Building a woman-focused response to HIV/AIDS: Policy recommendation from the metro DC collaborative for women with HIV/AIDS.

HARDLY REACHED AND UNDERSERVED WOMEN WITH HIV/AIDS.

INCARCERATED WOMEN AND WOMEN EX-OFFENDERS WITH HIV/AIDS

"Everyone in here should imagine what it's like being incarcerated for two or three years, and ending up, for whatever reason, having to be told that you're HIV positive, without any type of counseling or education. . . and not having anyone really to talk about what's going on with you mentally, psychologically, physically. You're nine times out of 10 not in any close contact with family. Your friendships are very limited. Your resources are damn near negligible. .. And then you're put out into the community without having any idea where to go for help. And the few times that you ask for help, you're always threatened with the thought of maybe being sent back, so you do what you know to do. And, for the average person, that's either to continue to get high or continue to hustle - and it's just back to Corrections" (Center for Women Policy Studies, 199 6a, page 3).

DEFINING THE ISSUES

Women inmates and recently released women living with HIV and AIDS are a neglected and forgotten group of people, severely shortchanged at a critical time in their lives. While they urgently need supportive and nonjudgmental HIV/AIDS counseling, education and specialized medical care, they rarely receive it. Indeed, these "hardly reached" women lack information about HIV/AIDS, face serious breaches of confidentiality, and lack knowledgeable health care providers.

AIDS education rarely occurs in the prison system. Inmates receive little or no counseling either before they are tested for HIV or after they are told their HIV status. Even when AIDS education and pre- and post-test counseling are available to inmates, women ex-offenders report that many prison staff, parole officers and halfway house counselors lack the training and skills necessary to provide accurate and complete information about HIV/AIDS. It is not surprising, then, that the primary source of information about HIV/AIDS for many women inmates is other incarcerated women, who may not have either current or accurate information.

Women also report that insensitivity and breaches of confidentiality about inmates' HIV status by correctional staff and halfway house counselors are commonplace -- contributing to a climate of intolerance and insensitivity. Correctional officials have little regard for inmates' privacy or right to confidentiality. Unfortunately, women are forced to suffer severe consequences of breaches of confidentiality about their HIV status: