Aniekwu, Nkolika, PhD student

By Katherine Harrison on 11 May | 0 comments

GEXcel project: Sexual Violence and HIV/AIDS in Sub Saharan Africa: An Intimate Link

Sexual violence in Africa is an epidemic that often overlaps with the AIDS pandemic and has become a cause and consequence of the spread of HIV/AIDS especially amongst women and girls. Presently, half or more of the 40 million people infected with HIV in the world are girls and women. Millions of those infected are aged 15-24 years and have suffered some form of intimate partner violence. This group accounts for half of all new infections. In sub-Saharan Africa, young women account for 65% of HIV infections and are approximately two and a half times more likely to be infected than young men of the same age. What makes women, especially girls and younger women so disproportionately vulnerable to HIV infections, and why have current AIDS control efforts in sub Saharan Africa largely failed to stem the epidemic in this gender? Is sexual violence triggered by women’s demands for condom use, or does a history of violence prevent women from demanding condom use? Does a history of partner violence prevent women from testing and disclosing, or is violence triggered by a positive status and disclosure?

This paper presents some evidence on how violence against women and girls in its different forms increase risks of HIV infection and undermines AIDS control efforts. The author explores the links between intimate partner violence (IPV) and HIV/AIDS, and the need to integrate prevention strategies with AIDS treatment, health care and reduction of women and girls’ vulnerabilities in the political, legal, cultural, social and economic contexts of many African countries.

Biographical notes:

Mrs Nkolika Ijeoma Aniekwu is a senior lecturer at the department of public law, faculty of law, University of Benin in Nigeria.  She is a former Assistant Dean of the faculty of law and was Guest Ph. D researcher at the Graduate School of International Development Studies, Roskilde University, Denmark from February to May 2007. She is a former Visiting Research Fellow, Law, Gender and Sexuality, Department of Law, Keele University, Staffordshire, England, and Visiting Research Scholar, AHRB Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality, School of law, University of Kent, Canterbury, also in the U.K.

Nkolika Aniekwu is an alumnus of several international institutions on human rights, gender and sexuality, including the University of Nottingham Center for Human rights, Nottingham, England; the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights, Lund University, Lund, Sweden; the Abo Akademi Institute of human rights, Turku, Finland; and the World Bank Institute Core Course on Millenium Development Goals, Poverty Reduction and Reproductive Health. Turin, Italy. She is also a trainer for the World Bank Institute National Programme on Millenium Development Goals, Reproductive Health and Poverty Reduction in Abuja, Nigeria.

Mrs Aniekwu is a fellow of the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, and is an associate of a number of Non – Governmental Organizations in Nigeria including the Women’s Health and Action Research Centre (WHARC), Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC), Legal Research and Resource Documentation Centre (LRRDC) and the Women’s Aid Collective (WACOL), all in Nigeria. In November 2008, she was invited to the International Institute for the Sociology of Law at Onati, Spain as a visiting fellow.

Nkoli Aniekwu holds a Master of Laws from the University of Lagos, a Post Graduate Diploma in International Human Rights law from the Abo Akademi Institute of Human Rights in Turku, Finland, and is currently writing up her doctoral dissertation at the faculty of law, University of Lagos, Nigeria.