The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund have recently released a report, Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis, which documents the important but little known impact of the AIDS epidemic on women and girls. Accounting for nearly half of the total forty million people living with the disease, women know less than men about the transmission and prevention of the disease, a trend made worse because of the discrimination and violence they face. The report addresses the triple threat of gender inequality, poverty, and HIV/AIDS and serves as a call to action to advocates, policy makers and women to confront this problem.
Specifically, the report includes analyses on the prevention, treatment, caregiving, education, violence, and womens rights involved in the epidemic and outlines steps that need to be taken to lessen this crisis among women.
Compiled from: Women and Aids: Confronting the Crisis, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNIFEM, 2004 (PDF, 76 pages)