Study describes the impact of Indigenous women in Saskatchewan living with HIV – StCatharinesStandard.ca
HIV has carried an enormous stigma since it was discovered. Although the stigma is lower than it was in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when any person with HIV or AIDS was generally an outcast and people were afraid to even touch someone who was positive for the diseases, there’s still a great deal of negativity surrounding those three letters and those who are tested positive tend to feel shame.
Morning Star Lodge has done a study on Indigenous women living with HIV, called Digging Deep. Women with HIV were interviewed and a few of those interviews are on YouTube.
The stories have a similar background with childhood abuse, neglect, and early introduction into drugs.
People who are struggling with an who have struggled with addiction are generally looked down upon by society, as the general thought is that a person chooses to do drugs and they could have easily chosen not to do any illicit substances, but that’s not always the case.
