I met women and girls in Kenya affected by HIV – this is how to empower them

Ultimately, our nation’s commitment to gender equality is about ensuring women like the ones I met are able to control their health, education and future, writes Layla Moran MP

The deeply patriarchal society in Kenya means that young women and girls face other significant barriers to their right to health (Layla Moran)

Abigail’s mum contracted HIV from her second husband. She already had three children with her first husband, all of which were HIV-free. It wasn’t until she came to Ngong Sub-County Hospital, about an hour outside of Nairobi, that she understood the risks to her baby.

It was a “mentor mother” – a community health worker also living with HIV – who supported her through her pregnancy and informed her about mother-to-child transmission of HIV. They also helped her understand how damaging the stigma of HIV, even within families, can still be.

She wouldn’t want her new baby to be the only child in her family living with HIV, and as a result she began taking her antiretrovirals to suppress the virus in her body to the point it became undetectable and could no longer be transmitted. As such, little Abigail was born HIV-free.

At the hospital, the fight against infectious diseases is being bolstered by the use of product and market-shaping innovations (Layla Moran)

Abigail is now two years old, and she is happy and healthy. I recently met these women in Kenya and was inspired by how they exemplified women’s empowerment – but their story is not universal.

In Kenya there are 1.4 million people living with HIV, and of those 1.3 million are on treatment. This means there are 100,000 people not receiving treatment; a number similar to the total of those living with HIV in the UK. Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by HIV; in 2021 someone in this group contracted HIV every two minutes. At the same time, young women were three times more likely to acquire HIV than young men.

Progress on closing this gap has stalled. The Covid-19 pandemic had an impact of course; people were less able to access testing and prevention services, and health systems came under intense strain. But at the time when we should be investing to get the global response back on track to end preventable deaths from Aids, the UK government slashed its international development budget. The result: key lifesaving programmes scrambled to make tough choices as funding disappeared.

Yet there are some further encouraging signs; at the hospital, the fight against infectious diseases is being bolstered by the use of product and market-shaping innovations. Access to HIV medication has been greatly increased through a pricing agreement negotiated with support from Unitaid, bringing the cost of a daily single-pill treatment down to $50 (£42) a year. A similar deal was negotiated for paediatric medicine, lowering the cost of children’s treatment by 75 per cent from $480 to $120 a year.

However, UK funding for bodies like Unitaid and the Global Fund (the latter of which has saved 50 million lives from Aids, tuberculosis and malaria) has been slashed – putting these and future lifesaving, hope-offering solutions at risk.

But there is more at play here; the deeply patriarchal society in Kenya means that young women and girls face other significant barriers to their right to health, which in turn impacts their education and economic opportunities. I heard on multiple occasions about the high teenage pregnancy rate, which sits at around 15 per cent.

We already have the solutions to this crisis. We just need political action to drive forward progress (Layla Moran)

This is a result of many different factors; not just pressure on young boys to make their sexual debut early, but also a means of confining women to domestic service, as well as sexual and gender-based violence. It also remains illegal for adolescents to purchase contraceptives.

This is also a critical example of how keeping girls in school is essential in this fight. In Kenya, knowledge about HIV prevention increases with education – from 13 per cent among young women with no education, to 69 per cent among those with more than a secondary education. More girls accessing a full education means more girls living healthy lives.

We already have the solutions to this crisis. We just need political action to drive forward progress.

Ultimately, our nation’s commitment to gender equality is about ensuring girls like Abigail are able to control their health, education, and their future. At a time when this government has largely abandoned leadership in international development, we must be unambiguous in our demands: restore your promise; restore the aid budget.

Layla Moran is the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon and the Liberal Democrat shadow foreign secretary and international development spokesperson