Rural women, HIV and human rights abuses in South Africa: a critical review
SOURCE: Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2010
TITLE AUTHOR(S): V.Reddy, C.Munthree, L.Wiebesiek
KEYWORDS: GENDER EQUALITY, HIV/AIDS, HUMAN RIGHTS, RURAL COMMUNITIES, WOMEN
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 6638
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/3977
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/3977
OUTPUT TYPE: Journal Article
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2010
TITLE AUTHOR(S): V.Reddy, C.Munthree, L.Wiebesiek
KEYWORDS: GENDER EQUALITY, HIV/AIDS, HUMAN RIGHTS, RURAL COMMUNITIES, WOMEN
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 6638
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/3977
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/3977
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
A theme that reflects rural women's experiences is appropriately captured in an Amnesty International (AI) report titled "I am at the lowest end of all": Rural women living with HIV face human rights abuses in South Africa (2008). The study reported in the publication, undertaken in two provinces, namely Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, examines patterns of human rights abuses of women who are exposed to the risk of or are already living with HIV in rural contexts with the twin challenges of widespread poverty and unemployment. Drawing on the testimonies of 37 women, the study explicates experiences of intimate partner/ stranger violence by women facing intermittent periods of economic instability and hunger in the context of poverty, stigma and low social status. This study highlights systemic factors which affect women's ability to realise their right to health. Its value is that it prioritises an under-researched and often excluded community (namely rural women), demonstrating a theoretical and empirical flaw often captured in the critical literature, which resists the romanticisation of rural life. This review article critically evaluates this report, both in its conceptual and empirical engagement with contemporary theories and case studies of gender and rurality. Issues related to rurality, power, difference, HIV and AIDS and human rights are analysed to suggest strengths and weaknesses in the report, and the relevance of its findings for ongoing research, activism and policy change in South Africa.-
Related Research Outputs:
- NASFAM funding proposal for the National AIDS Commission
- Depression among pregnant rural South African women undergoing HIV testing
- Gender, development and transport in rural South Africa: methodological, policy and implementation challenges
- Global struggles, local contexts: prospects for a southern African AIDS feminism
- Experience of abuse among women in a rural subdistrict of Limpopo province, South Africa
- Food security aspects of the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural women in smallholder agriculture
- What can a woman do with a camera?: turning the female gaze on poverty and HIV and AIDS in rural South Africa
- More work for women: a rights-based analysis of women's access to basic services in South Africa
- Gender and rurality in southern African contexts: an introduction
- HIV knowledge, disclosure and sexual risk among pregnant women and their partners in rural South Africa
- Women in selected rural municipalities: resilience and agency against vulnerabilities to climate change
- Prevalence of prenatal and postpartum depression and associated factors among HIV-infected women in public primary care in rural South Africa: a longitudinal study
- Influences on exclusive breastfeeding among rural HIV-infected South African women: a cluster randomized control trial
- Women are weak when they are amongst men: participation in rural water committees in South Africa
- The impact of HIV/AIDS on land issues in Kwazulu-Natal province South Africa: case studies from Muden, Dondotha, Kwadumisa and Kwanyuswa
- Whose right it is anyway? equality, culture and conflicts of rights in South Africa
- Gender inequality persists in artisan employment in South Africa
- HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa: executive summary
- Investment into eco-tourism projects: KwaZulu-Natal coastal belt: South Africa
- Book review: Bradby, H. & Hundt, G.L. (eds). 2010. Global perspectives on war, gender and health: the sociology and anthropology of suffering. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing. 157 p. ISBN 9780754675235