GENEVA/JOHANNESBURG, 5 March 2020—Ahead of International Women’s Day, UNAIDS has launched a new report showing that the stark inequalities and inequities between men and women are continuing to make women and girls more vulnerable to HIV. We’ve got the power urges governments to do more to empower women and girls and fulfil their human rights.
“The HIV epidemic holds a mirror up to the inequalities and injustices faced by women and girls and how the gaps in rights and services are exacerbating the epidemic,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “This is unacceptable, it is avoidable and it must end.”
Twenty-five years ago, governments took the historic step of adopting the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, the most comprehensive and progressive global policy road map for fulfilling the human rights of women and girls and achieving gender equality.
Progress has been made in key areas. More girls are in school and gender gaps in primary schooling are closing globally, in some countries there are more women involved in political leadership and other countries have worked to protect women’s rights in legislation. HIV treatment has also been scaled up, so that by mid-2019 there were more than 24 million people living with HIV on treatment, including more than 13 million women aged 15 years and over.
The report shows, however, that many of the promises made to improve the lives of women and girls around the world have not been kept. Almost 40 years into the response, AIDS is still the leading cause of death for women aged between 15 and 49 years and around 6000 young women aged between 15 and 24 years acquire HIV every week.
We’ve got the power outlines some critical areas to address, including eliminating violence against women. In areas with a high HIV prevalence, intimate partner violence has been found to increase the risk of women acquiring HIV by 50%. Being HIV-positive can also be a trigger for violence, with women living with HIV frequently reporting violence from intimate partners, family and community members and in health services.
The report highlights that outside of sub-Saharan Africa, most women at risk of HIV belong to marginalized communities, such as sex workers, women who inject drugs, transgender women and women in prison. However, gender inequality, stigma and discrimination, criminalization, violence and other human rights violations continue to prevent them from accessing the services they need. Laws and policies need to be reformed in order to end harmful criminalization and coercive practices based on people’s sexuality, sexual activity, HIV status and gender. Read more via UNAIDS
excerpt: Examples of how inequities drive the HIV epidemic among women and girls
A lack of legal protections and enforcement against gender discrimination heightens risks to the health and well-being of women and girls. For example, while intimate partner violence is linked to higher risks of HIV for women and girls in areas of high HIV prevalence, some countries still lack legislation against domestic violence, and many more fail to criminalize marital rape. Many women living with HIV also face violence because of their status from intimate partners, in health facilities and in their communities.
Criminalization of people based on sexuality, sexual activity, drug use, HIV status and gender further exposes key populations to stigma and discrimination and keeps them away from HIV services and care. In countries that decriminalize sex work or drug use, however, new HIV infections among these groups can drop significantly.
Restrictive laws requiring parental consent for adolescents to access basic health services—such as for contraception and HIV testing and treatment—undermine the HIV response and have a disproportionate impact on the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent girls.
Many women and adolescent girls around the world still do not have full control over decision-making about their sexual and reproductive lives and their own health care. Adolescent girls and young women who are married or in union tend to have the least decision-making control.
Failure to protect the human rights of women and girls in health-care settings and to ensure their access to holistic and dignified care are major barriers hindering progress in the HIV response.
Discrimination against women and girls when it comes to educational and economic opportunities—and restricted income-earning and livelihood prospects—leaves them exposed to risk-taking strategies that can increase their chances of acquiring HIV.
Enabling girls to complete their education, especially through secondary education, protects them against HIV and improves many other health and development outcomes. Despite this, too many are still out of school.
Limited access to quality comprehensive sexuality education leaves adolescents and youth at risk. Levels of knowledge among young women and men about how to prevent HIV are alarmingly low in many countries.
Unequal power dynamics rooted in gender inequality are major drivers of the epidemic among women and girls. Harmful masculinities, for example, encourage men to take risks in their sexual behaviours and keep them away from HIV prevention, testing and treatment services, increasing the risks of acquiring HIV for women and girls and undermining an effective HIV response.