Recommendations from Alliance Ukraine gender study help improve the effectiveness of HIV prevention services

27 March 2006

Organisations in Ukraine have been responding to needs identified in a gender research study undertaken by Alliance Ukraine in 2005, which concluded that organisations need to pay attention to both gender and the specific needs of different groups in the delivery of HIV prevention services.

The research, which focused on men and women with HIV and male and female injecting drug users, found that the lack of appropriate, targeted prevention programmes is one of the factors contributing to the increase in HIV infections in Ukraine’s women.

The research found female injecting drug users in Ukraine to be more vulnerable to HIV than men. Women often find it difficult to access HIV prevention services at centres for injecting drug users, because visiting such a centre and potentially being identified as an injecting drug user carries greater stigma for females than for males in Ukraine.

Interviews with women also identified a number of other needs, which included:

  • services designed specifically for women;
  • female self-help support groups;
  • more accessible and detailed information at the time of HIV testing and during medical consultations about pregnancy, childbirth and infant feeding;
  • anti-retroviral therapy for their children;
  • quality nutrition for their babies;
  • educational and cultural opportunities for their children; and
  • financial support for children from low-income families.

Men meanwhile identified that they needed support finding employment, and that they were more comfortable discussing sexual and health issues with male consultants.

Following the recommendations of the research, Olexandra Mykhailova, director of the Simferopol HIV/ AIDS Resources Center, run by the Hope and Salvation Charitable Foundation – one of Alliance Ukraine’s implementing partners – confirmed that they had set up a self-help group for HIV positive women. “I believe that the gender-sensitive approaches will really help to improve the effectiveness of HIV services” she confirmed. They have also set up a group for women whose children are receiving anti-retroviral treatment.

The research was carried out under the Alliance Ukraine and USAID SUNRISE project (Scaling up the National Response to HIV/AIDS through Information and Services), and presented at a seminar in November 2005.

This work was also featured in USAID’s March edition of INSIGHT.