Hi fellow bloggers,
This week I'm going to talk about my visit to the health department. The nurse drew my blood three weeks ago. She was gloved and I was dressed in my board shorts, t-shirt and sandals. When we started talking I told her what I did and where I worked and all of a sudden her demeanor and approach was different. We both work in the medical field and are exposed to bodily fluids on a daily basis. When I came back she quickly called me back to her little room, as I was in scrubs this time. She gave me my results then started talking about miscellaneous things I needed to do and before I left she asked me the question if I had been in a battered environment since the last time I saw her. I quickly gave her my answer but it burned a question in my mind. How many of these women who have HIV or AIDS are battered in the U.S. and how does that affect their treatment? Are they predisposed, or are they less likely to contract HIV?
Did you know that in the U.S. that battered women are more likely to contract HIV because the victims get beaten and later raped when refusing sex with their partners who most likely have multiple sexual encounters and quite possibly never use protection. (PeaceWomen.org)
Catherine Avorseh, Koforidua the author of the article quotes, the executive director of the Ark Foundation, Ms. Angela Dwamena Boakye, from a training workshop on gender violence and HIV/AIDS at Koforidua. "Ms. Boakye acknowledged that although a lot of work is being done in HIV/AIDS awareness creation, there has not been much concentration on gender violence and HIV/AIDS. There is the need to train ourselves to be able to educate and support people who come to us, hence the need for this workshop".
According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund website, battered women are more 3 times as likely of contracting HIV than someone who doesn't live in an abusive environment. " Researchers found that 5.5 percent of women in the study – all 20 years old or older – reported abuse by their partners in 2004 and 2005. The rate of HIV infection for women was 0.17 percent, and it was three times higher among women who reported partner violence than women who did not. Of those who contracted HIV, nearly 12 percent said it was a result of intimate partner violence." (endabuse.org)
This presents a larger picture to an already ominous disease. Now we have battered women rates at escalating rate. So where do we go from here?
until next week bloggers,
laterz
Works cited
Battered women and AIDS. (August 28, 2003). Battered Women at Greater Risk of Contracting HIV/AIDS. Peace and Women website. Retrieved October 7, 2009 from http://www.peacewomen.org/news/Ghana/newsarchive03/battered.html
Statistics on battered women and HIV. (June 19, 2009). Battered women at higher risk of HIV infection. end abuse website. Retrieved October 7, 2009 from http://endabuse.org/content/news/detail/1293/
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As it isn't bad enough that women are abused by the ones that they are involved with, having their risk tripled to acquire HIV is just disheartening. I think it is one of most horrible ways for a woman to get the virus is through rape and as being a male it is something that has and will always outrage me when I hear about it, especially when it is associated with the transmission of HIV.
ReplyDeleteIf battered women have access to a computer at home they need to be careful to remove all traces of their searches as their abuser can follow them through history and cookies. We tell battered women to memorize the phone numbers they need and not to take home any written material about the problem or where they can find help in case the person looks through their purse.
ReplyDeleteIf the women becomes HIV positive the abuser will say she brought it into the relationship and she will suffer more than before. So finding out they are HIV positive is another secret they must learn to keep.