Gendered violence and HIV in Burundi

Pre-existing gender relations changed for the worse during the conflict and interventions to promote disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) failed to address the dynamics which shape the spread of HIV

Conflict and gender: the implications of the Burundian conflict on HIV/AIDS risks

Sexual and gender-based violence in many conflict and post-conflict contexts are creating vulnerabilities to HIV. The paper is based on research conducted in Burundi in 2007-2008.The country experienced long-term civil war from the early 1990s until recently and has been the locus of post-conflict disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes, providing a coherent and focused study. The research finds that the relationship between conflict and HIV/AIDS is a function of preexisting gender relations that also regulate sexual life and determine critical female vulnerabilities. When put under stress by armed conflict, these vulnerabilities become amplified, creating conditions for the increased spread of HIV. Analysis of how gender relations and vulnerabilities change according to the specific social and economic circumstances generated by military mobilisation, organisation anddeployment, in relation to civilian displacement and insecurity, in a range of distinct circumstances, provides a framework for understanding HIV vulnerabilities during and after the conflict

Securitization of HIV/AIDS in context: gendered vulnerability in Burundi

In this article, it is argued that concerns about the impact of HIV/AIDS on national and international security do not adequately address the ways in which people, particularly women, are made vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in conflicts. In fact, policies inspired by the security framing of HIV/AIDS can engender new vulnerabilities in post-conflict contexts. The article analyses the ways in which gender relations create vulnerabilities for various groups when such relations are put under pressure during periods of conflict. Drawing on research conducted in Burundi, the article argues that postulated links between security and HIV/AIDS fail to take into account the vulnerability structures that exist in societies, the ways in which these are instrumentalized during conflict and in post-conflict contexts, and how they are also maintained and changed as a result of people's experiences during conflict