The Effects Of Hiv On Female Sex Workers - 2393 Words

Introduction Since the first cases of HIV were detected among female sex workers (FSW) in Chennai, India in 1986, dramatic progress has been made in the last three decades in the battle against HIV both in India and globally (Mayer, 2011). Despite this progress, new infections continue to occur - in 2012, there were an estimated 2.3 million persons newly infected with HIV globally (UNAIDS, 2013). Many new infections often occur within the context of a serodiscordant relationship – an infected partner in a relationship transmits HIV to the uninfected partner. Over the past thirty years, several interventions have been identified to prevent HIV transmission from HIV-infected persons to uninfected persons in serodiscordant relationships. Yet, transmissions continue to occur. Interventions such as voluntary counseling and testing, condom promotion, and risk reduction counseling are very effective in preventing transmission among serodiscordant couples but are underutilized in India despite the ir widespread availability (Kumar et al., 2011). Interventions such as pre-risk exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and universal antiretroviral therapy (irrespective of CD4 count) have been newly identified but face several challenges that impede their widespread implementation in India (Kumar et al., 2011). Serodiscordant couples in India also face certain unique socio-cultural issues such as marital and fertility pressure (Gupta et al., 2010). New guidelines published by the World HealthShow MoreRelatedHuman Immunodeficiency Virus ( Hiv )945 Words   |  4 PagesHuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been a major public health issue in the African-American community of the United States since the 1980s (Shisana et al., 2014). The documentary â€Å"ENDGAME: AIDS in Black America† shows the widespread nature of HIV in the black community. According to Renata Simone, producer of the documentary, â€Å"African Americans make up about 12 percent of the nation’s population, but account for almost half of all people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.† The documentaryRead MoreMale Circumcision should be Promoted in Developing Countries as a Means of HIV Prevention873 Words   |  4 PagesHuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is the major health problem globally since 1981. Since that time, almost 70 million people have been infected and nearly 35 million have died due to HIV infection (Global Health Observatory, WHO). With the development of prevention methods and maintaining medical interventions, the incidence of HIV was reduced one-third between 2001 and 2012(UNAIDS., 2013). But there are still 35.3 (32.2–38.8)Read MoreM. Genitalium Case Study1324 Words   |  6 Pageswith cervicitis. In fact, only 19% to 41% of men with recurrent urethritis have M. genitalium (Jensen, et. al., 2014). Clinical studies show that their is a concordance rate between partners ranging from 45% to 58% for female to male index patients and 38% to 56% of male to female index patients (Anderson, et. al., 2006). These statistics support the idea that the chance of two partners being infected is relatively high. This poses a problem for those who are sexually active, due to the fact thatRead MoreThe Epidemic Of Thailand Kingdom1477 Words   |  6 Pages Thailand kingdom is one of the success stories related to HIV incidence reduction. Located in the middle mainland peninsula of South East Asia region and surrounded by other 5 South East Asia countries (Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Malaysia), Thailand population has growth rapidly from 20.6 million in 1950 to around 66 million in 2015 (1,2). During 1980-1991 Thailand kingdom is one the countries that have a high rate of HIV/AIDS in South East Asia. It grouped with Cambodia, Burma and someRead MoreIs Community Health Standards For Harm Reduction Practice?1509 Words   |  7 Pagesdetoxification clinics has been increased (Lightfoot, 2009). COUNTERfit is an all-women’s program located in Toronto, Ontario and is funded by the AIDS bureau of Toronto. Its aim is to reach out to injection drug users and individuals who are in the sex trade. This program offers safe needle exchanges, which allow the clients to safely dispose their used needles and receive access to sterile supplies. COUNTERfit also provides the women with basic needs such as tampons, underwear, deodorant, toothpasteRead MoreCultural And Social Norms Patriarchal Society1544 Words   |  7 Pageso Disparities in health status among men and women can be attributed to the overarching patriarchal society in Africa. Men make the bulk of the decisions, whereas women simply take care of the house and children. This leaves taking the imitative in sex, partner selection regardless of marriage status, using condoms, and acknowledging sexual consent of both partners purely at the discretion of the man. Women are expected to respect their husbands and moreover, accept the polygamous relationships thatRead MoreSymptoms And Symptoms Of A Depressive Disorder Essay1192 Words   |  5 Pagesthey are constructs that have separate effects on health. Gender differences in health begin to become more pronounced around adolescence, when individuals become more aware of gender roles and adopt more of their attributes. Gender role orientation has been studied as a separate phenomenon from gender, and may be defined as an individual’s tendency toward masculine or feminine behavior. Gender role orientation has both universal and culture-specific effects on health-related quality of life amongRead MoreEssay on Human Trafficking1101 Words   |  5 Pageshave defined sex trafficking as a commercial sexual act or acts that are induced by fraud, coercion, or in which the person to perform these sexual acts are under the age of eighteen Blackburn, Taylor and Davis (2010). The sex industry in Cambodia and Thailand consists of men, women, and childre n. In order for there to be enforced labor and sex trafficking there has to be forms of illegal immigration to these economies, though not all human traffickers are kidnapped or forced into sex work, many chooseRead MoreEffect of Gender on Self-Esteem in China1432 Words   |  6 PagesRunning Head: VALID OR NOT Effects of Gender on Self-Esteem in China Name of Student School Abstract Six studies present varying results on the effect of gender on self-esteem. Watkins Yu (1993) found gender to have little effect on self-esteem but much on self-concept and self-satisfaction, especially among Chinese women. Zhang Leung (2002) suggested the moderating factors of gender and age in the connection between individual and collective self-esteem and life satisfaction. Their researchRead MoreThe Positives Of Decriminalizing Prostitution1283 Words   |  6 PagesProstitution has been considered a criminal act for centuries throughout the world and it is also considered by some to be the world’s oldest profession, dating back to biblical time. The dictionary defines the term, â€Å"The act of having sex in exchange for money: the use of a skill or ability in a way that is not appropriate or respectable† (Merriam-Webster). This act became illegal in America in the early 20th century. Decriminalizing prostitution has its positives and negatives. If prostitution

