Precarity and the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the Caribbean: Structural stigma, constitutionality, legality in development...

The social stigma of sexual immorality is inscripted in constitutions, laws, and statutes in the Caribbean and justified and legitimated through references to Christian doxa. This induces forms of structural stigma through policies and practices of governance. I employ country comparisons to demonstrate the critical effect on rates of HIV/AIDS of structural stigma induced by these inscriptions in Caribbean countries. By comparing rates of HIV/AIDS across selected countries, I analyse the differing patterns of structural stigma against the latter's relationship with structural vulnerabilities associated with poverty, underdevelopment, government incapacities, and population flows. I conclude that significant reductions in rates of prevalence can be achieved when social stigma is minimised or meliorated through effective government action or through the influence of external actors, even in the presence of other forms of structural vulnerabilities. The intensity of population flows into a country can also act independently to increase rates of prevalence, even in the face of reductions in structural stigma related to sexual immorality.