Women’s Human Rights

Domestic Violence and Women’s Vulnerability to HIV-infection in Uganda

Questions and Answers

  1. What constitutes domestic violence against women?
  2. Why do we need to address domestic violence against women?
  3. How is domestic violence linked to HIV infection in women?
  4. How do traditional customs contribute to women’s vulnerability to domestic violence and HIV infection?
  5. What is the social impact on women who contract HIV/AIDS from their husbands?
  6. In what ways do governments fail to protect women from domestic violence?
  7. What human rights standards oblige governments to address domestic violence against women?
  8. What human rights standards relate to HIV/AIDS?
  9. What should governments do to prevent and remedy domestic violence against women?
  10. What can Donor associations and regional and international organizations do to combat domestic violence?


1. What constitutes domestic violence against women?

Domestic abuse is one of the most prevalent acts of violence perpetrated against women. It is the leading cause of female injury in almost every country in the world and continues to limit women’s access to basic human rights. Domestic violence against women includes psychological, physical, sexual, and economic abuse and is perpetrated by an intimate partner such as a husband or other family member within or outside the home. This includes beatings, rapes, verbal attacks, and the withholding of funds or the denial of food and basic needs such as healthcare.


2. Why do we need to address domestic violence against women?

The persistent violence inflicted upon women by intimate partners is an intolerable human rights abuse that affects over 50 percent of the world’s population and constitutes a serious violation of a woman’s right to security, liberty, bodily integrity, and sexual autonomy. Domestic violence is a crime that may result in death or permanent disability, emotional trauma, chronic medical issues, and economic deprivation. In some countries, up to half of all women and girls have been abused physically by an intimate partner or family member. The United Nations has estimated that over 60 million females have died at the hand of their own families. In the United States, it has been reported that women are more often victims of domestic violence than victims of burglary, muggings, or other physical crimes combined. For as long as domestic violence is tolerated, over half the world’s population will continue to remain in subjugation. Women face these issues en masse and the individual effects of domestic violence translate into a negative impact on women worldwide.


3. How is domestic violence linked to HIV infection in women?

Rape and sexual assault within marriage is not uncommon, and husbands may physically force reluctant wives to have sex against their will even where there is a possibility of HIV infection. Economically dependent women may submit to sex with infected husbands out of a fear of eviction and abandonment, or as a result of a husband’s insistence on having children. The threat of violence also often results in women deferring decisions about sexual practices to their male partners. Thus male partners often determine safer sex practices, such as the use of male and/or female condoms, which they all too often reject. The mere introduction by a woman of the subject of condom use into a heterosexual relationship may elicit violence from a male partner. The fear of violence or the experience of it may also interfere with women’s seeking HIV/AIDS information, voluntary testing, or counseling.


4. How do traditional customs contribute to women’s vulnerability to domestic violence and HIV infection?

While domestic violence generally reflects prevailing economic, political, and social conditions, certain traditional norms relating to marriage and family matters do contribute to the subjugation of women to male authority. Traditional attitudes that dictate that women are the physical property of their husbands deprive them of any authority over marital sexual relations. Customs such as the payment of “bride price” (payment made by a man to the family of a woman he wishes to marry), whereby a man literally purchases his wife’s sexual favors and reproductive capacity, underscore men’s entitlement to dictate the terms of sex, and to use force to do so. The payment of bride price might also prevent women from leaving abusive relationships because their families are either unable or unwilling to repay the dowry. Polygynous unions (marriage to a man with more than one wife) heighten the risks of HIV transmission. Traditional practices such as widow inheritance (the “inheritance” by a man of his brother’s widow) expose women to unprotected and unwanted sex with HIV-positive partners.


5. What is the social impact on women who contract HIV/AIDS from their husbands?

Despite the fact that her husband might have infected her with HIV, a woman may still suffer long-term discrimination based on her HIV positive status, and may be alienated from her family and her community as a result. In some cases women are accused of adultery, or, in instances where their husbands have died from AIDS, can be accused of witchcraft. In many countries property rights are absolutely central to economic survival. Nevertheless, state and/or customary laws may deny women the right to own or inherit property, making them vulnerable to dispossession of their homes and land. Property rights violations such as the eviction of widows from their marital homes by their in-laws exacerbate the vulnerability of HIV-positive women who are pushed back into poverty and thereby lose the means to care for themselves precisely when they are most in need of resources.


