FACTORS INFLUENCING WOMEN’S VULNERABILIT TO HIV/AIDS IN RWANDA: A CASE OF GASABO DISRICT, RWANDA

HIV/AIDS pandemic has attracted much attention worldwide and particularly in the developing world. While so much effort has been focused mainly on the main modes of transmission in Rwanda, very little has been done on the struc-tural socio-economic factors contributing to the vulnerabilities, its incidences, spread and consequences especially for women. In this research I demonstrate women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS infection is basically rooted in persisting socio-cultural and elements that are various and multi-dimensional, and that women experience them within those parameters. I show the challenges that HIV/infected women undergo as victims of patriarchy and as a result of pow-erlessness and denial of agency, and the struggles they undergo in this status. This research show, besides,that coping mechanisms to these vulnerabilities are extremely challenging given the structural constraints that beset them, and the fact that they have to continuously keep innovating to survive these rigours. Finally, I conclude through the research findings that for women, gender, age, poverty, multiple partners, powerlessness, income, education, among others intersect in significant ways with their agency and levels of empowerment. Ad-ditionally, that HIV/AIDS pandemic will not be effectively controlled if women’s empowerment remains at the background of development initiatives that must address the existing structural constraints in gender.