Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter 
GEBRE
DR. YITADES Gebre, executive director of the National HIV/STI Con-trol Project has attributed the increase in the number of HIV/AIDS cases to gender inequalities, with the weaker sex, women, being more vulnerable to the disease.
Speaking at the launch of World AIDS Day activities at the Courtleigh Hotel in New Kingston Wednesday, Dr. Gebre said that violence against women was a worldwide human rights and public health problem, which increases female vulnerability to HIV.
He said that domestic violence was the most common form of violence perpetuated against women and noted that this type of violence was often accompanied by sexual violence.
The executive director said that 10 to 69 per cent of women, globally, reported physical abuse by an intimate partner, at least once in their lives. Meanwhile, in Jamaica 28 per cent of women (or one out of every three) have experienced forced sex in their lifetime and at least 10 per cent of women, under the age of 19 years also reported forced sex at the first sexual debut.
Showing the extent of how rapidly women were being infected by the virus, Dr. Gebre said that by the end of June 2004, 3,516 adolescents and adult women in Jamaica were reported as having AIDS. Meanwhile, by the end of December 2003, 8,000 to 9,000 women have been infected with HIV.
FIVE-FOLD INCREASE
"Among adolescents and adult women, the proportion of AIDS cases increased by five fold in 2003. Nonetheless, AIDS cases in adolescents and in adult men have started to plateau in the last three years of this epidemic," he revealed.
He disclosed that worldwide, 70 per cent of new infection in women were from cohabiting partners - the husband, boyfriend or otherwise. Younger women, he said, were also increasingly being diagnosed with HIV infections, particularly, women who are residing in urban areas.
Dr. Gebre noted that gender roles and stereotypes dictate how women and men should behave adding, "men through this gender construct have other sexual relationship. In this background, men exposed women to infection, men expected, in some culture, to have a pull control of their sexuality from time to time."
"Women cannot question the men's infidelity. There could be violence after that. When women are jealous, sometimes it is about love, it is not necessarily respect they are looking for. Provided, that men provide for women, women should not ask those questions. They should tolerate," he said.
As a result, he said, many women are unable to negotiate safe sex in these types of relationships. He pointed out that the recommended preventing strategies were not working in situations like these.
"You cannot tell a married woman, or a woman living with a man to abstain. You cannot talk to a woman who is faithfully keeping her promises at home to be again faithful when her partner is not faithful," he said.
