The Prevention and Management of HIV and Sexual and Gender-based Violence: Responding to the Needs of Survivors and Those-at-risk

The human rights framework holds that all people, including women and people living with HIV, have the right to live without stigma, discrimination, and violence, and with self-determination. In recent years, global health advocates have used this framework to bolster support for issues of sexual and gender-based violence and associated health consequences. At the U.N. Summit on Peacekeeping on September 23, 2010, the United States Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, announced an increase in support by the US Government for the prevention of sexual violence, particularly in conflict settings such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Reducing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is one of the five gender strategies promoted through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and it is crucial to meeting the global UN Millennium Development Goals, which call for lowering maternal mortality, improving child survival, combating HIV/AIDS and other STIs, A nine-year-old girl called Chisinsi* woke up early in the morning to go to school in Lusaka, Zambia. She wondered, “Do I tell mummy or not?” Finally she decided to go to school without telling her mother.