Ashley Judd: Global AIDS Activist - 1

The acclaimed actor reveals the surprising reasons she fights for AIDS/HIV care worldwide.
By Gina Shaw
WebMD the Magazine - Feature
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Deep in the bowels of a stifling Mumbai, India slum built of corrugated tin and wallpapered with old newsprint is about the last place you’d expect to find a Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated star named to People magazine’s "50 Most Beautiful People" list three times. But since becoming the global ambassador for YouthAIDS, an international campaign to raise awareness and combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, Ashley Judd has spent almost as much time among the destitute, ill, and sexually exploited in Third World countries as on film sets.

Judd, 39, is best known for her gripping performances in thrillers like Kiss the Girls and Double Jeopardy as well as for her critically acclaimed turn as Cole Porter’s wife, Linda, in De-Lovely. The Kentucky- and Tennessee-raised actor -- whose latest film, Crossing Over, a drama about immigration co-starring Harrison Ford and Sean Penn, opens Nov. 16 -- is used to being in the spotlight alongside her family. That includes mother Naomi and half-sister Wynonna, country-music superstars, as well as her husband of eight years, IndyCar Series champ Dario Franchitti, a Scottish race-car driver of Italian descent. But these days, she’s just as likely to make headlines for her commitment to using her fame to bring global attention to issues she cares about, including HIV/AIDS, women’s health, and reproductive rights.

Her fans will be able to see this newer side of Judd in action on Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, when a National Geographic–televised documentary shot during Judd’s spring 2007 journey to India broadcasts in 170 countries. With another pilgrimage for YouthAIDS planned in early 2008 -- to Zimbabwe or the former Soviet Union, where AIDS deaths are increasing in some countries that were part of the Communist bloc -- she recently took a break to tell WebMD what she’s learned about the disease, global health care, and herself over these last five years of working with YouthAIDS.
Ashley Judd: Traveling the World

Judd’s work dates to 2005, when she traveled to Africa for nearly a month, touring Kenya, South Africa, and Madagascar. She held hands with gravely ill AIDS patients in a hospice, talked about condom use with commercial sex workers, and hosted HIV education events for villagers in communities where the sexually transmitted disease rate approaches 20%. Since then, she has made similar journeys to Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Thailand, Cambodia, and most recently India.

One memory that continues to drive Judd is her encounter with an HIV-positive Indian woman named Kausar. In March of this year, her travels brought her to Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay and the most populous city in the world. In a settlement where tens of thousands of people live on top of one another in decrepit hovels, Judd followed Kausar through dirty standing water and dangerously jury-rigged electrical wires to the tiny one-room shack she shares with her son and daughter.

"When I entered this slum, all the light was immediately blotted out. The corridors were very narrow, and children would appear in cracks in the walls, these dirty, ragged faces full of excitement to see us," Judd says. "To get to Kausar’s home, we climbed a bamboo ladder secured with twine, and when we got there, we both burst into tears."

Kausar became HIV-positive when her husband had sex outside of the marriage, contracted the virus, and infected her. "She fell ill, and in the midst of dealing with that, she had the guts -- in a society where it is very taboo -- to be tested for HIV," Judd says. "Her doctor, clearly grasping her poverty and disempowerment, told her it was a death sentence. She tore up her test results and slapped him across the face."

Instead of giving up, as her doctor did, Kausar became an HIV advocate, working with YouthAIDS. "She spends her time educating others, and is constantly with people when they get positive results on their HIV tests. She escorts them through the process, gets them counseling, helps them get antiretroviral drugs. Through this work, she’s managed to not just survive, but to transcend the most grim reality imaginable," Judd says.

Fiercely passionate about the sexual exploitation and lack of status of women and girls in developing nations, Judd focuses much of her activism on advocating for these vulnerable women -- women like Kausar and her daughter, a beautiful girl of about 13, who when her mother was ill scrounged on the streets and begged food from teachers to help her mother get her strength back.

"A child like that is so vulnerable to human trafficking and sexual exploitation," Judd says. "I had a really wonderful conversation with her about how special she is, and that her body is sacred, and how important it is that she believe that she could help create for herself a different destiny. But we need to make that happen for millions of women and girls in places like this."

Without taking gender issues seriously, there’s not much hope for controlling the HIV pandemic, says Michael H. Merson, MD, director of the Duke Global Health Institute and former director of the World Health Organization’s Global Program on AIDS. "Women in sexual relationships don’t have power, particularly in developing countries like India and African nations," says Merson. "They’re at risk in terms of their social, educational, and economic status. Why do so many women go into sex work and risk their bodies getting infected? Why, they need the cash -- to feed their child or get a piece of clothing."

In Africa, Judd met sex workers so desperate for the 15 cents earned from each encounter that they had sex on the sidewalk. In addition to their thriving sex trade, says Merson, many African countries have a shockingly high rape rate -- in southern Africa, as many as 70% to 80% of women report being forced to have sex.