Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #116557

Nesha Z. Haniff, MPH Phd, Center for Afro-American and african studies, University of Michigan, 4666 Haven hall, 505 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1045, 734-763-4520, nzh@umich.edu

The UNAIDS special focus for 2004-2005 is women and children. The statistics on HIV have shown that of the 37.2 million adults infected with HIV 17.6 million are women (UNAIDS,2004). The evidence has shown in case after case that women become infected with HIV because they have no control over men's sexual beahviour and certainly little control over their condom use. The alarm is that women and children will now form the majority of HIV/AIDS cases and that special attention needs to be paid to this population. This paper will discuss the erroneous public health strategy of putting women's sexual health on condom use, which tacitly puts it in the hands of men, therefore undermining women's agency. It will further address the public health strategy of avoiding the reality of the pleasure of flesh to flesh sex and its power for both men and women and the lack of advocacy in developing technologies that will address this need in humans. Putting women's bodies, agency and desires at the center of science is essential in developing policy and strategies to reduce all STI. Women must have a method that they control. The female condom is a farce, expensive, unfriendly to women and cumbersome. The challenge is to truly feminize women's sexual health by investing in science that will change the paradigm of HIV prevention. We cannot fight a 21st. century plague with 19th. century technology. Women must form a constituency which must demand investment in such technologies.

Learning Objectives:

• re-exmination of HIV prevention strategies -
• Putting women's bodies at the center of the analysis -
• encouraging the development and funding of new technologies friendly to women and their bodies -
• Foster debate and discussion of the public health prevention strategy of ignoring the value of flesh to flesh sexual intercourse.

Keywords: Women and HIV/AIDS, Advocacy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation