Women, HIV, and AIDS: a reflection on the female daily life with the infection in Maputo City

Abstract

This paper analyses the daily experiences of 20 poor and HIV-infected women living in Maputo City. It seeks to understand how they structure their daily lives in the context of the social relationships they establish. It puts gender and health issues in communication, to identify how the fact of being infected influences the context of their family and community relationships. With a qualitative approach, we used group and individual interviews and a literature review as data sources. They experience a daily life marked by obstacles, challenges and confrontations as part of the feminized face of HIV. They deal with different manifestations of vulnerability before and after infection, where unequal gender relations contribute to the feminization of seroprevalence. Daily life shows that it is still a clandestine disease, with stigma, discrimination, segregation and prejudice. We reinforce the idea that HIV should not be seen as an inevitable fatality, but that there are social issues and determinants integrated in the health-disease-care process.