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Global AIDS - AfricaUNIFEM Head Calls Women Key to Fighting HIV/AIDSWashington Post, Tuesday, July 8, 2003 Inequality, poverty and lack of power and education are among the reasons why 58 percent of the people with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women, UNIFEM Executive Director Noeleen Heyzer writes in a commentary in today's Washington Post. "As [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush visits countries of sub-Saharan Africa, I hope he will take the time to speak with African women infected and affected by HIV and AIDS," Heyzer writes. "Simply put, women's unequal status is the central cause of the rapid transmission of AIDS." According to Heyzer, many women cannot protect themselves against HIV/AIDS because they do not have the power to do so. Many times, she writes, women are forced into arranged marriages when still young, which leads to early pregnancies and lack of education. Lacking education and living in societies where women are often not allowed even to talk about sex, women become easy targets of the disease, Heyzer writes. "There is a link between violence and the spread of AIDS, particularly in conflict and refugee situations in which women are subjected to untold rapes and sexual assaults," Heyzer says. "The threat of violence also impedes the ability of women to protect themselves against unsafe sex." "Dealing with this crisis is not just about protection but also about prevention, which includes providing women with equal access to education, training and employment," she adds. Heyzer says poverty is not only a cause of sexual exploitation and, therefore, the spread of HIV/AIDS, but also a consequence of the disease. Because women are nearly always the main care givers in families in Africa, she writes, they stop working the land and producing goods to take care of those infected with HIV, a phenomenon that contributes to food insecurity and poverty. "Because of the care burden, women have dropped out of the productive sector, and they are pulling their daughters out of school, leading to further intergenerational poverty and lost potential," Heyzer says. The solution, she says, must come from women and include the end of
discrimination, an increase in women's participation in HIV/AIDS-related
decision-making, the development of programs focused on women, training
and education for infected women and their children and the creation
of national policies and laws that will support women's human rights.
"Focusing on women is the key to reversing the AIDS crisis,"
Heyzer writes View this article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23938-2003Jul7.html?nav=hptoc_eo |