The Feminisation of HIV and AIDS in the Caribbean

Not only during Carnival but also in their daily lives professional women may be prone to error. In a quest for pleasure they may find pain; on a mission for ecstasy they may find terror; and in pursuit of a reawakening they may cause their own demise. Can self-loving and self-respecting women be willing to risk their lives for the sake of sex? Professional women’s voicelessness; lack of acknowledgement of the reality of HIV and its multiple sociocultural drivers; and inability to call powers that be to act are inimical to the efforts aimed at decreasing the prevalence of HIV among Caribbean women. The clichés around professional women’s intelligence and sense of empowerment are useless. As a region gender politics and its failure to address the negative aspects of cultural indoctrination within a patriarchal system have been anathema to true female sexual agency. It is incumbent upon health and gender institutions therefore to unite with the goal of reducing the feminisation of HIV in the Caribbean.