International Women�s Day, 8 March 2004
It is both a celebration of achievement and a reminder of how far we have to go. This year, on 8 March, the United Nations system is highlighting the many issues surrounding women and AIDS, which is also the mobilizing theme for the 2004-2005 World AIDS campaign. AIDS is damaging and threatening many advances in human development, including efforts to improve the status and well-being of women everywhere. I take this opportunity to invite all our partners to renew the commitments made in Beijing in 1995 to the empowerment of women, which is a necessary condition for development and for building a future without HIV/AIDS.
All infections by HIV, whether of women or men, are a matter of equal concern. At the same time, the recent dramatic increase in the percentage of women among adults infected by HIV is especially worrying. In 1997, women constituted 41 per cent of all HIV-infected adults. Just four years later, this figure had risen to 49.8 per cent and in 2003 it reached the 50 per cent mark. This pattern of growing rates of infection is particularly alarming among young women living in sub-Saharan Africa, where 67 per cent of infected 15 to 24 year olds are women. Globally, of the estimated 14,000 new HIV infections a day in 2003, almost 50 per cent were women. And there is no indication that the trend is reversing.
The picture appears even more grim when we examine the consequences of the epidemic on women�s and girls� health, living conditions, life opportunities, status and dignity in many parts of the world. Whether not enrolled in the first place or pulled out of schools to care for sick relatives or because of AIDS-induced poverty, millions of girls are being denied their right to education. Victims of social stigma and discrimination, infected women are often rejected by their families and communities and condemned to poverty and exploitation before eventual death. Where treatment is available, men tend to be given priority over women. The exception may be when the woman is pregnant, in which case she may receive treatment but perhaps only during the course of her pregnancy.
HIV/AIDS is a disaster not only for individuals and their families but also for entire communities. Indeed, some nations are at risk of total collapse under the impact of the epidemic. As infection rates increase among women, who are the mainstay of families and communities, the threat of societal collapse also increases.
