Achievements of the Use of HIV-affected Women as Peer Leaders to Combat Gender-based Violence among HIV/AIDS-affected Women

Under the male-dominated socio-cultural setting that persists in Thailand, it can be argued that women living with HIV/AIDS (WLHA) are at greater risk of gender-based violence than non-infected women. In addition, the patriarchal Thai norms blind people in society – including the victims – to fully seeing and acknowledging the problem of gender-based violence and the extra vulnerability of WLHA. Thus, a significant portion of society accepts gender-based violence as part of the cultural context and as nothing out of the ordinary in a woman’s daily life or something that needs to be changed. The 5 years project entitled Support for HIV-affected Women from Gender-based Violence (SHAW) implemented by Raks Thai Foundation with funding from UNWOMEN is an initiative to address HIV/AIDS related violence against HIV/AIDS affected women in Thailand at the community level. A mixture of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques are used to assess the Project achievements after completion of implementation. The assessment was conducted during February 2012. This paper focuses on HIV/AIDS affected women as peer leaders to help other HIV-effected women to combat gender-based violence. In particular, it emphasizes the outcomes of SHAW project which suggest changes in ability to provide assistance and manage problems of violence