Supporting women living with HIV/AIDS

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that over 13 million women will have the AIDS virus (HIV) by the year 2000. Women are not only biologically more at risk to infection than men, but in many societies they are also socially at risk. The latter typically includes fear in asking a male partner to use a condom, and males having several sexual relationships at a time. Once infected, women just as men may face social prejudice, and find it difficult to get needed assistance. Women should be supported to give them adequate care during infection with the aids virus.

The International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) was founded at the VIIIth International Conference on AIDS in Amsterdam in July 1992. It was founded in response to what the ICW deemed as "the desperate lack of support and information available to HIV+ women worldwide, which in many cases exacerbated a profound sense of isolation". All HIV positive women on their mailing list receive WORLD, which is a monthly newsletter with contributions from around the world, offering advice and information. ICW members provide support and care for others with HIV/AIDS, and works with organizers of national, regional and international AIDS conferences.

In Zambia and many other AIDS-stricken countries, groups of women are working to ease the plight of AIDS victims, receiving neither recompense nor recognition in return. Many victims otherwise lie abandoned in their homes.