WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
ORGANISATION MONDIALE DE LA SANTE
REGIONAL OFFICE FOR THE WESTERN PACIFIC BUREAU REGIONAL DU PACIFIQUE OCCIDENTAL
REGIONAL COMMITTEE Fifty-seventh session Auckland, New Zealand 18-22 September 2006 Agenda item 16
WPRfRC57INGO/9
21 September 2006 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
STATEMENT BY FAYE GARDINER RGON REPRESENTATIVE, INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN (BPW INTERNATIONAL» Mr. Chairman, Your Excellencies and Distinguished Delegates: The International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW International) is a world wide organization of business and professional women who advocate to protect and promote interest of women in their business and profession and work to develop the professional and leadership potential for women at all levels. To this end, we maintain a consultative status to the United National Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC) since 1947 and have representatives for various United Nations' agencies, including the WHO in Geneva. BPW International commends the commitment of the WHO, UNAIDS and other international bodies in the battle against the scourge ofHN/AlDS and strongly support the concept of universal access to prevention, treatment and care by 2010. We also appreciate the progress achieved through the 3 by 5 Initiative, and acknowledge your determination to make universal access a reality in the Western Pacifi Region. However, we fear that global efforts to curb the spread of HIVIAIDS are failing because the world has not recognized that it is a female epidemic. Women are biologically twice as likely to become infected with HIV during sex as they are exposed to a larger dose of virus, and are more prone to be cajoled or forced into sex because of their lack of social power. The 2004 United Nations Global Report on AIDS pandemic said 39.4 million people were living with HIC, up from 36.6 million 2 years ago. Over 50% of AIDS sufferers are women, and 50% of all new infections are among young people aged 15-24 years. Of these, almost two thirds are girls. So figures
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of 600 new cases per day quoted by the Acting Regional Thrector, Dr Richard Nesbit, mean that over 300 women are diagnosed with HIVIAIDS daily in the Western Pacific Region alone. Women and girls face a range of HIV -related risk factors and vulnerabilities that men and boys do not-many of which are embedded in the social relations and economic realities of their societies. The UNICEF task force's July 2004 report, Facing the Future Together, found a clear link between gender discrimination and the disproportionate impact ofHIVI AIDS on women and girls in six areas, including prevention programmes, education, violence, women's property and inheritance rights, home and community-based care giving and access to care and treatment. Women and girls are guaranteed to the right to health, education and protection from violence, exploitation and discrimination by the lJN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. When poverty, unequal power relations and lack of services and information increase their risk of HIVI AIDS, these rights are severely undermined and strategies to prevent and treat HIVI AIDS are rendered ineffective. BPW International believes that combating gender inequality is crucial in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We fervently encourage Member States of the World Health Organization Western Pacific Region to take account of the limiting effect of gender disadvantage and discrimination on HIVI AIDS prograrmnes and seek to develop ways to embed equality and women's empowerment within the proposed strategies and health interventions for universal access. The issue of the feminization of the HIV/AIDS pandemic must be addressed if the goal·ofuniversal access by 2010 is to be achieved. Thank you for your attention.