AIDS, Stigma, Marriage, and Economic Empowerment: Exploring Intersections of Women's Marginalization in West Nile Uganda

Abstract

Deep-seated stigma continues to plague efforts to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in much of Sub-Saharan Africa. While access to antiretroviral treatment has expanded, the spread of HIV continues to rise in the West Nile Region of Uganda. Economic empowerment programs are often heralded as a key means to address gender inequality and poverty and mollify the impacts of AIDS-related stigma. In order to assess how economic empowerment programs impact HIV-positive women's experiences with stigma, we conducted a series of focus groups with HIV-positive women involved with economic empowerment programs and interviews and focus groups with key family members of women with AIDS in West Nile Uganda. Employing an intersectional approach, we found that HIV/AIDS interrelated with particular marriage and descent practices in ways that further marginalized women. We also discovered that economic empowerment programs actively countered women's vulnerability by directly addressing the mutual influences of axes of inequality w...