Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 3/8/2004

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U N I T E D N A T I O N S

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Integrated Regional Information Network

CONTENT:

1 - GLOBAL: International Women’s Day - Sexual Violence and HIV/AIDS

vulnerability

2 - LESOTHO: Govt moves to tackle AIDS pandemic

1 - GLOBAL: International Women’s Day - Sexual Violence and HIV/AIDS

vulnerability

NAIROBI, 8 March (PLUSNEWS) - Major organisations worldwide are using

International Women’s Day 2004 to expose the proliferation of sexual

violence against women, and the increasing numbers of women infected by

HIV/AIDS, both trends directly aggravated by continuing gender inequality.

The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was

the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a

fundamental human right. Since then, International Women's Day has assumed

a global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike.

International Women's Day is used as a time to reflect on progress made,

to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by

ordinary women who have played extraordinary roles in the history of

women's rights.

Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of the massive 1995 Fourth World

Conference of Women in Beijing, which the UN Women's Development Fund,

UNIFEM, identifies as the occasion on which the global women’s movement

was mobilised by engaging in strategic alliances and garnering collective

power. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of women’s networks

across the world, but with continuing gender inequality, a critical gap

between proclamations and real change remains.

This year, major international organisations and UN agencies all agree

that the central and urgent issues facing women are those of sexual

violence and HIV/AIDS. The international NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres

have issued a briefing paper cataloging the use of sexual violence as a

weapon of war in numerous countries from Bosnia to Rwanda. MSF say ‘Enough

is enough’ and that the culture of impunity around rape and sexual

violence must end.

London-based Amnesty International (AI) are using the day to launch a

global campaign to Stop Violence Against Women against what they call,

‘this outrageous scandal.’ Irene Khan, Secretary General of AI said in

her statement, " From the battlefield to the bedroom, women are at risk.

They are the first to feel the lack of poor social services, the first to

be denied education and health care. The effects of economic globalization

are leaving more and more women trapped in poverty on the margins of

society. Poverty leaves women more exposed to violence, less able to

escape it. It severely restricts women's ability to organize and fight for

change. In this, as in so many other ways, governments are failing to

address the real 'terror' of our world that millions of women face every

day. "

The International Commission of the Red Cross are using the day to launch

a new operational manual- Addressing the Needs of Women Affected by Armed

Conflict: An ICRC Guidance Document. Their emphasis is that the plight of

women can be improved if international humanitarian law is respected. The

challenge lies in putting existing law into practice.

Statements from various United Nations agencies today also highlight

women’s vulnerability to violence as part of the evident gender

inequality, but UNIFEM, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the World

Health Organisation (WHO) specifically identify the increased risk of

women world-wide to HIV/AIDS as a critical concern. According to the WHO

statement ‘women now account for almost 50% of HIV/AIDS cases worldwide, a

percentage that has grown remorselessly since the beginning of the

epidemic 20 years ago’. Carol Bellamy, UNICEF’s executive director claims

that education and inequality are directly linked, " Girls denied an

education are more vulnerable to hunger, violence, abuse, exploitation and

trafficking. They are more likely to die in childbirth and are at greater

risk of HIV/AIDS. "

Statistics available today, and reported by all agencies, on sexual abuse,

prevalence of women affected by HIV/AIDS, lack of access to education and

sexual inequality in the workplace indicate that the gap between

aspirations of the 1945 UN Charter and reality remains considerable.

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