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March 10th – National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

How do you fight a 100% preventible disease?  With the truth!

DryerBuzz Book Buzz — National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is March 10, 2009. The purpose of this annual day is to raise awareness of the increasing impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls and encourage women and girls to take action.

Two years ago, Sandra’s seemingly perfect world with her husband and two children was shattered. During a routine physical, her doctor noticed Sandra had swollen lymph glands in her neck. Sandra didn’t worry when the doctor ordered an HIV test; after all she was married to a wonderful, God-fearing man and she had tested HIV-negative prior to their marriage. Five days later, the test came back positive and Sandra was devastated. That evening she tearfully told her husband of her positive test results. Later that night he went to the store…never to return. She later discovered love letters her husband had written to his former prison mate. Today, Sandra and her two children reside in her parents’ basement while Sandra struggles with depression, illness, and financial debt.

“Unfortunately Sandra’s story is one of many e-mails received on a daily basis,” says Joy Marie, the author of the explosive book, The Straight-Up Truth About The Down-Low: Women Share their Stories of Betrayal, Pain and Survival (Creative Wisdom Books-March 2008). Joy Marie is the pen name of two women who have survived marriages to down-low men.

Once the down-low was exposed, its link to the spread of HIV/AIDS in African-American women was obvious, despite the lack of scientific data. African-American women are no more promiscuous than their white counterparts, however there is a higher HIV infection rate amongst black women. One reason, as Sandra’s story suggests, is the high incarceration rate of black men.

“Prisons have become a revolving HIV/AIDS factory in the black community,” says Marie. “Cycles of imprisonment and release among black males help contribute to the high HIV/AIDS rates in African American women. Black men in the prison system engage in high-risk sexual behaviors and many of them continue to sleep with men upon their release. Many of these men lie to their wives and girlfriends about their homosexual activities and their HIV status as well. One prison guard shared how during his twelve years on duty, he witnessed countless married inmates engaging in sexual acts with other men.”

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