In the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) the global leaders determined that one goal, which they would work towards was universal access. This is universal access to healthcare and treatment. Our concern at AIDS 2010 is to discover why and how this particular MDG has and has not been accomplished. Universal Access, from a human rights perspective, means that regardless of social stigma or discrimination each and every person has the right to receive health care, particularly in terms of testing and treatment for any and all chronic/life-threatening diseases. People should not and cannot be denied health services because of their gender, sexuality, or sexual orientation. The marginalization of women and sexual minorities has gotten the world into a huge problem in terms of Universal Access.
Without access to health care, a woman in an inculturated patriarchal society is not able to even ask for an HIV test. For one, some of these cultures blame women for the transmission of HIV, when in most cases it is their husband’s unfaithfulness that brings HIV into the household. None-the-less, in areas where a woman is blamed for transmission of HIV, a woman may be abandoned by her husband and consequently by her community for even asking for an HIV test. If a woman is found to be positive, she faces brutalization and sterilization along with official excommunication from the community. She will not be allowed to receive treatment and thus is sentenced to a slow and painful death.
In cultures where women are blamed for HIV, a woman is often also not given the right to control her own sexuality. She has no sexual rights. This means that she has no choice as to whether or not she will have sex with her husband and has no right to ask him to use a condom, even if she believes he may be HIV positive. Thus she is unable to protect herself from HIV infection.
Women in some cultures are also stripped of reproductive and sexual rights when they become widows. It is particularly the case with young women that a brother of her deceased husband is required to have sexual relations with her after the death of the husband so that she may in fact continue the family line. Though some cultures have set this standard so that women are continued to be cared for by their deceased husband’s family, it does not make amends for this serious infraction on human rights.
The infractions on women’s human rights do not begin to address the full extent of the issues faced by other sexual minorities. In many cultures MSM (men who have sex with men) are considered to be deviating from social gender norms and thus are denied universal access and other fundamental human rights. Other severely inhumane actions face MSM as well. In many cultures, MSM and homosexual men and women are raped to “fix” their sexual preference. In these cultures MSM are also badly stigmatized and shunned from society, unable to even go to a medical clinic for care. MSM are also often arrested for sexual activity.
Though governmental officials have determined universal access to be part of their goals for the global populace, it seems as though stigma and discrimination against women and sexual minorities need to be addressed first. Without a drastic change in the social norms of many developed and developing cultures, no matter what the governmental officials say about it, universal access will continue to be denied to those who quite often need it most.
[Yet another post from the AIDS 2010 conference...more to follow.]
