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UNIFEM Calls on World Leaders to Make Women’s Role

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UNIFEM
June 19, 2001

UNIFEM Executive Director, Noeleen Heyzer, today announced a 5-point Call for Action to make women central to every strategy in the fight against HIV/AIDS. "There is a direct correlation between women's low status, the violation of their human rights and HIV transmission," said Heyzer. "This is not simply a matter of social justice. Gender inequality is fatal."

The announcement comes just before world leaders meet in New York from June 25-27 for the first Special Session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS. "The reason that AIDS has escalated into a pandemic is because inequality between women and men continues to be pervasive and persistent," said Heyzer. "Too often, women and girls cannot say no to unwanted and unprotected sex without fear of reprisal."

The statistics are alarming. Last year, 1.3 million women died of AIDS. Nearly half of all new HIV infections occur in women. In Sub-Saharan Africa, teenage girls are 5 times more likely to be infected than boys. Surveys in 17 countries found that over half of girls could not name a method of protection against HIV transmission.

"It is time for the AIDS community to join hands with the international women's community to hold governments accountable," UNIFEM's (UN Development Fund for Women) Executive Director said, as she laid out strategies in the Call for Action to challenge the pandemic.

The Call for Action includes:

a.Guarantee Access to Prevention and Treatment

  • Make female and male condoms affordable and accessible to all.
  • Ensure that National AIDS Councils and National AIDS Strategies incorporate gender balance and gender equality in all policies and strategies.
  • Set up women-friendly centers for voluntary and confidential counseling and testing and referrals.
  • Include detection and treatment of the disease in primary health care.
    b.Make Research Gender Sensitive
  • Disaggregate all HIV/AIDS related data by sex.
  • Accelerate research to develop women controlled prevention methods like microbicides and affordable female condoms.
    c.Educate and Inform
  • Disseminate HIV/AIDS and STI information to reach girls and women.
  • Educate adolescents and young people in sexual and reproductive health.
  • Involve women and girls in the design of policies and education campaigns. This should include training materials that enable women to negotiate safe sex and avoid unwanted and unprotected sex.
    d.Address Gender Inequality in Policy
  • Recognize and account for women's role in caring for the infected and supporting families left destitute by the epidemic.
  • Enact and enforce laws to criminalize violence against women.
  • Enforce the Cairo agenda, the Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
  • Work to change the social norms and traditional practices that place women at risk, such as early marriage and female genital mutilation.
  • Allocate funds for gender-specific programming to address the pandemic.
    e.Address HIV Transmission in Conflict Situations
  • Ensure gender-sensitive HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, care and treatment programmes in humanitarian assistance.
  • Strictly enforce the Code of Conduct for peacekeeping personnel to uphold women's rights and report on sexual violence in peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

    UNIFEM has been working to mainstream gender within the UN system and to promote gender equality, women's development and human rights in developing countries. Given UNIFEM's expertise in gender mainstreaming, UNAIDS signed a Cooperation Agreement with UNIFEM last month. The agreement will help to strengthen the gender perspective in the UN response to the pandemic.

    ### Lessons learnt from UNIFEM studies:

    In Zimbabwe, a focus group of 268 respondents revealed:
    a.Of those who had experienced a negative income shock due to HIV, 77.6% were female.
    b.34% of those widowed reported that they had been accused of causing the death of their husbands.
    c.70% of the children removed from school to take care of sick relatives were girls.

    In India, a focus group of 116 respondents revealed:
    a.76 % of women interviewed said they had no knowledge of safe sex practices.
    b.Many women said they were subjected to physical, sexual, and mental violence at the hands of their husbands and their in-laws when their positive status was revealed.
    c.Many women experienced neglect by the medical staff who refused to touch them, or give them injections. Some said they were tested without consent and in many cases, their sero status was shared with their family members also without their consent.

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