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Many people in the Indian population still hold the values and beliefs that characterize the power men have over women in India. The major belief among the rural population is that the man rules over all decisions made and has power over the household of the family. It is mainly displayed through the culture that women are exploited in several ways that leaves them highly susceptible to HIV infection. This ideology greatly affects the lack of awareness and disempowerment among the women in India because those women are at a disadvantage. They cannot control the sexual behavior (including adultery) of their husbands, and have no voice in contraception. The Global Coalition on Women and AIDS stated that “many women who are infected or at risk of becoming infected do not practice high-risk behaviours but are frequently married or in a monogamous relationship. They are vulnerable largely because of the behaviour of others, through their limited autonomy and external factors, including social and economic inequities beyond their control.” (http://www.unaids.org/en/getstarted/women.asp, 2004) When married women request that their husbands use condoms though, they face being accused of having extramarital relations themselves and having HIV, or they risk abandonment. In a study conducted by the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, one woman interviewed reported, “We see out husbands with wives of men who have died of AIDS. What can we do? If we say no to sex, they’ll pack and go. If we do, where do we go?” Traditional beliefs and practices also contribute to high rates of sexual abuse and violence. These women, including those who choose to enter the sex industry face ongoing violence, exposure to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and access to little or no healthcare. Other traditional practices, such as “wife inheritance” (when a relative of the dead husband takes the widow as his wife), or “ritual sexual cleansing” (when a widow is forced to have sex with a social outcast in order to cleanse herself of her husband’s evil spirits), and the payment of a bride price (when the bride is paid for by the husband’s family and thus is a form of property), also put women at a higher risk of infection. (www.gng.org/currents/ teachers/hiv101/,2005) Norms of abstinence of sex before marriage and a culture of silence about sex makes accessing treatment services for sexually transmitted diseases highly stigmatizing for the Indian population, particularly among the women. (www.csrindia.org/Key%20concern/health-HIV.pps, 2004) |
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