KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 (AFP) - Women and children are the most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and failure to protect their legal rights is exposing them to the disease, experts said Wednesday at an international convention for women lawyers.
The convention heard that the prevalence of HIV/AIDS was increasing among women, with the burden of the pandemic greatest in sub-Saharan Africa where many women are unaware of their rights.
"In most parts of Africa, girls and women face particular risks of HIV infection due to their disadvantaged physical, economic and legal positions and social status," Nigerian lawyer Victoria Awomolo told the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA).
"Women cannot negotiate for safe sex or say no to unfaithful partners. Monogamous married women are powerless against infection by husbands with outside partners. To worsen their situation, economic dependency prevents women from leaving unsafe sexual relationships," she said.
Rights extend to protection from sexual violence such as rape, physical abuse and discrimination, as well as property rights, said experts.
"If you protect women's legal rights, you go a long way towards protecting them from HIV," said Marina Mahathir, president of the Malaysian AIDS Council and daughter of the former premier.
"The point is to reduce violence against women as a whole using legal means, and that would by and large also reduce women's vulnerability to HIV through violence," she said.
While women have been traditionally disadvantaged through cultural practices in many African countries, experts said the HIV/AIDS crisis highlighted the urgent need to reform laws to help women and children.
The general secretary of FIDA in Uganda, Lorna Juliet Amujojo, said discriminatory cultural practices such as "widow inheritance" -- where women whose husbands die are "inherited" by their brothers-in-law -- were still continuing.
Other practices, such as raping women and children who are virgins in the belief it will cure HIV/AIDS, are also unabated, she said.
"There is this cultural belief that if you defile a small child who is still a virgin, you will get healed of HIV/AIDS," Amujojo said.
"That is a myth and it is actually a very destructive cultural practice which the law even in southern Africa has not been able to deal with because of the loopholes in their criminal law."
The five-day conference which started Monday brings together 200 delegates from 25 countries and hopes to highlight the plight of victims, particularly women and girls, and promote gender rights.
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