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Mozambique National Human Development Report 2007attacked or raped, in the belief that this will lead tothe cure of sexually transmitted infection, or to successin business, or to greater productivity from theman’s fields.This social construction is strongly rooted invariables that determine the male and female being.Their representation, and how they are learnt, reston values designed to provide norms for social andsexual relations. These values are transmissiblethrough a knowledge where the school is fundamentallythat of popular belief, and invested in individualsendowed with particular qualities and mastery,which allows them to impose behaviour on others,and particularly on the younger generation.This organisation imposes rules to be followed ingeneral by members of the social or communitygroup, and responsibilities in accordance with agestructure at the various phases of the individual’sdevelopment. Thus in the sphere of sexuality, theserules find an expression in the initiation rites towhich young people are submitted as soon as theyshow the first signs of puberty.With appropriate and varied messages in linewith their sexual determinant, these rituals convergeon the fact that, as a rule, they must take place beforemarriage. Indeed these are the conditions underwhich young men are trained to handle with virilitytheir future sexual life – the expression and exerciseof dominance and power, which flourish in the contextof socialisation. That is, if we are talking aboutmen: for in the case of women, the purpose of thesocialisation is that they should respond docilely andpassively, and objectively with the purpose of pleasingtheir partner.Gender inequalities and their relationshipwith the spread of the epidemicThe gender dimension with regard to HIV and AIDSis increasingly evident. Indeed, the evidence showsthat women are biologically more vulnerable thanmen to HIV and AIDS, since they have a larger surfacearea of mucous membranes exposed to the virusduring sexual relations.Girls are more vulnerable since their membranesare not yet fully developed, and are easilypenetrated. Linked to this is the evidence that girlstend to begin regular sexual relations earlier thanboys, increasing the risk of transmission.These differences are sharpened by genderinequalities and social norms deeply rooted in theroutine of the past, which demand that women, andparticularly girls, be passive and ignorant with regardto sex, and submit to men’s desire in decisions abouttheir sexual lives.Coerced or forced sex and sexual violence exacerbatewomen’s biological and social vulnerabilitiesto infection, and multiply their propensity to contractthe virus in situations beyond their control.Thus women account for more than half of theadults living with HIV and AIDS, In Mozambique,about 57% of those infected are women (INE/MISA,2005). This disproportion is very sharp in the 15-to-24 year age groups, where twice as many women asmen are HIV-positive. Increasingly high infectionrates among women and adolescents express theirgreater vulnerability, due to both biological andsocial factors.Inequalities based on sex and the dominanceexercised by men in sexual relations may increasethe risk of infection among women and limit theircapacity to negotiate the use of condoms.Linked with this, the lowly socio-economic statusof women, poverty, the levels of schooling whichremain low among women and are worse in ruralareas, subordination, particularly in decisions on sexand sexuality, as well as their traditional roles in thefamily and community, all expose the female sex togreater risk of infection.This exposure or propensity to risk of infectionis worsened by traditional practices such as the“inheritance” of one man’s wife by another man (inthe case of widows) and particularly within the samefamily, as well as the “purification” of the woman followingthe death of her husband.The denial of women’s basic rights, as well as thelow level of opportunities with regard to means ofsubsistence, of access to legal protection, of accessto information on health care, and to opportunitiesand meaning of treatment, denial of the right toinherit property in the customary system, and indeedfrequent cases in which women are stripped of property,as well as the stigma attached to widows in thecountryside, all significantly add to women’s poverty.HIV and AIDS and theirdual burden on womenThe feminisation of the epidemic is also worseningwomen’s traditional roles as managers of the household,and as those mainly responsible for caring forhousehold members infected by the disease.32