Lady of Bath vs. Desdemona - 1394 Words

ENGL 220 - Scott Mackenzie December 8th, 2010 Breaking the Socially Acceptable Behavior of Women in Chaucer and Shakespeare To say that men in the centuries leading up to the twentieth believed a woman must be â€Å"seen but not heard,† is a fair statement. Women during the times of Chaucer and Shakespeare were second class citizens with little rights. They were considered properties of their masters (fathers and husbands), and had no use other than birthing and mothering. A woman was supposed to be meek, chaste, and have no opinion. However, the characters Desdemona in William Shakespeare’s Othello and Dame Alison from The Wife of Bath’s Prologue in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales seemingly go against common conventions of†¦show more content†¦However, Alison’s husbands are at her beckon and call, she asks repeatedly for things, and she only has sex when she wants something. By using sex to her economic advantage, Alison is further breaking the socially acceptable behavior of women. Dame Alison challenges the bible in reference to virginity. Challenging the bible was generally taboo, especially when it came from a woman. Alison poses strong arguments and questions about virginity. Firstly, she says that Saint Paul’s talk of virginity and remaining celibate throughout life â€Å"al nis but conseil.†(82) Secondly, in lines 105-114, she is saying that virginity is a kind of perfection, and though Jesus was perfect, virginity is only meant for those who strive for absolute perfection, like Jesus was. Alison, on the other hand, says that â€Å"[she] wol bistoew the flour of al myn age,/ in the actes and in fruit of mariage.†(113-114) Thirdly, Alison questions the design of the physical body. â€Å"Telle me also, to what conclusion/ were membres maad of generacioun/ and for what profit was a wight y-wrought?† (115-117) In this quote, Alison is asking why genitals were made perfect for each other if they weren’t mean to be used. Questioning why the bible and society have such strong opinions on virginity, a subject that is not generally discussed by women, is yet another reason why Dame Alison, the Wife of Bath from The Canterbury Tales challenges the socially acceptable behavior of women. Desdemona, the

