The Silent Partner: HIV in Marriage

In sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the world’s people living with HIV, women make up 60 percent of those infected. Not only are women biologically more susceptible than men to HIV, many behavioral and social factors play into women’s vulnerability. The Silent Partner: HIV in Marriage examines the risk of HIV within marriage and the particular challenges facing married women. Conventional HIV prevention strategies do not meet the needs of married women who cannot practice abstinence, cannot control the faithfulness of their husbands, and find it difficult to negotiate condom use.

This 12-minute documentary, filmed in Kenya, is intended to inform and provoke discussion of harmful gender and societal norms that put women and couples at risk for HIV. It is also intended for advocacy to mobilize political and financial support for sexual and reproductive health and rights to achieve broader social, economic and gender equity for everyone.

The Silent Partner premiered in Nairobi, Kenya on November 19, 2008.