Last month the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), in association with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) have launched a new gender and HIV/AIDS web portal (www.genderandaids.org) to provide researchers, policy-makers and practitioners access to cutting edge information.
Globally, 50 per cent of adults living with HIV/AIDS are women. The epidemic disproportionately affects women and adolescent girls who are socially, culturally, biologically and economically more vulnerable, and who shoulder the burden of caring for the sick and dying.
Women constitute 58% of HIV-positive adults in Sub-Saharan Africa, 55% in North Africa and the Middle East, and 50% in the Caribbean. Of the 4.2 million adults newly-infected in 2002, 2.2 million were men and 2 million were women.
Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director, welcomed the creation of the web portal. "Women make up half the world's HIV epidemic, but bear a much higher proportion of its burden. They continue to provide most of the care for families and children, but are often last in line to receive life-saving care and information for themselves. This online resource center is a practical step forward by UNIFEM and UNAIDS together, designed to help improve the support for the millions of women around the world living with HIV and affected by the epidemic," he said.
UNIFEM's Executive Director, Noeleen Heyzer, in announcing the launch of the portal, stressed the importance of placing gender equality at the very core of the fight against HIV/AIDS. "We must do all we can to loosen and remove the grip of this terrible disease. I believe that one of the most powerful HIV vaccines available today is women's empowerment. By bringing knowledge and information to the global community, we are able to empower women. Women's empowerment is the key to reversing the epidemic."
The web portal will promote understanding, knowledge-sharing, and action on HIV/AIDS as a gender and human rights issue. User-friendly, informative and interactive, the site offers research, training materials, surveys, advocacy tools, current news and opinion pieces by leading experts, and women's stories from the field. Plans are also underway to house an experts database, which will serve as a technical and networking vehicle for national and global gender and HIV/AIDS specialists.
You can visit the new website by clicking here