New Film Demonstrates That Marriage Does Not Protect Women from HIV

Nairobi, Kenya ... A short film that demonstrates, in stark and powerful detail, the grave consequences of women’s inequality on their health and the lives of their families premiered recently in Kenya’s capital city in advance of World AIDS Day.  Population Action International (PAI) and The Centre for the Study of Adolescence (CSA) sponsored the screening and reception, and led the lively panel discussion that followed. Speakers included representatives from Pathfinder International, Kenya’s National Coordinating Agency for Population and Development (NCAPD), Men for Gender Equity Now (MEGEN), Kenya's National AIDS Coordination Council, the film's stars and its director.

Most people believe that if a woman makes it to marriage without contracting HIV, she is safe for the rest of her life. However, current research shows that increasingly marriage is not as protective as previously thought – for either women or men. The Silent Partner: HIV in Marriage examines the risk of HIV within marriage and the particular challenges facing married women. 

This 12-minute documentary, filmed in Kenya, tells the stories of two women from different backgrounds who were infected with HIV in their own homes, in their own beds.  The film also features interviews with men on the streets of Nairobi, educators from both women's and men's groups, a former member of Kenya’s parliament and a religious leader.

"This film is important because HIV is a threat against the family," said Rosemarie Muganda-Onyando, Executive Director of CSA. "This onslaught on the family is a direct threat on the economy and society."

One out of ten married couples in Kenya has an HIV-positive partner. This is not unique to Kenya – in Rwanda and Zambia, an estimated 55-93 percent of new infections occur within marriage or in cohabitating relationships. Increasingly married women are at risk. Condom use within marriage is infrequent, and rates of extramarital partners are higher among men than women in Africa. Additionally, gender-based violence within marriage increases women’s vulnerability to HIV infection.

"Women must not be kept 'silent,' whether in marriage or in society as a whole; they must be given safe avenues to protect themselves and their families," says Amy Coen, President/CEO of Population Action International (PAI). "Only when men and women have understanding, education and access to medical care can they protect themselves and those they love."

Women now account for half of the 33 million people living with HIV around the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the world’s people living with HIV, women are even harder hit, making up 60 percent of those infected.  Not only are women biologically more susceptible than men to HIV, many behavioral and social factors play into women’s vulnerability. If a young woman is uninfected with HIV at the time of her marriage, traditional wisdom says that she has avoided the disease altogether. More and more, however, research shows that marriage is not enough to protect people from HIV, either women or men.

Conventional HIV prevention strategies do not meet the needs of married women who cannot practice abstinence, cannot control the faithfulness of their husbands, and find it difficult to negotiate condom use. Only through an integrated approach to preventing HIV – including challenging social norms – will rates of transmission be reduced long term.

Many steps can be taken to reduce the vulnerability of married women and men to HIV infection, including stronger policies, better prevention strategies, and changes in harmful social norms. These steps include: 

• Educating men and women about social norms and how those norms negatively impact men and women's health
• Building political will to enact and reform policies to reduce women's vulnerability
• Ensuring legal protections for women’s property and inheritance rights
• Enacting and enforcing laws against domestic violence and rape, including marital rape
• Achieving equality in girls' education at all levels
• Increasing HIV counseling and testing focused on couples
• Developing programs that promote condom use among married couples
• Integrating HIV services with family planning and reproductive health services to reach more married women with information and support. Such programs also have a history of increasing male involvement in reproductive health decision making

The Silent Partner is intended to inform and provoke discussion of harmful gender and societal norms that put women and couples at risk for HIV.  An Advocacy Guide is included with the film to mobilize political and financial support for sexual and reproductive health and rights to achieve broader social, economic and gender equity for everyone.

This documentary was also screened in Accra, Ghana, after the Nairobi premiere. In 2009, it will be shown on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.; Ottawa, Canada; and other locations around the world. 

The Silent Partner: HIV in Marriage was written and directed by Nathan Golon for Population Action International.  More information and the twelve-minute documentary itself are available at http://www.silentpartnerfilm.com. 

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Population Action International works to ensure that every person has the right and access to sexual and reproductive health, so that humanity and the natural environment can exist in balance and fewer people live in poverty.