International Women's Day

Today, on International Women’s Day, let us focus on the urgent issue of women and AIDS. It is a cruel irony that the first place where women have achieved equality is among those infected with HIV. Today, young women and adolescent girls face the highest risk of infection. It cannot be business as usual as increasing numbers of girls and women are struck down and families and communities fall apart.

While the “ABC” approach—abstain, be faithful, and use condoms—has proved successful and should be supported, we must also acknowledge that for women and girls, it is not always as simple as ABC. To reduce the growing and disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls, it is necessary to build on the ABC approach by advancing gender equality and empowerment, and promoting reproductive health and reproductive rights.

This means educating girls, and boys too, and making sure they learn how to protect their health and treat each other with respect as equal human beings. It means talking about individual and shared responsibility. It means taking stronger action against rape and gender-based violence. It means speaking out against a system in some parts of the world in which women and girls can be inherited, and women themselves cannot inherit property. And it means ensuring universal access to reproductive health information and services, including services to prevent and treat HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Working together, we must ensure that women and girls have equal access to prevention, care and treatment. The 3 by 5 initiative led by the World Health Organization, to provide 3 million people with anti-retrovirals by 2005, provides an excellent opportunity to expand much needed treatment. It is also an opportunity to more vigorously promote HIV prevention as part of a comprehensive global strategy. For many people, this means greater access to condoms, including female condoms. We must also increase investment in the development of microbicides.

Finally, if we want to be effective, it is necessary to involve those living with HIV/AIDS in the policies and programmes to address the epidemic. It is they who know best what they need, and one of the things they need is increased support.

Today, on International Women’s Day, let us pledge our increased support. It is time to make women’s rights and women’s health a priority and replace lip service with real services. If we are to achieve goals such as poverty reduction, gender equality and an end to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we must put women and girls at the centre of our efforts.