The Connection Between Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS

http://www.forbes.com/sites/skollworldforum/2013/03/08/ending-violence-against-women-is-critical-to-ending-the-aids-epidemic/ In this day and age, issues rarely have clear cut solutions and more often then not the issue in question overlaps with other issues that are just as important. This article brings an example of this phenomanon to light. Both HIV/AIDS and violence against woman are important and are issues that plague the whole world, but I didn't realize until now how linked they were. By their own right, they are both costly issues. Violence against woman, especially intimate partner violence, is a wide-spread occurrence that a majority of woman will deal with sometime in their life. This violence can result in long term physical and psychological issues, or even death. HIV/AIDS has similar costs, and is obviously not a pleasant thing or a thing that anyone should have to live with. For years now people have been striving to reduce the number of new HIV infections. That is an impressive and important goal, but many things stand in the way of that and one of those things is violence against women. When a woman is subjected to violence, she often loses control of many (if not all) parts of her life. She may not be able to say no to sex, or negotiate safe sex, or get treatments that she may need. This makes it very hard for her if she does contract HIV because she has no way to prevent it or get treatment. If she gets pregnant in this relationship, she may also have less options for pre-natal care and HIV testing for her baby, which increases the risk of the child getting it too. A common feminist lens states that we have to look at the big picture in order to solve an issue. This is a perfect example of that. We can't just look at HIV/AIDS and find a solution; we have to look at the issues that are connected to it. By helping reduce violence against women, a lower transmission rate of the disease might be accomplished as well. This would be an amazing goal to reach. Another important idea that could help with this is the idea of everyone being under a big tent to help solve an issue. These are not just issues that affect only woman. They hit home for everyone regardless of gender, race, class, ect. By looking at one, we have to look at both and be united together to help come up with a solution. No one should have to live with HIV/AIDS or have to be subjected to violence of any kind. By looking at this big picture together, hopefully we can get to a place were we can fix both of these issues.