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How Gender Increases The Hiv Risk Of Women

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When AIDS made its debut in the early 80s, societies branded it as disease that infected homosexuals and/or IV drug abusers. First things first, AIDS and HIV are different. HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is the virus that infects a person, and if left untreated leads to the fatal disease AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). However, over the last 35 years, we have learned that, in reality, AIDS does not discriminate against sexual orientation, drug addictions, race, age or any other factor; however, it victimizes one gender more often than the other. Researchers prove that, on a global scale, women are more susceptible to contracting HIV/AIDS than are men. Both statistically and logically, women experience higher incidences…show more content…
UNAIDS, a global organization AIDs advocate, defines trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring and receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, or fraud, of deception, of abuse of power.” The definition continues to include “the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purposes of exploitation.” UNAIDS also deems trafficking as a “modern-day slavery” imprisoning millions of women and girls around the world yearly. These women are kept hidden from society which makes it challenging for accurate research to be conducted on them. However, Kathleen Wirth, a researcher at Harvard School of Public Health, devised a way that “encompasses creative techniques in order to obtain interviews from victims that will help keep them safe from harm” (WHO IRIS). Important data such as the fact that women and girls represent 55 percent of the estimated 20.9 million victims of forced labor worldwide, and 98 percent of the estimated 4.5 million forced into sexual exploitation (“Facts and Figures”). UNAIDS advocates explain how despite the vulnerability of women in these settings, the spread of the HIV virus can be prevented and is conditional upon the workplace setting. Some work settings, such as brothels, require that the workers wear condoms while servicing a client; however, other settings, such as street
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