UNIFEM makes gender equality and human rights perspectives central to its work on women and HIV/AIDS. The fund spearheads holistic strategies with clear links to violence against women and feminized poverty. UNIFEM programmes support women’s participation in policy-making on HIV/AIDS, and build partnerships with national HIV/AIDS councils, women’s groups, and local, national and international organizations.

Across the world, HIV/AIDS threatens the lives and rights of individuals, severely restricting their hope for development. Countries with the highest HIV-prevalence rates face consequences that include the loss of people able to run the government, businesses and vital public services. This sets the stage for both individual suffering and social and economic decline. Tragically, social stigmas related to HIV/AIDS still hinder efforts to stem the disease in all regions of the world. For women, the picture is made more complex by gender inequality, poverty and blatant violations of women’s rights — without tackling these issues, overall efforts to address the epidemic will be futile.

Almost half the HIV-positive people in the world are now women, but in Africa, where the epidemic has stretched the furthest, young women are three times more likely to be HIV-positive than young men. Gender inequality leaves women with less control than men over their bodies and their lives. They have less information about how to prevent HIV, and fewer resources to take preventative measures. They face barriers to the negotiation of safe sex that include economic dependency and violence. In some cases, poverty forces women into the sex trade. And regardless of whether they themselves are HIV positive or sick with AIDS, women assume the burden of home-based care for others who are sick or dying. While many have shown great fortitude and courage in these situations, they lose time and energy that might be spent on earning a livelihood or caring for their own illness, and risk sinking into an ever-deepening degree of poverty.

Many more resources need to flow into halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, and need to be targeted to women in particular. In 2001, at the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, over 180 countries agreed that gender equality and women’s empowerment are fundamental to reducing girls’ and women’s vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. They committed to increasing their efforts to challenge gender stereotypes and inequality. The sixth Millennium Development Goal calls for reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.

UNIFEM responds with strategies that make a difference
UNIFEM brings gender equality and human rights perspectives to its work on women and HIV/AIDS. Highlighting the contributions and perspectives of HIV-positive women, and with an emphasis on reducing discrimination, the fund spearheads holistic strategies that make clear links to violence against women, feminized poverty, security and women’s limited voice in decision-making.

Facts and Statistics

• 5 million people contract HIV every year
• 3 million die of AIDS related illnesses – 90% in developing countries
• In 2003, 17 million women and 18.7 million men between the ages of 15 and 49 are living with HIV/AIDS .
• Young women are 1.6 times more likely to be living with HIV than young men. Young women make up over 60% of 15-24-year-olds living with HIV.
• The overwhelming majority of people with HIV/AIDS — 98% of women and 94% of men — live in developing countries.
• In 2003, there were an estimated 15 million AIDS orphans around the world, expected to increase to 25 million by 2010

Epidemic proportions

• Lack of education and awareness about transmission, infection and treatment
• Traditional ‘gender norms’
• use the available and effective prevention strategies and tools
• poor coverage of HIV prevention programmes

Why are women at greater risk than men?

Priority actions to address gender inequalities

• Top leadership at every level of society must speak out against stigma, discrimination, gender inequality and women’s empowerment
• Laws and policies that protect women and girls against sexual violence, disinheritance and gender discrimination of all kinds, including harmful traditional practices and sexual violence in and outside of marriage must be enacted, publicized and enforced.
• Women must be adequately represented in policy-and decision-making on AIDS.
• Laws and policies that directly address gender inequality and bias against people perceived to be at heightened risk for HIV, including sex workers and men who have sex with men, must be enacted and enforced.
• Changes in laws and policies must be accompanied by adequately funded “know your rights and social mobilization campaigns against gender inequality and HIV related stigma and discrimination; the campaigns should involve organizations of people living with HIV along with all other elements of civil society in their planning and implementation.

HIV/AIDS in Australia

• HIV continues to be transmitted mainly through unprotected sex between men.
• New HIV diagnoses have increased by 41% between 2000 and 2005,
• Indigenous women in Australia are 18 times more likely to be HIV-positive than are non-Indigenous women.

HIV/AIDS in Pacific

• HIV infections have now been reported in every country or territory in the Pacific island region, barring two of the smallest countries, Niue and Tokelau. Infection rates remain low by world standards but are increasing.
• More than 90% of the 11,200 HIV infections reported across the 21 Pacific islands are in PNG
• The data provided is based on limited HIV surveillance. The high levels of other sexually transmitted infections, significant high risk behaviour and the high mobility of some most-at-risk groups in some Pacific Island Countries, including Fiji, present a potential for the rapid spread of HIV throughout the Pacific region.

View the Gender & HIV AIDS portal:
http://www.genderandaids.org/

Click here to find out more about UNIFEM’s work internationally:
http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/hiv_aids/at_a_glance.php