American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Kashka instinctively thought back to the night in late November when her husband had gone to his cousin’s house and gotten drunk, come home and wanted to have sex. She told him he was too drunk and that she was not interested. In his drunken state, he became angry and left the house. The next morning, on her way to work, she saw her husband coming out of Johnny’s house. Everyone in the village knew that Johnny was HIV positive and sexually active. As burdened as she was with her husband’s infidelity, she knew that asking him to wear a condom would only make him angry and violent. She also realized that she would have little support from the women in the village if she refused to have sexual relations with her husband. As we enter the twenty-first century, Native American women are faced with a variety of health concerns. Two critical and interrelated issues are HIV/AIDS and intimate-partner violence. Both are serious problems by themselves and an even bigger concern where they connect. Kashka’s story above demonstrates one way in which domestic violence and HIV/AIDS are related. She felt powerless to say no to sex or to protect herself from a husband she believed might be infected with HIV/AIDS. This relationship has historically been neglected by researchers, but many today are observing and documenting the critical connections between the AIDS pandemic and women’s inability to protect themselves due to the impact of violence in their lives. Many relationships between HIV/AIDS and violence can be found. One is that “women at highest risk for domestic violence are demographically similar to women at risk for HIV infection.” In addition, the two health problem intersect when women lack sexual agency, experience abuse and/or rape, and notify their partners of their HIV status.