As the devasting COVID-19 crisis unfolds worldwide, in Tajikistan peer counsellors are turning to technology to reach out to women living with HIV, who face particular risks and vulnerabilities.

In Ukraine, 35 per cent of women living with HIV have experienced violence since the age of 15. Many women cannot definitively say that they have experienced violence, because they have suffered and witnessed gender-based violence through generations and it has been normalized. For women living with HIV, lack of awareness, shelters and support services pose additional challenges. Peer-support groups and the National Women’s Forum on HIV, supported by UN Women is bringing awareness, action and new beginnings for HIV positive women survivors of violence.

On World AIDS Day, we highlight the story of Natalia Minayeva from Kazakhstan, who was imprisoned in the so-called “AIDS barracks” and now works to protect the rights of HIV-positive women.

A former drug user once jailed for being HIV-positive, Natalia Minayeva now helps other women on behalf of the Eurasian Network of Women Living with HIV.