THE JOINT United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has announced its financial support for 'The HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme for Deaf Women in Jamaica,' which will be implemented by the Jamaica Council for Persons with Disabilities (JCPD) for a period of one year.
In a press statement last week, UNAIDS noted that deaf women and girls of Jamaica form a unique group within the Community of Persons with Disabilities. Deaf persons, UNAIDS says, look "normal" but their form of disability locks them off from information flow and the modes of communication of the wider society.
In order to address the unique needs of this "minority within a minority" group, the JCPD carried out a needs assessment which revealed that deaf women and girls are exposed to high levels of rape, battery, incest, sexual and carnal abuse. The lack of capacity to adequately communicate the abuse that they have experienced exposes deaf women and girls to these high levels of violence. Such violence makes them vulnerable to contracting the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV).
POSITIVE RESPONSE
It is within this context that UNAIDS responded positively to a funding request by the JCPD to carry out a programme to educate deaf women and girls and their service providers about HIV and the acquired immune deficiency syndrome pandemic particularly, and on matters of gender relations, prevention, treatment, care and support and impact mitigation.
This knowledge, said the JCPD, should go a long way in assisting deaf women and girls to protect themselves against potential abusers, as well as to change their behaviours. It is expected further that the programme will empower this population with survival and self-defense strategies, and alternative and affordable economic skills such as floral arranging and gluten making, which should lead to their independence, and, in the long term, serve to protect them from sexual abuse and its associated violence.
The project will include skills-building programmes, seminars and training programmes, which will be conducted islandwide in Kingston, May Pen, Mandeville, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios.
