IN the wake of recent tragic events Bermuda continues to focus on violence directed towards women. This is a worldwide phenomenom, of course, and women living in some areas of the world are subjected to violence and threats of violence on the basis that men do not recognise their human rights as women.

One can think of the situation of the young women living in the north of Nigeria, sentenced by a so-called Islamic court to death by stoning for having sex out of wedlock. In the eyes of the local mullahs she has committed adultery because she gave birth after being divorced.

There are many questions surrounding this ruling, including why the father of the child has not been charged along with the woman. And debate is raging among Islamic scholars as to whether the Qu'ran (or Koran) really does prescribe such a harsh punishment. Moderate Muslims, among others, argue this yet another example of the overzealousness of men interpretating a religious edict.

Nigeria is not the only country where the human rights of women are currently under siege.

You take the question of the impact of the continuing Aids crisis. In 2000 women made up 47 per cent of the world's 34.7 million adults living with the Aids virus. However, in 1997 a United Nations report stated that women at that time made up 41 per cent of HIV-infected persons, which indicates that in just over a three-year period the percentage of women suffering from Aids worldwide has increased some six percentage points. It is further predicted that the number of HIV-positive women will equal or surpass the number of infected men by the year 2003.

In Africa, as is also the case in Latin America, the rate of infection among heterosexual women is growing faster than it is among other so-called "most-at-risk" groups such as intravenous drug users, homosexual and/or bisexual men. This is a trend that is also beginning to be identified in developed countries such as the United States and some European nations.

Unlike the liberal ideas that have come to culturally dominate Western societies in recent years, there is far less tolerance for homosexuality or the gay lifestyle in Third World societies like those in Africa or Latin America and even, in many respects, the Caribbean.

As a result men with those sexual leanings will often hide that fact and marry. As a result of their secret lifestyles, they then expose their unsuspecting wives to the Aids virus.

Of course, this is not the only factor involved as in most of those societies there exists a culture of machismo, which means that a man can have as many women as he wants and a wife has little or no say about his sexual proclivities.

This has certainly been a major factor in the spread of Aids in Africa, where the disease has devastated the populations in all too many countries. The famous or infamous Trans-Africa Highway (depending on your perspective), which links the East and West coasts of the African continent, is known for the flourishing sex trade along this route, catering to the long-distance truckers who drive their rigs on this highway, far from home - and away from wives and girlfriends.

Consequently, not only do goods flow along this highway, so do sexually transmitted diseases. As a result, the dreaded Aids virus has reached all corners of the continent.

The spread of the disease in Africa has also been accelerated by the mass migrations of workers from the villages to the cities, where a great many rural men go to look for work, staying away from their home villages for long periods of time. Essentially, the same process which we see with respect to the Trans-African Highway takes place, as the Aids virus is spread from the city to the village by returning migrant workers.

Even though many African governments are now struggling to deal with this pandemic by putting in place progressive anti-Aids programmes including awareness classes in the schools and distribution of free condoms, there are still major challenges to be faced such as the lack of funding available in poor countries.

But even so there have been some notable successes in countries like Senegal and Uganda in Africa, which have managed to restrict the spread of Aids by doing a lot with meagre resources mostly in the way of mass education programmes.

And countries like Brazil have put in place aggressive government programmes to develop generic versions of anti-Aids drugs, often in the face of fierce opposition from the world's great drug producers which view the independent manufacturing of drugs as a threat to their control of the pharmaceutical markets.

THERE are still other major obstacles to be overcome by Third World governments, chief among them the stubborn persistence of cultural norms which are often very hard to overcome, especially as they pertain to sexuality and traditional gender roles.

There is still great resistance to the use of condoms, mostly on the part of men, which again women have little influence over. This is compounded by a great deal of ignorance as to what Aids is and what the causes are that contribute to its spread.

But perhaps the greatest contributor to the spread of the infection is the relative powerlessness of women in many of those societies. Women, in many cases, have to struggle against centuries of social customs and cultural norms which dictate that their interests should never threaten male dominance.

Until this situation changes, the scourge of Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases will never be completely checked.