Yvonne Ba­boolal

The num­ber of fe­males in­fect­ed with the HIV/Aids virus in T&T has now sur­passed the num­ber of men liv­ing with the dread­ed dis­ease. Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Aids Co­or­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee

(NACC), Car­ol-Ann Senah, made the dis­clo­sure in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian last week in the wake of the grue­some killing of Di­anne Williams and her ten year old son, Shaquille Mor­gan.

Di­anne, re­port­ed­ly in­fect­ed with the virus, was killed by a man she shel­tered at her home. She was said to be seen ask­ing for hand­outs in San Fer­nan­do. Senah, re­spond­ing to ques­tions on how women like Williams who are in­fect­ed with HIV/Aids end up in such cir­cum­stances, said over the last three years the num­ber of fe­male cas­es shot up. "Up un­til 2007, the num­ber of males out­stripped the fe­males," Senah be­gan. "At the end of 2006, the male to fe­male ra­tio for new HIV pos­i­tive cas­es stood at 51 to 49 but at the end of 2008 fe­males ac­count­ed for 694 new pos­i­tive cas­es while the males ac­count­ed for 609 new cas­es."

Worse, the ma­jor­i­ty of new HIV pos­i­tive cas­es among fe­males oc­curred in the 20-24 age group while the largest num­ber of new HIV pos­i­tive cas­es among males were found in the 45 to 49 age group." Senah said more re­search is need­ed to de­ter­mine whether this re­flects the fact that more fe­males are com­ing for­ward for test­ing or is in­dica­tive of an in­crease in the in­ci­dence of HIV among fe­males. Un­pro­tect­ed sex. Out­lin­ing some rea­sons for the in­crease in HIV/Aids among young fe­males, Senah said the biggest chal­lenge is un­pro­tect­ed sex. "Our re­search tells us that the per­cent­age of per­sons who use con­doms con­sis­tent­ly and cor­rect­ly are still un­der 25 per cent. "Peo­ple still have un­pro­tect­ed sex de­spite all the warn­ings. Men feel ask­ing them to use a con­dom kills the ro­mance. "Some wom­e­nal­so can't ask their part­ners to use a con­dom be­cause it can re­sult in vi­o­lence and abuse."

Senah said pros­ti­tutes said some of their clients do not want to use con­doms and promise to pay more. The pros­ti­tutes agree for the mon­ey. A worse rea­son Senah said, is trans­ac­tion­al sex. "A lack of eco­nom­ic pow­er forces women to sub­mit to the man's de­mands not to use a con­dom. These are re­al­i­ties for women. "The woman is not a pros­ti­tute but en­gages in sex­u­al re­la­tions to get mon­ey for rent, clothes and so on. "She will have a per­son­al boyfriend but have oth­ers for mon­ey. She will have dif­fer­ent phones for these dif­fer­ent men. "And this is not just hap­pen­ing in the low­er in­come brack­et but re­search has shown that it is be­com­ing more fre­quent at a more mid­dle in­come lev­el," Senah said. "Some may be uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents. Some may be younger women dat­ing old­er men for mon­ey Re­fusal to use a con­dom cou­pled with mul­ti-part­ner­ing in­crease the risk of get­ting HIV/Aids. "We're a mul­ti-part­ner­ing so­ci­ety where peo­ple will have more than one part­ner." Se­r­i­al monogamy is an­oth­er lifestyle that can con­tribute to an in­crease in HIV/AIDs, Senah said.

She said women's eco­nom­ic sta­tus may lead them to have chil­dren with more than one part­ner. "Se­r­i­al monogamy is def­i­nite­ly a phe­nom­e­non in our so­ci­ety. You may see a woman with three chil­dren who have three dif­fer­ent fa­thers." Rape can al­so lead to HIV in­fec­tion, Senah said. She said women who are raped can be saved from HIV in­fec­tion, how­ev­er, through the use of an­ti-retro­vi­rals. "These are giv­en out in the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency Unit at the hos­pi­tals." In­cest and sex­u­al abuse of fe­male chil­dren has al­so been linked to HIV in­fec­tion lat­er in life, Senah said.

Ed­u­ca­tion con­tin­ues

De­spite the re­fusal to heed their warn­ings, the NACC con­tin­ues its HIV/Aids ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign. "The mes­sage we send to young peo­ple is to de­lay sex­u­al in­ter­course. Chil­dren are not phys­i­cal­ly ready to have chil­dren." The NACC has an ABCDE mes­sage. "A is for ab­sti­nence un­til mar­riage, B for be­ing faith­ful, C is for us­ing con­doms con­sis­tent­ly and cor­rect­ly, D is do the test and E, ed­u­cate your­self," Senah said. She said the NACC works with the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions. UN­Aids al­so pro­vide fund­ing to tar­get young men and women. Senah said males need to be ed­u­cat­ed on how to re­spect fe­males. "They need to un­der­stand that when a woman says no, she means no." There are al­so pro­grammes to help women in­crease their lit­er­a­cy lev­el. "If you ed­u­cate your­self, you are more em­pow­ered and have more ne­go­ti­at­ing skills," she not­ed. Senah said women with the HIV/Aids virus can be in a more un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion than men who get the dis­ease, like Williams, who was dis­mem­bered. The is­sue of stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion af­fect women more neg­a­tive­ly." Senah said the UN Pop­u­la­tion Fund pro­vides fe­male con­doms free of charge which the NACC tries to dis­trib­ute at health fairs. "We get mixed re­spons­es from women. Our women are still not in charge, eco­nom­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly," she ob­served.

More In­fo

New male and fe­male HIV pos­i­tive cas­es at the end of 2008 Fe­males- 694 or 48.53 per cent. Most of these cas­es were in the 20 to 24 age group. Males 609 or 42.59 per cent. Most are in the 45 to 49 age group. To­tal num­ber of new HIV pos­i­tive cas­es at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2009 20,255 Num­ber of Aids cas­es 6,208 Deaths- 3,845