Why Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Matters: Part 1
posted byHere in the United States, women comprise about 27% of HIV infections, up from about 8% in 1984. In many countries around the world, women already represent over 50% of HIV infections. Rates of sexually transmitted infections among youth and teenage pregnancy have risen over the last several years – both indicators that we may soon see a corresponding rise in HIV infections among both young women and men. And, although generally considered a chronic manageable condition in the U.S., HIV continues to be the leading cause of death among African American women aged 25 to 34 years old.
Yet most of the general public in the U.S. think of HIV as a men’s disease and some members of the HIV advocacy/policy community have gone so far as to say “HIV/AIDS in this country is a men’s disease”.
The U.S. Positive Women’s Network believes we urgently need a comprehensive, outcomes-oriented National AIDS Strategy that addresses homophobia, HIV stigma, and racial and gender disparities in access to awareness, prevention, testing, treatment, and care.
This Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Naina Khanna, Coordinator of the U.S. Positive Women’s Network, spoke to to several HIV-positive women leaders around the U.S. to hear their perspectives on why HIV matters, in their own words. Read more here.
Add CommentsThe Commission on the Status of Women
posted byThe fifty-third session on the Commission on the Status of Women is taking place March 2-13 here in New York City. The Commission on the Status of Women (hereafter referred to as “CSW” or “the Commission”) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. It is the principal global policy-making body. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.
Many advocates and activists would agree that gender equality and advancement of women worldwide is one of the key structural factors that needs to be addressed if we are to have an impact on the HIV/AIDS epidemic among women. As part of and effort to figure out how the issues of women of color in the United States living with and affected by HIV/AIDS could have a place in this global conversation twenty-five advocates convened by Women of Color United and the Women of Color Resource Center met in person and by phone to discuss some of the barriers that prevent U.S. women of color from engaging this international process and strategies for how to overcome them.
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