What Works for Women and Girls

Chapter 11.Strengthening the EnablingEnvironmentA. Transforming Gender NormsB. Addressing Violence Against WomenC. Transforming Legal Norms to Empower Women, including Marriage, Inheritanceand Property RightsD. Promoting Women’s Employment, Income and Livelihood OpportunitiesE. Advancing EducationF. Reducing Stigma and DiscriminationG. Promoting Women’s LeadershipFor HIV/AIDS interventions for women and girls to succeed, factors outside the healthservices need to be addressed. These environmental factors—gender norms that guide howgirls and boys grow to be women and men, legal norms that confer or withhold rights forwomen and girls, access to education, income, levels oftoleration for violence against women, experience of HIV/AIDS and gender stigma and discrimination—determinewhether any HIV intervention will truly help women andgirls. Creating a supportive and enabling environment forfemales and males to live in equity and for women and girlsto be supported by equitable gender norms and legal rightsis critical to reduce vulnerability to HIV infection and toensure interventions to prevent, treat or care for those withHIV will have their intended effect.“The choice between food orshelter and safer sex is not a freeone, since almost everyone willchoose daily survival over thecomparatively abstract risk ofHIV”(Pinkham et al., 2008: 169).287