Religions Spread Through Conquest Essay Example For Students

Religions Spread Through Conquest Essay When studying history, both in a professional and academic sense, we try to make connections between civilizations and time periods. Historians have attempted to discover universal constants of human nature, a bond that forms from continent to continent, human being to human being. Is there a constant quality that all peoples posses, and is reflected in all civilizations? Indeed, it is extremely difficult to make generalizations about centuries of modern history. To say that something is true of all of history is virtually impossible, as a counter-example exists for just about anything that can be said of any group of civilizations. To say that all religions are spread by violence is equally unfair and untrue because contrasted religions has been spread in exceedingly diverse regions of the world, by vastly different cultures. Islam, as a prime example, has been characterized inequitably by historians and the media as a religion of violence. To put it bluntly, as this article does, Islam was mainly spread through Arab territorial conquests (Sudo, 4). However, upon examination, it is not fair to make the generalization that Islam is a religion of violence, and one notices when looking at world religion on a whole, one finds that Islam was no more violent than any other religion. In fact, not only is Islam not a fundamentally violent philosophy, but we can also see that many other religions normally considered non-violent, such as Christianity or Hinduism, have been spread through bloody conquest. Thus, in searching for a universal constant of history, we ought not fall into the fallacy of abstractions, as Sydney J. Harris keenly puts it, and assume that because of isolated incidents and conflicts of territorial ambitions, that all religions have violent tendencies. Islam has, throughout the centuries, been somewhat a victim of circumstance indeed it has been perceived by many as oppressive and cruel. This belief originated over a thousand years ago, when Islamic peoples first threatened the western world. As they slowly undermined Byzantine authority, Christians became terrified of their presence, resulting in widespread animosity and aversion. Hindus and Buddhists of the South Asian subcontinent lived under Islamic law for hundreds of years (Ahmad, et. al., 186), and eventually, in the twentieth century, split the region into angry factions (Ahmad, et. al., 207). Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, was a great warrior. This invariably lead defeated peoples to believe that he begot a cult of war and violence. Over the centuries, it also has developed the ability to instill a sense of holy purpose onto its believers and soldiers, where they go into a battle of certain death for their faith in the jihad, or holy war. Even today, the jihad is still a potent source of conflict and aversion, as the many of the problems in the Middle East center around the issue of Islamic Fundamentalism and the jihads. Originally, Islam was perceived by western historians as a religion of violence and conquest; by preying on the caravans of the Quraish, Mohammed weakened them to the point of submission (Mohammed and Islam, 1). In fact, Mohammed was a warrior, aristocrat, and brilliant strategist a stark contrast to many other holy men of history. He was forced to both defend his cities and force submission, as the passage had shown, because of the strong military powers of his religious predecessors and oppressors, the pagans of the Middle East. Islam means submission according to the Islam discussion in class and one might assume that the submission was attained through military and forceful means. In fact, while Mohammed preached peace from 610 to 622 AD, he attracted few converts and was persecuted by the current ruling paganistic regime. After the visions of 622 AD, he realized that his cause was even more urgent than before, and only at that point did he begin to utilize his military skills (Class Discussion). However, despite the more violent nature that his quest took, even after the revelations by Gabriel in 622 AD, by reciting his revelations aloud, Mohammed made many converts, (Mohammed and Islam,1). Mohammed was not a purely violent man, but also a great speaker and demagogue (Mueller, 2). He did not solely attack the pagans of the Middle East, he also attracted a great deal of converts by the truths he spoke. If he could be ruthless, he was more often gentle, kind, generous, magnanimous. He could be Christ-like in his sympathy for the poor (Mueller,2 ). Another non-violent way of spreading Islamic culture was through the merchant system which developed around its new centers of trade and culture in both Mecca and Medina (Ahmad, et. al., 572). People from all around the region would come to those cities to trade, and were attracted by the religion. As Islam developed and spread rapidly, its control quickly began to encroach on Byzantine territory where it found diverse groups of people, who resented the foreign control of the flailing western power. Culture Shock Essay However, the Muslims in the holy land provided important technology for the Christians. In all truths, Christianity was spread to Latin America in a most brutal fashion. The Spaniards murdered millions of Indians, and wiped out civilizations of peoples not for the purpose of not only religion, but gold! The primary reason that Christianity remains the ubiquitous religion in Latin America is because the Spaniards forced conversion of their Indian slaves something that Islamic conquerors rarely did. In fact they charged a tax on their non-Muslim subjects, which eventually lead to conversion by choice rather than by force. Christians in the Americas came to dominate the continent by using their superior technology to forcefully overwhelm, enslave, or force conversion on inhabitants, in contrast to the Islamic people, who attracted converts from an economic standpoint, but also came to absorb many conquered peoples, as evident in the cultural blending of South Asia, which eventually fell apart for secular reasons (Ahmad, et. al., 186). Spaniards burned books, temples, and sculptures, and quelled all rebellion by the once mighty Americans (Ahmad, et. al., 46). The Spanish enslaved the Indians of Central and South America, while the British, Dutch, and French enslaved the Africans.Another religion with ties to violence is Hinduism. While that may perhaps be a startling revelation, history proves that it has had many violent incidents and tendencies. It was originally a product of the early Aryans, a war-like people who stormed into South Asia, sacking cities and eventually covering virtually all traces of the early culture of the Indus Valley. These Aryans transmuted their beliefs onto the now helpless people of the Indus river, and created what would eventually be Hinduism. While Hinduism remained relatively non-violent throughout the centuries, when the first Muslim invaders appeared and they clashed in both a philosophical and violent sense. Hindu violence returned in the mid-twentieth century, when they finally regained control of India. They smashed a Muslim temple at Ayodhya (Ahmad, et. al., 207), and Sikh and Tamil rebel groups rebel against their authority. However, what is even more notable about Hinduism, is its rigid caste system, in which peoples have set social classes, that are totally unchangeable, and are products of the religion. The untouchables were considered as low as animals, and forced to do menial work such as sweeping and leather working. They were forced into a life of separatism, and the rest of Hindu culture either ignored them completely or hated them. And on the other side of the world, in Central America, the Aztec people were powerful warriors, who swept across the Mexican plains, conquering villages and whole peoples (Ahmad, et. al., 450). Their religion consisted of brutal human sacrifices of enemy slaves in fact the sacrifices grew so many in number that they were watching their population decline significantly, which eventually allowed the Spanish invaders to overcome them. When we look at the aggregate spectrum of cultures and religions, we see a significant relationship between religions and violence, one could conclude that much of the worlds problems today are echoes of past religious exploits in places such as Latin America, India, and Africa. To say that religion on a whole is violent and counter productive would be a massive abstraction and a false one too. In fact, the purpose of this essay is not to denigrate the notion of organized religion, but to clarify the purpose of the Islamic religion, and to dispel the commonly held notion that Islam is solely a cult of violence. Through the ages, religion brought light to literally billions of people. It has inspired artists, scientists, writers and scholars. It was the founding basis of Western Civilization, and our entire society. We cannot deny its overriding role in our history. The purpose of this essay is also not to contrast Islam as good and Christianity as bad. Truly, Islam, when closely examined, is a rather tolerant and non-violent religion it has no history of imperialism, nor has it ever forced the conversion of mass people. Whatever violence it has created, it is at least not any worse than any other religion. In summary, it is not fair to say that religions are fundamentally violent, nor does it do justice the study of history, which indeed proves to us that often religion had a far nobler purpose. Would our world perhaps have been a better place? That question can never be answered We do know, however, that religion was both violent and beneficial to classify it as one or the other would not do it justice. However, we will continue our search for the universal constant, and perhaps the study of religion will someday bring us closer to the truth.Words/ Pages : 2,513 / 24

