Gender and HIV/AIDS Backgrounder Released

Women now account for a quarter of new HIV infections in Canada, with most acquiring the infection through sexual contact with men. While the number of new infections in men has dropped substantially in Nova Scotia over the past decade, the numbers for women remain about the same.

The Advisory Council on the Status of Women recently completed Gender and HIV/AIDS: A Backgrounder, which pulls together Canadian and Nova Scotia statistics about the disease. The work was undertaken to encourage specific attention to women in Nova Scotia's AIDs strategy.

"We're releasing this publication to remind Nova Scotians that this disease occurs here, that it is an equal opportunity disease and that it is still not curable," said Doreen Paris, chair of the advisory council. "We are also calling upon men to play their role in protecting the health of their sexual partners."

The council is distributing copies to school boards, women's centres, transition houses and others who work in the area of women's issues.

"Through the advisory council, government works with many partners to protect women and to enhance their health," said Carolyn Bolivar-Getson, Minister responsible for the Status of Women. "This backgrounder is one piece of that important work."

More than two thirds of reported AIDS cases in women in Canada are attributed to heterosexual contact, making prevention programs targeting heterosexual men important. As well, in Nova Scotia, half of all positive HIV tests among women are for those under the age of 30.

Women who use injection drugs or who are involved in the sex trade are also at increased risk.

Marginalized women -- women whose age, race, ethnic background, language, sexual orientation, family status or geographic location combines with their gender to create a double disadvantage -- are particularly vulnerable. For example, although aboriginal women in Canada make up 3.3 per cent of the population, they accounted for close to nine per cent of all new HIV infections in 1999.

The disease is spreading faster among women because of factors related specifically to their gender. Women, and particularly younger women, may find it difficult to ask for safer sex. Their lack of awareness of their partners' past or current sexual behaviour also puts them at risk for HIV/AIDS. Women's anatomy increases their vulnerability to the disease, as do violence against women and sexual violence.

Gender and HIV/AIDS: A Backgrounder is available on the advisory council's website, at www.gov.ns.ca/staw/pubs2003_04/genderHIV_Sept2003.pdf