the number of women infected by HIV is steadily increasing. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than 40,700 adult women in the United States have AIDS. Experts also agree that the actual number of infected women with AIDS is even greater because many women whose immune systems are severely damaged by HIV infection remain undiagnosed and therefore unreported. The majority of these women are unfortunately Black or Hispanic further linking the stigma of AIDS not only to women but also to minority women (National Institute of Mental Health, 1998). According to my research, the use of injection drugs infected the majority of the women with HIV in our country; however, recently the number of women acquiring HIV through heterosexual contact with infected men has risen dramatically. During heterosexual contact, women are more easily infected than men when one of the partners is infected. Prostitution and forgery are the two crimes most often linked to women and are perceived by women to carry the least risk of the criminal behaviors. Unfortunately, prostitution puts women at a higher risk for HIV than forgery. As a matter of fact, prostitutes portrayed as the infectors were ignored in the beginning of the crisis as the deep rooted sexism in our society did not allow for the fact that the prostitutes were more at risk to contract AIDS from their customers than customers from the prostitutes. Through the media, the focus was directed instead to the risk to the partners and families of the customers who might be exposed to AIDS from their contact with the prostitute (Campbell). In thirteen states, excluding Nevada, laws requiring mandatory testing of women who are arrested for and convicted of prostitution are enforced. In some states, like California, the customers must also be tested, however, their arrests are far less often and not as likely as the arrests of the prostitutes, again a sexual ge...