Workforce Essays - Manufacturing, Cybernetics, Emerging Technologies

Workforce It is no secret that todays workforce no longer consists entirely of people. Rather, machines are being developed to complete many of the tasks which humans have traditionally done. This can greatly increase productivity and efficiency of simple, repetitive tasks. Many people view this as a great positive and point out that it leads to a more uniform and less expensive product which is better for everyone. However, some people are more wary of this popular trend of automating the workforce and question whether this progress is truely positive. Their concerns, though, are outweighed by the benefits these machines offer. It is the popular view among companies which are moving toward automation that robots can do many tasks better than humans. For example, in the automotive industry, most of a cars individual components are manufactured by pre-programmed robots which have much greater and more precise output than would be possible for a human. In addition, robots cut down the cost of production by a considerable amount. If a company hires an employee to complete a simple task for $50,000 per year but could instead buy a machine for a one time purchase of $30,000, it is far more cost effective to buy the machine. Lower cost of production means that the goods produced can now be sold at a lower pricepoint which passes the savings on to the consumer. Companies producing goods rightly contend that the use of machines to complete low-skill jobs has only positive impact for everyone. Beyond these benefits for industry, some believe that machines will shape the future for the human race. Innovation and invention of new more intelligent machines can push us as humans toward new, unimagined possibilities. For example, before the first airplane was invented, people could only dream of human flight, but at the moment of takeoff, a whole new world of unimaginable possibilities was suddenly within our grasp. Through even just that one invention, an entire multi-billion dollar a year industry was born, and our lives improved and advanced in a multitude of ways. Who can know what great advancements may be brought about by a more intelligent machine than what we possess today? The possibilities are endless. There are those who are less enthusiastic about all this progress and advancement. They argue that by not having to interact with fellow humans, we no longer are required to be courteous and have tolerance for others. While this may be true, this is a minor cost for a major increase in efficiency. Take the example of self checkout systems in grocery stores. Self checkout permits consumers to procure their goods and get out of the store quickly. This might seem like a small time-saver, but considering how often this experience is repeated reveals a cumulative effect. Across time, consumers end up saving hours, which improves the efficiency of their daily lives, allowing them to spend time on things that are of greater interest and meaning to them. Whether humans like it or not, machines are becoming more and popular in the workplace and are decreasing the need for humans to work those jobs. This can lead to advancement of society, a greater end product or service, and even a lower consumer cost of goods. Many people are frightened of change, but unfortunately for them, the past is gone and now we must look to the future.