Emergenza AIDS: pregiudizi e stereotipi verso le donne africane sub-sahariane

The paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of AIDS, in relation to the alarming spread of infections among African women and of prejudices against them due to their HIV positivity. The topic of AIDS, despite the important progresses made by preventive medicine and therapy, continues to rise social preoccupation, because HIV positive status is a stigmatizing condition, related to race, gender and sexual orientation. In addition to international literature and global reports, the essay focuses on the cultural negative representation of the woman infected by HIV virus among African people. Then it shows some evidence from 9 interviews administrated to doctors, volunteers and other people in Brescia and Lombardy, who work with African immigrant women with HIV. The last part of the paper confirms that the stigma of HIV-positive person is higher for the target of the study, because of cultural, political and religious factors, stemming from the women considered inferior to men. Thus many women are afraid to reveal their HIV-positive status (especially in a foreign country), so they self-isolate and sometimes do not continue the treatment.