in 1997, 13 Senegalese villages publicly declared that they would no longer permit female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM) as it's called by critics. In the eight years since, the number has grown to 1,527, representing 30 percent of Senegalese communities where FGM has been practiced. Dozens more villages are preparing to make similar declarations in the coming months. The sea-change in Senegal is being credited to a slow but steady program of human rights education that allows villagers to make up their own minds about whether to abandon female circumcision. Spearheaded by a local rights agency called Tostan, the program's success is proving so eye-catching that the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is endorsing it as a model.