Some of the consequences of globalization, including large populations movements, increasing economic inequalities, and the growth of the sex industry are all believed to contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS in Asia. Women are particularly vulnerable to the negative economic effects of globalization and are often at greater risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Experts predict that in the near future, Asia will be facing a potentially crippling AIDS crisis unless new strategies are developed to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic and slow the spread of the disease.

Globalization and the Spread of HIV/AIDS in Asia

The purpose of this research paper is to examine this spread of HIV/AIDS in the context of globalization. This paper will discuss how some of the consequences of globalization have affected the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in Asia, and how globalization and HIV/AIDS have affected women and individual Asian countries. Globalization can be defined as “the inter-connectedness of capital, production, ideas and cultures at an increasing pace” (Kennedy, 1996). In addition to resulting in the spread of ideas, information, people, goods, and technology across national borders, globalization has also forced the world to confront the rapid spread of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS (Gupta, 2004). In 1990, John O’Neill made one of the earliest attempts to relate the spread of HIV/AIDS to globalization, referring to AIDS as “a potentially globalizing panic on two fronts; namely (a) a crisis of legitimation at the level of global unisex culture; and (b) a crisis of opportunity in the therapeutic apparatus of the welfare state and the international medical order” (O’Neill, 1990).

The spread of HIV/AIDS across national borders illustrates many different aspects of globalization, including the interconnectedness of nation states; the concept of a “global problem” and of a “global response”; and the development of universal identities. “AIDS fits the common understanding of ‘globalization’ in a number of ways, including its epidemiology, the mobilization against its spread, and the dominance of certain discourses in the understandings of the epidemic” (Altman, 2001). The earliest reported cases of AIDS involved homosexual men in the early 1980s along both coasts of the United States (Hunt, 2004). Since then, HIV/AIDS has spread rapidly across the globe (Altman, 1999). It is likely that HIV/AIDS originally spread through the processes of urbanization and population shifts, and “that its rapid dispersion across the world is closely related to the nature of a global economy” (Altman, 1999). Researchers have found that the spread of HIV/AIDS has often followed huge population movements, whether by truckers moving across international routes, women joining the sex trade as a means of economic survival, or men migrating to seek employment, increases in tourism, or large refugee movements into neighboring states (Altman, 1999).

Globalization has resulted in an increase in international trade, and the rapid growth experienced by export-led economies has created a need for more advanced transportation systems and infrastructures. Large numbers of truck drivers are needed to transport the goods and materials destined for other countries across borders or to port cities along the coast. Studies have found these truck drivers to be one of the largest causes of HIV/AIDS transmission and one of the main methods by which HIV/AIDS is carried from rural to urban areas (Upadhyay, 2000).

Globalization has also resulted in rapid growth in manufacturing and other industries, and the corresponding increase in the number of migrant workers employed in manufacturing industries in urban areas has also contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS. Many of these men live far from home and often frequent brothels, which has increased the demand for sex workers, another major cause of HIV/AIDS transmission, as well (Upadhyay, 2000). The internationalization of the sex and drug industries has also played a large role in the spread of HIV/AIDS (Altman, 1999).