Battered Kenyan women more prone to HIV: report

[WhiteTara]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-06-22T152117Z_01_L22240854_RTRUKOC_0_US-KENYA-RAPE.xml&archived=False
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Abused Kenyan women, many of whom have little control over their sexual encounters, are six times more likely to become infected with HIV/AIDS than men of the same age, a United Nations report said on Thursday.
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But in Kenya's traditionally patriarchal society, where violence against women is often ignored and sometimes condoned, women are unable to insist on such measures, the report by the UNAIDS Kenya office said.

"Many women and girls are simply not in a position to abstain from sex, rely on fidelity or negotiate condom use," Jane Kalweo, a UNAIDS program officer told Reuters.

The report said cultural practices like wife inheritance, where a widow is forced to marry to her dead husband's brother even if he died of AIDS, polygamy and early marriage were also to blame.
snip
The government says one woman is raped every 30 seconds, but the rate is believed to be higher since many rapes go unreported due to culture, stigma and a tradition of blaming the victim.

that equals 2880 rapes in any 24 hour period or over 1 million rapes a year. I think I'm going to go pull the covers over my head, that is so depressing.

[Nikki Stone 1]

1. This is what evil looks like.

Thanks for posting.

[pitohui]

2. i don't know how the country functions at all

supposedly 1 in 4 adults (people between age 15 and 64) have hiv/aids

there is an air of despair abt nairobi, trash blowing everywhere, that makes you realize how people are so ill that they cannot expend any energy at all

compare this to another black english-speaking nation like trinidad and tobago, where it seems every little cottage, no matter how small, has its flowers and its garden, and the people seem to have such strength and pride (admittedly, t&t also has the all-important OIL)

there is an urgent need for a vaccine, condoms don't work when the disease is being spread by heterosexual sex because no woman can keep her husband and ask him to use a rubber, yet even in usa we know that a majority of men cheat, we just close our eyes and say "not my husband," a luxury we have here, since hiv/aids doesn't seem to spread as readily that way in usa


i read some time ago that kenya medical researchers are continuing the search for a vaccine that some european and usa doctors have abandoned for this reason

[Triana]

3. Grrrrrr

...don't EVEN get me started.

:mad: