Transforming Legal Norms to Empower Women, including Marriage, Inheritance and Property Rights
Gaps in Research
- 1.
- Interventions are needed to increase the knowledge of HIV-positive people—especially women—regarding their rights and provide resources to fight for these rights.
- 2.
- Legislation that allows women the right to refuse forced marriage and penalizes marital and non-marital rape may reduce coercive sex and the risk of HIV transmission.
- 3.
- Laws prohibiting young age at marriage need to be enacted.
- 4.
- Interventions are needed to assist parents dying of AIDS with planning for the future well-being of their children.
1. Interventions are needed to increase the knowledge of HIV-positive people—especially women—regarding their rights and provide resources to fight for these rights. Studies found that women had insufficient knowledge of their legal rights and no resources to fight for their legal rights.
Gap noted, for example, in India (Devasahayam et al., 2008); Uganda (Mabumba et al., 2007); Kenya (WambuiWaweru, 2004); and Zambia, Namibia and Uganda (Steinzor, 2003, Manchester, 2004).
Phinney, H. 2008. “’Rice Is Essential but Tiresome; You Should Get Some Noodles’: Doi Moi and the Olitical Economy of men’s Extramarital Sexual Relations and Marital HIV Risk in Hanoi, Vietnam.” American Journal of Public Health 98(4): 650-660.
2. Legislation that allows women the right to refuse forced marriage and penalizes marital and non-marital rape may reduce coercive sex and the risk of HIV transmission. Studies found that in some countries, legislation penalizing marital rape does not exist.
Gap noted, for example, in sub-Saharan Africa.
Kilonzo, N., N. Ndung’u, N. Nthamburi, C. Ajema, M. Taegtmeyer, S. Theobald and R. Tolhurst. 2009b. “Sexual Violence Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Need for Strengthened Medico-Legal Linkages.” Reproductive Health Matters17 (34): 10-19.
3. Laws prohibiting young age at marriage need to be enacted. Field reports and studies found that child marriage for girls is still common in some countries.
Gap noted globally (CHANGE, 2009, Ezer et al., 2006).