One way to celebrate how women’s efforts and courage throughout history have enabled them to gain more opportunities and enjoy their rights is to speak beyond their sexual health. We hope that we’ll all remember that many women next to us are fighting racism, discrimination, HIV stigma, gender equality, and many other challenges just because they are women.
As we continue making progress towards eliminating HIV and AIDS in the U.S., women remain vulnerable to HIV, especially black or African-American, and Hispanic women. The latest report from CDC mentioned that Black women accounted for the largest share of new HIV diagnoses among women in the U.S. Poverty, stigma, medical mistrust, and fear of discrimination often prevent some women from getting tested or from seeking care. An estimated 14% of transgender women have HIV. Transgender women experience stigma and discrimination and often encounter healthcare providers or clinics lacking knowledge of transgender issues or proper inclusive language.
Women who have been exposed to intimate partner violence may be more likely to engage in risky behaviors or be forced to have sex without a condom or medicines to prevent or treat HIV known as PrEP. Many women don’t know their male partner’s risk factors for HIV (such as injection drug use or having sex with men) and may not use a condom or PrEP to prevent HIV.
What can we do to help to overcome these challenges? March 10 is National HIV/AIDS Awareness Day for women and girls. This day is presented as a day to raise awareness about the impact of HIV on women and show support for women and girls with HIV. High Impacto is using this day as an opportunity to remind everyone how important women are in everyone’s life. We do it not just during March 10, but during the whole year promoting and doing HIV testing, implementing all the different prevention tools such as PrEP, and TASP (Treatment as Prevention or U=U), to the entire community, since the beginning of this year, we are offering free health insurance!
For more information about our Free Health Insurance and all HIV Prevention programs contact us at info@highimpacto.org and by phone at 954-947-3603.