United Press International - March 8, 2004
William M. Reilly, UPI United Nations Correspondent

"Women and HIV/AIDS" was the theme of a special meeting in a large conference room at U.N. World Headquarters in New York where Annan led the list of speakers, which included Jordan's Queen Noor and U.N. and non-governmental agency officials. It was telecast to U.N. European Headquarters in Geneva and Webcast.

"We have gathered to draw attention on the devastating toll the global HIV/AIDS epidemic is taking on women, and the critical role women play in the fight against HIV/AIDS," he said. "At the beginning, many people thought of AIDS as a disease striking mainly at men. Even a decade ago, statistics indicated that women were less affected.

"But a terrifying pattern has since emerged," he continued. "All over the world, women are increasingly bearing the brunt of the epidemic. Today, in sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of all adults living with HIV/AIDS are women. Infection rates in young African women are far higher than in young men."

The secretary-general said that in the world as a whole, women account for at least half of the newly infected, and among people younger than 24 years old, "girls and young women now make up nearly two-thirds of those living with HIV."

He said that if those rates continue women will globally make up a majority of those infected.

Among the positive behavioral changes that would give more confidence to women would be men assuming responsibility for their daughter's education, he said, adding that that men should also not engage in risky sex or relations with children and adolescents. In terms of violence, there is no room for tolerance, said Annan.

Women are more vulnerable to infection "even though they are usually not the ones with the most sexual partners outside marriage ... because society's inequalities puts them at risk," he said.

Among the inequitable factors involved in women's deteriorating situation were poverty, abuse and violence, lack of information, coercion by older men and men having several partners, the secretary-general said. "That is why many mainstream prevention strategies are untenable; for example, those based on the 'ABC' approach -- abstain, be faithful, use a condom."

The Global Coalition on Women and AIDS -- launched last month by the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS -- would work out specific steps to improve the daily lives of women and girls and build on the critical role that women already play in the fight against the disease, he said.

The American-born Queen Noor said, "In the Middle East and North Africa, we have so far escaped the worst of this tragic pandemic, but not entirely. Recent reports suggest an estimated 600,000 people are living with the virus in our region. Tragically about 45,000 people died of AIDS last year. These numbers, although considered modest compared with other regions, are unacceptable."

While data is limited there are some revealing extremes.

"Despite an infection rate among the lowest in the world, the proportion of those infected who are female -- 55 percent as of 2002 -- is higher, especially in conflict areas, than anywhere except in sub-Saharan Africa," she said.

"Paradoxically, both of these facts can be attributed to geography, economics, and especially to social and cultural norms concerning women, men, sexuality and family," the queen said. "Our strong sense of family and religious traditions may inhibit behavior that spreads the virus, but at the same time, those traditions may inhibit testing and the reporting of those who may be infected."

Noor said experts maintain low rates of infection may be because of the disease's stigma. "Many of those who carry the HIV virus would simply rather die than encouraging rejection or worse from family, friends and community," she said. "And in a culture, tragically, where women in particular, can be at risk from their own families, at any suggestion of sexual impropriety, the risks are magnified."

Dean Peacock of Men as Partners said, "We have seen that men can and do change their attitudes and practices and, in fact, are quite eager to do so."

He said the same gender roles that compromise women's health also increase men's vulnerability. Men, too, often are encouraged to equate masculinity with risk-taking behavior, with dominance over women, with the use of drugs and alcohol, and the pursuit of multiple partners.

"Relationships based on equality and mutual respect are simply more satisfying that relationships based on fear and domination," he said, but admitting "change is never simple."

At the meeting, the secretary-general also took time out to honor Angela King, who marked her last International Women's Day before retiring, after almost 40 years of service at the United Nations.

Webcast archived at un.org/webcast/2004.html

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