Monday, March 19, 2007

A ‘choice platform’ on AIDS

Choices, not just condoms, are what women at risk of HIV need to protect themselves.

Erica Gollub, a professor of epidemiology who has worked as a consultant to the Female Health Company, wonders why the global AIDS prevention community has yet to get behind the policy, adopted by the New York State AIDS Institute in 1992, of a "hierarchical counseling approach." Gollub describes "quality hierarchical counseling" as urging women to use condoms whenever possible, with discussion of possible strategies (to get their male partners to use them). Information is then given, in order, about the other options, which include female condoms, microbicides, coitus interruptus (or withdrawal), fewer sexual partners, and even abstinence.

In the article "Choice is Empowering: Getting Strategic about Preventing HIV Infection in Women," published in the December 2006 issue of International Family Planning Perspectives, Gollub stresses that "a key ingredient is information in plain language about how HIV infects women­i.e., why condoms are the best protection. The beauty of such an approach is that it expedites information-sharing with the women who need it, and that new evidence can change the list itself, the order (of importance or efficacy) of methods and the counseling scripts."

Disturbing to Gollub is how much of the resistance to "hierarchical counseling," or to the less than 100-percent support for male condom use, is rooted in distrust of women -- or at least in their ability to make clear-headed decisions.

Critics of giving women a whole menu of prevention options believe that "providing women with information on a menu of prevention methods assumes that they will not use male condoms. For example, a common argument against the promotion of the highly effective female condom is that it is appropriate for, or acceptable to, a very small percentage of the world's population and thus a far cry from ideal."

Read more...
By Rina Jimenez-David's column, At Large. Philippine Daily Inquirer March 16, 2007

Monday, March 12, 2007

Condoms and Choices

HIV/AIDS has already been recognized as a woman’s issue. More women than men are getting infected with HIV, and this is mainly because women, due to biology as well as culture and social status that influence their sexual behavior and decision-making power, are more vulnerable to sexually-transmitted infections.

But why is it that, despite more than 20 years’ research into and development of prevention strategies against HIV/AIDS, the number of new infections among women -- and deaths, as well -- continues to rise? An article in the December 2006 issue of International Family Planning Perspectives argues that part of the reason may be that strategies have not been attuned enough to the realities of women’s lives and situation, and that, ironically enough, too much emphasis has been placed on the use of the male condom as the “most effective” means of protecting oneself from HIV/AIDS infection.

Erica Gollub, a professor of epidemiology, asserts that “successful HIV prevention work among women means the adoption of a woman-centered paradigm, one that is grounded in women’s realities and acknowledges gender roles and gender-based power differentials as critical factors in women’s ability to make and effect decisions regarding their health and welfare.”

Years of research have also shown that “most women around the world cannot control male condom use,” says Gollub, “and we have begun to understand that women’s attitudes toward and use of protective methods are based on personal, relational, sociocultural and structural factors, with a different mix for each woman.”

Read more... Condoms and choices By Rina Jimenez-David (At Large). Philippine Daily Inquirer. March 13, 2007

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Women’s Paradise?

Last year, newspapers all over the world noted that among the top 10 countries with the smallest “gender gap,” the only developing country was the Philippines, which came in sixth.

In case you missed the news items last year, the top 10, out of a total of 115 countries, were: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Germany, the Philippines, New Zealand, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Gender Gap Index, compiled by the World Economic Forum, was mainly based on a review of female-to-male ratios in four areas: (a) economic participation and opportunity, (b) educational attainment, (c) health and survival and (d) political empowerment. Besides these four areas, the index considered data on maternity and childbearing, education and training, employment and earnings, and basic rights and social institutions.

Given our high ranking, are we now to believe the Philippines is a paradise for women? I visited the World Economic Forum site and downloaded several of the country reports, but never got around to writing about it. Today being International Women’s Day, I thought it’d be a good time to revisit this index.

Read full text from Pinoy Kasi by Michael Tan, Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 7, 2007.