Gender inequality and the spread of HIV‐AIDS in India

Mitra, Aparna; Sarkar, Dipanwita

doi:10.1108/03068291111131409

Cited by 13 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Many women in South India, particularly poor rural women, are unaware of the risk of HIV transmission from their husbands [6,15,26]. Furthermore, cultural and historical expectations of a wife's subordination to her husband mean that women often have little control over marital sexual activity or safe-sex practices [12,26].…”

Section: Women In India Living An Hiv: the Pieces Of A Stigma Riddledmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, cultural and historical expectations of a wife's subordination to her husband mean that women often have little control over marital sexual activity or safe-sex practices [12,26]. It is reported that HIV tests are often performed without the woman's consent, with results communicated to her husband's family, so, even after diagnosis the woman may not be advised of her condition or receive treatment [1,6,15]. Family resources are typically prioritised toward the husband's care by the wife and the husband's family [26].…”

Section: Women In India Living An Hiv: the Pieces Of A Stigma Riddledmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mitra and Sarkar [15] and Vlassoff et al [13] report that in India, a husband's exposure to HIV commonly results from having participated in high-risk heterosexual behaviours such as having multiple sexual partners. Diagnosis then follows development of advanced symptoms of AIDS, a related sexually transmitted illness, or often after developing a comorbidity with tuberculosis [18,14,27].…”

Section: Women In India Living An Hiv: the Pieces Of A Stigma Riddledmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Noting her husband's diagnosis, and where not tested by the family, to avoid the stigma of being known to be HIV-positive WLH attempt to keep their HIV sero-status secret [15,18]. However secrecy often results in non-attendance for ARDT, attempts to disguise symptoms, social isolation and women travelling large distances on unreliable public transport to access care in remote centres with hopes of anonymity [18,29].…”

Section: Women In India Living An Hiv: the Pieces Of A Stigma Riddledmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The major factor limiting regular use of ARDT by women living with HIV (WLH) is stigma [1,3]. In order to probe for reasons as to the differences in the experience of being HIV-positive for Indian women and men, a number of studies utilised sex disaggregated quantitative data [1,14,15]. The potential risk of this approach is that some groups of women or men with particular social risk factors may not be identified if analysis of the data assumes a binary male: female biological sex paradigm and conflates it with social constructions of gender (different groups of, and social conventions about, diverse women and men).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Women Living with HIV in India: Looking up from a Place of Stigma, Identifying Nexus Sites for Change

Short¹,

Vissandjée²

2017

Divers Equal Health Care

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Current knowledge• For people living with HIV infection in India, stigma is a pervasive reality and the greatest barrier to accessing treatment, quality of life and survival.• However, women and men experience stigma differently. Despite typically contracting the disease through marital sexual relations, married monogamous women are also subject to stigma resulting from moral blame.• Stigma affects women both in public spheres of social relationships and in private through psychological stresses. These spheres are typically considered in isolation not as interrelating. Novel information• In order to go beyond consideration of discrete public and private arenas of stigma, this paper applies Engel's biopsychosocial model on chronic disease experience as promoting an understanding of the effects of illness on women across their biomedical, social and psychological life arenas. Use of Engel's approach resists binary separation of private and public experiences of HIV related stigma and encourages care responses to address a whole-of-life continuum.• By gaining information from particular groups of HIV-positive women about the whole-of-life situations where they experience stigma related constraint, inter-relationships between stigma sites can be mapped and specific root causes of marginalisation identified.• In the complex context of establishing programs of care for women living with HIV, arranging qualitative information on lived experiences in such a way as to identify interacting barriers to care, can assist in tailoring multifaceted HIV-care programs that address the particular needs of specific groups of women. Such customised programs would embody dual objectives: 1) to respond to the women's own identified and prioritised needs across biomedical, social and psychological arenas in a coordinated manner, and 2) to work to reduce stigma as a barrier to care. ABSTRACTFor women living with HIV infection in India, stigma is a pervasive reality and the greatest barrier to accessing treatment, quality of life and survival. Defining stigma according to Goffman as a socially conceived abnormality, this paper then draws on Engel's biopsychosocial model for chronic disease to show the pervasive nature of stigma as a continuum affecting all dimensions of life for married, monogamous Indian women with positive HIV sero-status. Two distinct perspectives were identified in the literature: 1) Public: social and relational stigma, or 2) Private: internalised psychological stigma. Only four of the twenty published works reviewed noted interrelationships between these public and private spheres. Only one of those employed an ethnographic methodology to understand stigma from the perspective of the women themselves.While concepts associated with stigma among women living with HIV are diversely employed in research, by considering them as a whole through an intersectional biopsychosocial lens, this paper attempts to provide a basis for implementing integrated and tailored responses. Once the manifestations and interconnected caus...

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Section: Women In India Living An Hiv: the Pieces Of A Stigma Riddledmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Women In India Living An Hiv: the Pieces Of A Stigma Riddledmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Women In India Living An Hiv: the Pieces Of A Stigma Riddledmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Women In India Living An Hiv: the Pieces Of A Stigma Riddledmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Women Living with HIV in India: Looking up from a Place of Stigma, Identifying Nexus Sites for Change

Short¹,

Vissandjée²

2017

Divers Equal Health Care

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“They Kept Away”: Social Isolation of Cisgender Women Living with HIV in Hyderabad, India

et al. 2019

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Social isolation of cisgender women living with HIV has been recognized as a barrier to early detection of the virus, disclosure of HIV status to partners, and access to healthcare and social work services. The goal of this study is to explore how social isolation and depression affect cisgender women living with HIV in Hyderabad, India. Sixteen cisgender women living with HIV were asked to complete in-depth interviews regarding their experiences with HIV stigma and depression. All interviews were digitally audio-recorded in Hindi or Telugu, then translated, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic content analysis by two to three coders. Three main themes emerged from the qualitative interviews among these cisgender women living with HIV: (1) "They kept away": Experiences with social isolation; (2) "I thought people would think badly about me": Perceived experiences of discrimination; and (3) "I will live till I die": Suicidality, resilience, and gaining hope. Our findings reinforce the need for emphasis on culturally appropriate interventions for depression for cisgender women living with HIV in India, including greater access to mental health resources, greater availability of trained counselors that share the same gender and are native speakers of Hindi or Telugu, and increased family and community support for socially isolated individuals.

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Exploring perceived health differences among married women in an urban slum of Tamil Nadu, India

Annapuranam

2020

City, Culture and Society

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Gender inequality and the spread of HIV‐AIDS in India

Cited by 13 publications

References 10 publications

Women Living with HIV in India: Looking up from a Place of Stigma, Identifying Nexus Sites for Change

Women Living with HIV in India: Looking up from a Place of Stigma, Identifying Nexus Sites for Change

“They Kept Away”: Social Isolation of Cisgender Women Living with HIV in Hyderabad, India

Exploring perceived health differences among married women in an urban slum of Tamil Nadu, India

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