The Diversity Projekt [Hands and Feet Profiles] - Jamila Gaskins, HIV Prevention - The Diversity Projekt

The Diversity Projekt believes that building awareness around important social justice issues and providing a platform for individuals, initiatives and organizations who are the Hands and Feet of social justice, is imperative to achieving a just and equitable society.

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Please welcome our very first Hands and Feet Profile – Jamila Gaskins!

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.
~ Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC

HIV/AIDS is still a crisis in the United States. We have drugs which help people live longer which keeps it out of the news. This generally means out of sight out of mind. It is important for our health and well-being as a society that we don’t forget the history, stay current with who and how the disease affects us, and approach prevention in terms of both individual and community responsibility.

The first cases of what would later become known as AIDS were reported in the United States in June of 1981. Since then, 1.7 million people in the U.S. are estimated to have been infected with HIV, including more than 580,000 who have already died. Today more than 1.1 million are estimated to be living with the disease today.1 Picture the entire population of the Las Vegas, NV metropolitan area. Every 9½ minutes, someone in the U.S. is infected with HIV.2

Women and girls are 50% of people 15 years old and older living with HIV.3 In America, today, we have nearly 280,000 women living with HIV/AIDS.1 In 1995 women represented 8% of all new HIV infections in America. By 2005 that percentage had more than tripled to 27%.4 Among women diagnosed with AIDS in 2008, 77% of black/African American women, 75% of Hispanic/Latino women and 65% of white women became infected through heterosexual contact.5 Many of the HIV+ women and girls are low-income, or living in poverty, primary care givers, victims of violence, deal with substance abuse and low self-esteem and self-worth, lack the knowledge or ability to negotiate sexual activity and condom use, and lack access to health care for many reasons including language and cultural barriers. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, given these trends and issues, efforts to stem the tide of the U.S. HIV/AIDS epidemic will increasingly depend on how and to what extent its effect on women and girls is addressed.

As we experience the feminization of HIV, it becomes more and more apparent that we need to work together as a whole to address the factors that keep women vulnerable. This will in turn strengthen our communities. Each of us has the ability to be active participants in prevention. It may not be directly in HIV/AIDS services or treatment. By addressing the individual factors, we are able to affect change on a larger scale. There are a number of things you can do. You can be a tutor at an after school program and help a girl with her education which leads to a better economic future. You can become a mentor or coach a girl’s sports team which increases self-esteem and helps a girl be stronger and more confident in herself and her choices. You can choose become a sexual assault victims advocate, volunteer at a women’s shelter, volunteer or work at your local job skills training program. We all have women we love, a girlfriend, wife, mother, daughter, aunt, niece, grandmother, or a best friend. It is vital that they are confident in their voice, secure with themselves and knowledgeable enough to make informed, healthy decisions in every aspect of their lives.

Jamila K. Gaskins is an independent film producer based in Los Angeles and a former sexual assault victim’s advocate. She is currently producing, Project 1, a documentary on the prevention of HIV for women in America. You can join her on Facebook, as well as our Twitter account.