6. In what ways do governments fail to protect women from domestic violence?

In many countries domestic violence is still largely viewed as a private concern in which governments are reluctant to intervene. As a result, battered women face social stigma when attempting to prosecute their abusers, and are forced to contend with biased police and court officials. Many governments have failed to enact national legislation that provides for the effective prosecution and punishment of acts of violence against women, and, in particular, to criminalize forced sex in marriage, thereby perpetuating the belief that women have an obligation to submit to their husband’s sexual advances and have no authority to negotiate condom use. Many governments have failed to repeal discriminatory marriage and divorce laws, to enact legislation to protect women’s rights in the family, to address the harmful effects of certain traditional practices, and to remedy the dire economic conditions under which so many women live.


7. What human rights standards oblige governments to address domestic violence against women?

The fact that domestic violence is committed in the privacy of the home does not absolve states of their responsibility to remedy it. States are legally obligated to ensure that laws governing marital relations are nondiscriminatory, and to criminalize violations of bodily integrity, whether committed by an intimate partner or otherwise. States are also obliged to guarantee that victims of domestic violence have recourse to laws that protect them from domestic violence, and that perpetrators of domestic violence are punished. A state is therefore responsible for ensuring that discriminatory laws are repealed, that adequate laws regulating domestic violence are enacted, and that state officials respond appropriately to prosecute domestic violence.

Some of the rights and obligations under human rights law that may be implicated by unremedied domestic violence against women are:

  • The right to nondiscrimination and equality

  • The right to information

  • The right to equal legal capacity

  • The right to equal protection of the law

  • The right to an effective remedy

  • The right of women to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence

  • The obligation to eliminate prejudices, customs, and practices based on the idea of inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women

  • The obligation to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations

  • The right to liberty and security


8. What human rights standards relate to HIV/AIDS?

International human rights law does not address HIV/AIDS directly, but protections against abuses associated with HIV/AIDS are included in numerous treaties. The HIV/AIDS and Human Rights: International Guidelines, issued in 1998 by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNAIDS, highlight the need for legislation addressing discrimination and violence against women including harmful traditional practices. The 2001 U.N. General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS emphasized the need to integrate the rights of women and girls into the global struggle against HIV/AIDS.

Additional rights and obligations are:

  • The right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

  • The obligation of states to take to take steps necessary for the prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases,

  • The obligation of states to ensure the creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness

  • The requirement that states promote the social determinants of good health, including gender equity

  • The requirement that states undertake preventive, promotive and remedial action to shield women from the impact of harmful traditional cultural practices and norms that deny them their full reproductive rights


9. What should governments do to prevent and remedy domestic violence against women?

In order to protect women from violence in the home, prosecute those responsible, and create an environment in which women can protect themselves from HIV/AIDS, governments should:

  • Enact and enforce laws and regulations in conformity with international human rights standards and constitutional provisions prohibiting discrimination against women

  • Amend or repeal all laws that violate women’s rights in marriage including discriminatory provisions under the Divorce Act

  • Ensure equal property and inheritance rights for women

  • Focus on domestic violence as a component of the objective of reducing women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in national HIV/AIDS programs

  • Launch awareness campaigns informing the public about domestic violence and its intersection with HIV/AIDS, and the health risks of harmful traditional practices, as part of the HIV/AIDS national strategy.

  • Improve distribution and access to the female condom.

  • Establish a clear and deliberate domestic violence policy within the justice system (police, local councils, and courts), issue guidelines and provide training to police and medical officers on appropriate responses to domestic violence

  • Provide support to NGOs that working on domestic violence.

  • Prioritize the provision of shelters for abused women and their dependent children

  • Support programs that provide legal assistance and counseling services for women

  • Support skills building, training, and employment programs for women.


10. What can Donor associations and regional and international organizations do to combat domestic violence?

Donor agencies (such as the World Bank) must play a critical role in addressing domestic violence and women’s vulnerability to HIV infection as they promote women’s human rights and economic development. They should:

  • Encourage governments to include the specific needs of women at risk of HIV infection in broader HIV/AIDS programming

  • Help to develop governmental and NGO programs to address domestic violence and HIV/AIDS

  • Provide financial and technical assistance to civil society organizations offering legal services and medical assistance to women

  • Contribute to training law enforcement and judicial personnel, and support the establishment of shelters

  • Target assistance to groups providing social and economic services to women and girls

  • Support media providing rights-based and health programming

  • Fund preventative projects that aim to change the attitudes and behavior that perpetuate domestic violence and women’s vulnerability to HIV infection


(Last updated on )



Domestic Violence & HIV/AIDS
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