Women’s Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS

This book deals with the factors and circumstances that have added to young women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in India. Besides biological, economic and socio-cultural factors, this is primarily due to the behaviours of their husbands/partners. The key issues emerging from the primary data collected from five cross-cultural settings in India portray enhancing women’s knowledge, their capacity building, improving access to STI/HIV services, enhancing family as well as community level support and creating enabling environment as the major facilitating factors to reduce their vulnerability in the country.

The strategies thus identified need to be translated into programmes, when not only the female-male ratio of HIV infection is increasing, but nearly half of the new HIV infections are taking place among people below age 25. Major findings highlighted in the book will be useful for researchers, policy makers as well as other programme personnel working in South Asian countries on gender and HIV/AIDS issues.