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| Photo of UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura Photo Provided/Erasmus Williams |
Basseterre, St. Kitts (March 08, 2004): During his International Women’s Day Message, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura drew the link between the vulnerability of women and their susceptibility to HIV/AIDS.
After stating that this year’s mobilizing theme for the 2004-2005 World AIDS Campaign will focus on women, Mr. Matsuura called on all United Nations partners “to renew the commitments made in Beijing in 1995 to the empowerment of women.”
Alarming statistics quoted included a rise in the percentage of women among adults infected by HIV/AIDS. In 1997, women constituted 41 percent of HIV-infected adults. Four years later there was an increase to 49.8 percent and in 2003 it was at 50 percent.
Mr. Matsuura stated the case for societal concern by noting that: “as infection rates increase among women, who are the mainstay of families and communities, the threat of societal collapse also increases.
He further reasoned that women’s acute social vulnerability is the primary cause of their becoming infected. He said: “women’s lack of rights and power with respect to household income, property, life choices and even their own bodies is facilitating the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS.
As a means of improving the situation the Director-General suggested “it is necessary, therefore, to take account of the many socio-cultural dimensions of women’s vulnerability, and place these at the heart of our policies and actions. In highlighting prevention education as UNESCO’s field of action, he added that “in many of the hardest-hit countries, educated women have been at the forefront of community mobilization against HIV/AIDS.
Concluding, Mr. Matsuura noted that HIV/AIDS “by its impact on women, ... aggravates inequality and undermines progress towards universal human rights.” He then called for a united effort in the struggle against HIV/AIDS to “build a world of human dignity for both men and women.”
