Monday, October 23, marks Day of Action to End Violence Against Women Living With HIV 2017, organized annually by the Positive Women’s Network–USA.

This year, according to a PWN-USA press release, the group is highlighting the intersections between economic security, health and violence against women living with HIV (WLHIV). The day of action is needed in the first place, PWN-USA points out, because:

  • Women living with HIV are twice as likely to experience intimate-partner violence and five times as likely to experience lifetime sexual assault as will the general population of women.

  • Data also show that women of trans experience, who are the population most affected by HIV in the United States, are at elevated risk for violent hate crimes, which all too often are deadly.  

  • Disclosure of HIV status can increase vulnerability to violence, including tragic situations where women with HIV have been murdered following disclosure of their HIV status.

To end violence against women living with HIV, PWN-USA proposes a nine-part “economic security agenda for people living with HIV (PLHIV).” They include:

  • Ensuring access to affordable, high-quality health care, including abortion and contraception, regardless of gender, gender identity, age, ability to pay, preexisting conditions or immigration status

  • Resisting any efforts to dismantle and disrupt health care for low-income communities, and opposing proposals or policies that require people to be sick or unreasonably poor in order to access health care

  • Fighting to expand Medicaid and to support universal health care proposals at the state and federal level

  • Opposing any attempts to cut or restrict Social Security and Supplemental Security Income

  • Supporting robust and uninterrupted funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and for the Children’s Health Insurance Program

  • Lifting all bans on accessing food stamps, housing and cash assistance for people convicted of a felony

  • Supporting the integration of employment and vocational rehabilitation programs and services for PLHIV into HIV care and service delivery settings

  • Supporting and advancing legislation that reduces barriers to employment for people of trans experience

  • Advancing programmatic and service delivery solutions that support WLHIV in finding safety and healing from trauma and violence

You can endorse the 2017 day of action by clicking here.