According to the Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), there are 33.2 million people worldwide living with HIV. Of those, 15.4 million are women. In Africa, women account for between 59 and 61 per cent of all adults living with HIV. Gender violence is one factor that makes women more vulnerable to infection, and it also hampers treatment.

Maria’s tale is one of the many cases documented by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in two of Zambia’s nine provinces. The international non-governmental organization (NGO), headquartered in New York, warns that if gender violence is not addressed, the government’s comprehensive programme to provide free ARVs through the public health system will be frustrated. By the end of 2007, reports Finance and National Planning Minister Ng’andu Magande, 137,000 people were receiving antiretroviral therapy, up from 75,000 in 2006.

“Unless the Zambian government introduces legal and health-system reforms and removes the barriers to HIV treatment that women face,” says Nada Ali, author of the HRW report, “gender-based abuses will continue to shatter the lives of countless Zambian women in acute need of antiretroviral treatments and contribute to avoidable losses of health and lives.”

Read More:

• Women hiding their HIV status for fear of being battered
• The Effect of Violence Against Women on HIV Treatment in Zambia