Sex, poverty and HIV

Nattrass, Nicoli

Sex, poverty and HIV

Working Paper

2008

Journal Title

Centre for Social Science Research

Link to Journal

http://www.cssr.uct.ac.za/

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Centre for Social Science Research(CSSR)

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

UNAIDS has recently been subject to a series of attacks for supposedly kowtowing to political correctness by overplaying the risks of generalised HIV epidemics and failing to concentrate on the risky behaviours of key groups (notably men who have sex with men, sex workers, and injecting drug users) for fear of stigmatising them and causing offense (e.g. Chin 2007; Pisani, 2008). It has also been taken to task for highlighting gender inequality and poverty as social drivers of the HIV epidemic in Africa rather than facing the challenge of addressing the multiple concurrent sexual partnerships which really fuel it (Chin, 2007: 54; Epstein, 2007). UNAIDS officials responded by defending the institution’s record on prevention and by emphasising that the challenge is to know the local epidemic and its drivers, and to craft interventions accordingly (De Lay and De Cock, 2007; De Cock and De Lay, 2008).