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UN envoy pitches for women's rights over AIDS
PANA (Kenya), 5 August, 2002 Reposted courtesy of GENDER-AIDS ([email protected])
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The HIV/AIDS pandemic has become a woman's disease that will require tremendous efforts from African governments in order to see a breakthrough, UN special envoy for AIDS, Stephen Lewis said on Monday (5 August 2002). He said that gender inequality had become lethal because women's rights to equality, respect and derogatory sexual advances from men have been ignored for several years.
"Gender inequality is fatal and there should be a major campaign across the continent to fight it," he told a news conference in Nairobi, where he commended the recently formed National AIDS Control Council (NACC) for its model of combating HIV in Kenya.
Lewis dismissed as false recent reports that HIV/AIDS prevalence had gone down in the country, saying the reverse is the case. "Saturation point has not been reached in East Africa and the prevalence rates are still going up. The scourge is still in its infancy stage and it is a scaring fact that up to 70 million people could die from AIDS," he said.
The above revelations were reached at the World AIDS Conference in Barcelona, in which the Envoy was a participant. He bemoaned the limited availability of anti-retroviral drugs to extend the lives of people living with the incurable disease.
He also decried the continued stigma still attached to the disease, despite efforts by various stakeholders to stem it.
Margaret Gachara, NACC Director, called on the relevant stakeholders to pay more attention to women's need to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. She lamented the lack of availability of the female condom and its high costs, saying that the majority of women were not even aware of its existence.
"Women are the centrepiece of the pandemic. They bear the heaviest burden as they have to provide home care to AIDS patients as well as care for themselves," she said.
Out of the estimated 26 million people aged 15-49 years living with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, 15 million are women.
[Note: The final paragraph has been deleted due to inaccuracies - HDN Moderator |
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PhotoŠJoanne Bloch/Beyond Awareness Campaign
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