PRESS BRIEFING ON WOMEN AND HIV/AIDS

                                                            8 March 2004

PRESS BRIEFING ON WOMEN AND HIV/AIDS

With Secretary-General Kofi Annan today drawing attention to a “terrifying pattern” emerging -- women and girls, once thought to be at the periphery of the HIV/AIDS epidemic were now increasingly bearing the brunt of the disease -- the head of the United Nations programme working for women’s empowerment and gender equality briefed correspondents at Headquarter on the devastating toll HIV/AIDS is taking on women, and the critical role women play in the fight against it.

Marking the observance of International Women’s Day, Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), said there was strong feeling among many women and girls that, based on the available data, HIV/AIDS prevention and protection efforts were still failing them.  “And in this case, gender inequality is fatal”, she declared.  She called on the world community to pay closer attention to what women were saying, because the factors that made them more susceptible to HIV/AIDS could be changed and the “startling” trend could be reversed.

Ms. Heyzer said that today women were at the epicentre of the pandemic -- accounting for 50 per cent of global HIV infections -– markedly up from 41 per cent just six years ago.  In some regions, the ratio had tilted further towards women:  in the Caribbean it was 52 per cent; in Africa, 58 per cent.  What was very clear was that, as a disease, HIV/AIDS was a health issue, she said, “but the epidemic is a gender issue” and, therefore, very critical action needed to be taken.

She said that a panel held earlier in the day -- opened by the Secretary-General and attended by, among others, Queen Noor of Jordan -- had examined strategies to change the trend.  The United Nations system had come together in a coalition on gender and HIV/AIDS, collectively focusing on such areas as prevention, protection of property and inheritance rights, security, education and empowerment.  United Nations agencies were also calling on men and boys to actively participate in those efforts, especially those aimed at reducing violence against women.  The joint effort also emphasized mobilizing leadership, particularly to end stigma, and to ensure that the right level or resources were invested to ensure the changes came about.

She went on to say there was a push to make sure prevention efforts were based on the realities of women’s lives, and that women’s voices -- not only those facing the disease, but those caring for AIDS patients -- were part of policy-making and resource allocation.  She said there was also a strong call to ensure that women and girls had equal access to care and treatment, since the burden of care took them out of the productive sector to look after the sick and dying.  That often led to the collapse of many agricultural systems.  At the same time, girls were often forced to leave school, which threatened to undermine a major thrust of the Millennium Development Goals.

Responding to questions, she noted that the dramatic shift in HIV-infection rates could be attributed to a host of factors, including deepening poverty –- which forced women to marry at increasingly younger ages -– conflict, and sexual trafficking.  Rape, sexual violence and women's inability to refuse unwanted sex or to demand protection were also serious factors in the spread of the epidemic.  She added that the numbers could have also jumped because, in some regions, stigma about the disease was waning a bit and more and more women were beginning to speak out.

She drew attention to another major United Nations campaign devoted to HIV/AIDS and ending violence against women.  That initiative’s catchphrase was “1 in 3 and 1 in 2”, highlighting that one out of three women and girls would be subjected to some form of violence in their lifetime, and one of two would be infected with HIV/AIDS.

Responding to another query, she said that while agencies were studying self-defence and things women could do “in the moment” to protect themselves from violence, addressing the overall problem required more than that.  “We need to make our leadership take this issue seriously and to mobilize at the national and community levels to make the environment safe for women and girls”, she said.  Women must have access to prevention methods, including access to female condoms, and must be free to form self-help groups.  She added that a range of men were coming together to examine how their involvement could help find solutions.

She said that many governments were also becoming more involved.  But, while more and more laws were passed and national action plans for women’s empowerment were conceived, real implementation was still lacking in many instances.  That was why women were joining the United Nations’ call for more resources, and for those resources to be more effectively and efficiently applied.

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