Social Development and Public Governance > Social Development > Health and HIV/AIDS
Stigma, Discrimination and HIV/AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean
By Peter Aggleton, Richard Parker, Miriam Maluwa (05/03, SOC-130, En, Es)
In 2002, it was estimated that 1.9 million adults and children were living with HIV/AIDS in Latin America and the Caribbean. Of these, an estimated 1.5 million were in Latin America and 470,000 in the Caribbean. Prevalence rates at 2% are the second fastest growing in the world. Prevalence rates in high risk groups can reach 5%, and there is a sharp rise in the case of women infected with HIV/AIDS. These speak to the urgent need to give concerted atten-tion to the HIV/AIDS situation in all countries of the region.
In response, the IDB is undertaking efforts to help countries combat this epidemic and has launched a series on HIV/AIDS. As part of this series, this paper was prepared as a back-ground document for a seminar entitled HIV/AIDS and Development: Challenges and Re-sponses in Latin America and the Caribbean held at the Annual Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the Inter-American Development Bank and Inter-American Investment Corpo-ration in March 2002.
It focuses on a rather unexplored dimension to date of the epidemic: the resulting stigma and discrimination and its impact on the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS programs. This paper pre-sents a conceptual framework that explains the interplay between stigma, discrimination and human rights. The paper also provides guidelines for developing programmatic activities that situate HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination within the broader social context where a variety of stigmas related to class, race, gender and ethnicity exist. Thus, the framework and the paper can be useful both to those fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as to those fighting exclusion in other social contexts.
Last updated: 06/01/07
