I was able to attend a panel organized by the Women WON’T Wait campaign at the 55th Committee on the Status of Women last Wednesday. Representatives from Action Aid International, UNAIDS, and UNDP discussed the campaign's initiative to integrate and address issues of HIV, violence, and sexual reproductive health.
Women account for slightly more than half of the people living with HIV in the world. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, women constitute 60% of people contracting HIV. By adopting a human rights approach to ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the campaign addresses stigma and discrimination against women, and also confronts violence against women.
There is a lack of sufficient acknowledgement of the relationship between HIV and violence, namely that violence as a consequence of actual or perceived HIV status. Women who discover they are HIV-positive are often blamed for bringing the disease into the household. They might be sent away, abandoned or subject to violence, while carrying the burden of being HIV infected.
The newly launched UNAIDS “Getting to Zero” campaign fights for zero discrimination with a goal of zero tolerance for gender-based violence (GBV) to advance human rights and gender equality. They are working to develop strategies that engage men and boys in transforming social norms and to expand action for GBV and HIV awareness.
A few women in the audience introduced themselves as HIV-positive women and urged the campaign panel to include the voices and perspectives of positive women in their advocacy campaign; “otherwise you are excluding us and discriminating against those you are trying to save,” one woman said. Another positive Bolivian woman advocated “we must hear their voices. We must unite the HIV positive with the feminist movement.”
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