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Following is Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s message on World AIDS Day, observed on 1 December:
This year’s World AIDS Day is an occasion to recognize the burden that women and girls bear in the age of HIV/AIDS, but equally, to celebrate their achievements in the fight against the epidemic.
Women are our most courageous and creative champions in the fight against HIV/AIDS. In most countries and communities I have visited around the world, it is women’s voices that are heard above all others; women advocates and activists who are moved to act selflessly and speak publicly, often risking prejudice, abuse or violence, in order to improve the lives of others.
The courage that women are showing in this fight is matched only by the toll the disease is taking on them. Women already bear the brunt of poverty. AIDS makes the poverty trap even easier for them to fall into, and even harder to break. Women continue to face discrimination on a number of fronts -- from the workplace to laws governing land ownership and inheritance. AIDS puts them at even greater risk. Girls already make up the majority of children not in school. When AIDS strikes the family, those girls who are attending school are all too often taken out, to help run the household and care for sick relatives. Women now account for about half of all people living with HIV worldwide. In sub-Saharan Africa, where more than three quarters of all HIVpositive women live, almost 57 per cent of adults living with HIV are women.
Why are women more vulnerable to infection? Why is that so, even where they are not the ones with the most sexual partners outside marriage, nor more likely than men to be injecting drug users? Usually, it is because society’s inequalities put them at risk -- unjust, unconscionable risk. A range of factors conspires to make this so: poverty, abuse and violence, lack of information, coercion by older men, and men having several concurrent sexual relationships that entrap young women in a giant network of infection. Nor does marriage always offer protection: in some heavily affected countries, married women have higher rates of HIV infection than their unmarried, sexually active peers.
These factors cannot be addressed piecemeal. What is needed is real, positive change that will give more power and confidence to women and girls. Change that will transform relations between women and men at all levels of society. Change that can only be brought about through the education of girls, through legal and social reforms, and through greater awareness and responsibility among men. Change that will allow women to play to the full their role in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Empowering women in this struggle must be our strategy for the future. It is among them that the real heroes of this war are to be found. It is our job to furnish them with hope.
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MESSAGE ON THE OCCASION OF WORLD AIDS DAY By Dr Peter Piot
This World AIDS Day, the news is sobering -- the epidemic continues to spread in every region of the world. The number of people living with HIV globally has reached its highest level with close to 40 million people, up from 36.6 million in 2002. The steepest increases in HIV infections occurred in East Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia over the past two years. The number of women living with HIV is on the rise in every region. Today the face of AIDS is increasingly young and female. This has profound implications—we will not be able to stop this epidemic unless we put women at the heart of the response to AIDS.
Prevention methods such as the “ABC” approach – Abstinence, Be faithful, and use Condoms – are good but not enough to protect women where gender inequality is pervasive. We must ensure that women can choose marriage, to decide when and with whom they have sex, and to successfully negotiate condom use.
Half of all women live on less than US$2 a day; illiteracy rates among women are nearly 50 percent higher than among men in many countries; only a small fraction of land is owned by women; and inheritance laws and criminal laws make it easy for men to take advantage of women. Each of these realities makes women more vulnerable to HIV.
We need to give girls everywhere a chance at education, and petition governments around the world to enable women to own and inherit property. Women who are economically self-sufficient and secure are far less vulnerable to HIV. We need to get laws passed everywhere that make domestic abuse illegal, that treat rape as a real crime to be punished harshly.
To reverse these inequities we must focus attention and resources on increasing access to prevention and treatment services for women. We need to make female condoms readily accessible in more parts of the world. And even more urgently is the need for investment in a microbicide that a woman can confidently and confidentially use to protect herself from HIV.
If we can do a better job preventing HIV among women and girls, we can ultimately get ahead of the epidemic and save millions upon millions of lives. The good news is we are seeing more women and men joining together to support, energize and drive the response against AIDS and to improve the lives of women and girls around the world.
Together we must be bold by challenging inequality whenever and wherever it appears—as we strive for a world free of AIDS.
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For more information, please contact Annemarie Hou, UNAIDS, Geneva, (+41 22) 791 4577, Dominique De Santis, UNAIDS, Geneva, (+41 22) 791 4509, or Jonathan Rich, UNAIDS,
New York, (+1 212) 532 0255. You may also visit the UNAIDS website, www.unaids.org, for more information about the programme.
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World AIDS Day 2004 focuses on women, girls, and HIV and AIDS — the theme for the World AIDS Campaign 2004.
World AIDS Day is commemorated around the globe on 1 December. It celebrates progress made in the battle against the epidemic — and brings into focus remaining challenges.
A star-studded was held on 1 December in New York City, at the Cathedral of St John the Divine. Music legend Mary Wilson was among the many entertainers who performed at the event, which was ohosted by actors Gloria Reuben and Alan Cumming.
Also in New York on 1 December, members of the financial services industry met to discuss HIV/AIDS and its effect on the global economy. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the gathering of more than 500, urging the business leaders to enlist in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Read more: (pdf format)
Other World AIDS Day events that took place around the globe are listed under .
On the occasion of World AIDS Day, UNAIDS released the on 23 November.
The launch of the report at UN Headquarters in New York by Dr Desmond Johns, Director of the UNAIDS New York Office, was webcast live. The webcast can be viewed at . Also available are photos taken at press conferences to launch the report with and with . |
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