AIDS conference hears success stories from women

Women are not "victims, vessels and vectors" of HIV but leaders helping to turn the tide of the epidemic, the 16th International AIDS Conference heard on Monday in Toronto.

Louise Binder, who founded and co-chairs the Canadian Treatment Action Council, shared the success stories of women and girls from around the world at theAug. 13-18 event, which has lured more than 30,000 participants from around the world.

Binder, a lawyer who was diagnosed with HIV, pointed out that a major part of the HIV pandemic stems from power imbalances between men and women, such as in marriages where the women may not be willing or able to insist their husbands use condoms.

She pointed to the courage of a woman who asked an HIV prevention conference in 1991 why, if people can be put on the moon, no one has found a way for women to protect themselves.

Binder said the question led two other women to put the wheels in motion to develop a microbicide, a virus-killing gel that can be put into the vagina before sex. There are now 92 potential microbicides in development, including five in clinical trials in 19 countries.

"Staring in the face of massive injustice, women are at the forefront of success," Binder said.

Double funds for microbicides

Binder called for an immediate doubling of the world's funding for microbicides to at least $340 million, as well as improved access not only to first-line drugs for HIV but also newer drugs for resistant strains.

She also called for pediatric treatments and standard treatment for pregnant woman — in part to stem the lack of medical care that has helped create an estimated 13 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

Binder shared a number of success stories involving women, including:

• In Rwanda, where 4,500 HIV-positive women were each given a chicken and two roosters. The women — nearly half of whom were raped during the genocide of the early 1990s — used it to gain a source of protein and products to sell as they received treatment with antiretrovirals, peer education, counselling and testing services. The combined approach had a 90 per cent adherence rate.
• In South Africa, a program to reduce violence against women by their intimate partners reduced the risk of violence by 55 per cent, helping cut HIV infections. It combined training on gender roles, domestic violence and HIV by engaging men and youth. It also showed how combining HIV with other health issues and using education, training, employment and economic security for women is urgently needed "to save this generation of girls and women and the next ones, Binder said.

Binder said that applying the "lived experience" of women and girls shows HIV is the result and not the cause of inequity, and challenges the myth that cultural and religious practices pose insurmountable barriers.