Women with AIDS coalition launched
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Actress Emma Thompson is among the high-profile women participating in the coalition.
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HEALTH LIBRARY
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LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Celebrities joined health experts and equal rights campaigners on Monday to launch a coalition to improve prevention and treatment for young women and girls with HIV/AIDS.
Half of the estimated 40 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS are women. In Africa, twice as many young females are infected with HIV than men.
The Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, a grouping of organizations and individuals, also aims to address violence against females and legal and social inequalities that make women more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.
"We have to make it an issue," Dr Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said in an interview.
"We want to tell these women that all these injustices and discrimination have become more lethal because of AIDS."
The coalition hopes to initiate changes at all levels that will reduce women's vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and increase their ability to deal with it and its consequences.
Award-winning actress Emma Thompson, Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and other prominent women in academia, the public sector, and U.N. agencies in countries around the globe will be participating in the coalition.
Piot said the need for a coalition on women and AIDS became clear a year or more ago because prevention methods recommending abstinence, being faithful and using a condom were totally irrelevant for women who are infected by their husbands.
"Marriage is no protection against AIDS," said Piot.
AIDS has rampaged across the globe but sub-Saharan Africa, with up to 28.2 million adults and children with the virus, has been the most badly affected.
Women in Africa are at least 1.2 times more likely to be infected with HIV than boys or men. For young women and girls the figure is 2.5 times higher.
Females are more vulnerable because the virus is more easily transmitted from men to women than the other way around. Women have sex earlier and generally with older partners. Sexual violence against women, including rape and physical abuse, also increase the risk of infection.
In South Africa, 20-48 percent of girls aged 10-25 report their first sexual encounter was forced. Most children are infected by their mothers during pregnancy, birth or through breast feeding.
Inequitable property and inheritance rights in many countries also make it impossible for women to leave their husbands even if they know he may be HIV positive. Widows also lose part or all of their assets, including their home and land, to relatives which can increase their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
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Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
