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
b.Make Research Gender Sensitive
c.Educate and Inform
d.Address Gender Inequality in Policy
e.Address HIV Transmission in Conflict Situations
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.
More General Analysis on Health, Poverty and Development
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