Gender Centre HIV project

Project: Reducing Women’s Susceptibility to HIV infection

Location: Ghana. Upper West, Volta & Eastern Regions

Duration: 2009-2012

Partner: The Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre (Gender Centre); Pro-link; Rural Watch; Amaschina Self-Help Association

Women, in Papase, Ghana

The situation

Due to gender inequality women in Ghana are at greater risk of contracting HIV

Out of 240,000 HIV infected adults 140,000 are women.

Women’s risk of contracting the virus is increased by the cultural acceptability of men having several partners and the right to demand sex. Fear of violence and discrimination, together with limited knowledge on HIV transmission, prevents women accessing appropriate information, testing, services and disclosing their HIV status. Traditional practices, such as widow inheritance (where a widow is forced to marry her dead husband’s relative), or polygamy (where a man has multiple wives), increase girls and women’s likelihood of contracing HIV.

What Womankind is doing

With funding from UK Aid, Womankind and our partners are tackling gender inequalities that increase women’s’ risk of becoming HIV infected in 4 communities.

At the local level we are working with communities to recognise and understand attitudes and practices that increase the risk of HIV infection. We are also pushing for the government to properly resource HIV and AIDS programmes, and to tackle gender inequality within their HIV and AIDS work.

With our partners we are:

Training 30 community members to be able to educate others about the links between gender inequality and HIV infection
Supporting 2,508 women affected by HIV or AIDS to be able to access appropriate medical, legal and justice services.
Raising awareness on the issues with nearly 900,000 people through radio and local campaigns
Working with 73 traditional and religious leaders to address gender-based violence and HIV prevention in their communities

What we have achieved so far

One paramount chief has outlawed the practice of widowhood inheritance in his community