Working for Women Worldwide - Embassy of the United States

Protecting Women and Girls
From HIV/AIDS
Helping women and girls build lives free of the
shadow of HIV/AIDS is a U.S. government priority,
and America is using a variety of strategies in more
than 100 countries.
Women and girls disproportionately bear the
burden of HIV/AIDS, especially in the countries
hardest hit by the epidemic. In sub-Saharan Africa,
they account for about 57 percent of infections. In some
of the worst-affected countries in Southern Africa, as
many as 20 percent of girls between the ages of 15 and
19 are infected, compared with 5 percent of boys the
same age. In most developing nations, the infection
rate of women is growing at a faster pace than that of
men.
Practices that increase women and girls’ vulnerability
to HIV infection include older men having sex
with young women and girls; sexual exploitation of
women and children through rape, domestic violence,
prostitution, and sex trafficking; social norms that
accept and encourage multiple partners for men; and
women’s lack of economic power, social status, and
legal rights.
Women and girls bear the brunt of the social
impact of the epidemic. Women are primary caretakers
in families and communities, tending to the sick
and to children orphaned by the disease. They are the
most likely to lose jobs, income, and schooling to fulfill
family and community obligations.
Women are major contributors to the agricultural
workforce. They often feed their families and add to
their families’ meager income. When a woman’s health
deteriorates, or when she must provide care to other
family and community members, essential community
needs such as food security suffer.
The United States committed almost $1.2 billion
in bilateral assistance for the control of HIV/AIDS in
2003 alone. Through the President’s Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief, created in 2003, the United States
has committed $15 billion over five years to fight the
AIDS pandemic. The Emergency Plan provides prevention,
treatment, and care for those infected with or
affected by HIV/AIDS in more than 100 nations,
with a special focus on 15 of the hardest hit countries in
Africa, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia.
The United States has donated $20 million for
AIDS relief in India under the President’s Emergency
Plan. Some of this funding supported the recent opening
in Tamil Nadu of India’s first family counseling
center for HIV/AIDS patients. It provides clients and
their families with pre- and post-test counseling and
help with prevention of virus transmission, disease
progression, treatment options, health management,
and nutrition.
The U.S. government is reviewing the first data
on the numbers of people treated under the Emergency
Plan and verifying initial numbers, which are
very encouraging. They indicate that the United
States is on track to meet President Bush’s expectations
to treat more than 200,000 people in the 15 focus
nations by June 2005, the end of the first year of full
implementation of the plan’s treatment programs.
The Bush administration also recently
announced $100 million in new grants for abstinencefocused
programs in these 15 key countries. These
grants, overseen by USAID, will mobilize faith-based
and community-based organizations to help adolescents
and young adults avoid behaviors that put them
at increased risk for HIV/AIDS infection. The
President’s Emergency Plan strives to strengthen the
support systems that can intervene to help women and
children. It works on locally designed behavior-change
strategies, with direct tailored messages to appropriate
groups, parents, and others who can help educate girls
about what they need to do. The specific strategies in
the plan that address gender issues related to the
HIV/AIDS pandemic include:
* Helping communities confront cultural norms
and practices that increase the vulnerability of
women to HIV, such as multiple sexual partners
and cross-generational and transactional sex;
* Addressing gender-based violence and the sexual
coercion and exploitation of women and girls,
often by targeting interventions and highly successful
relationship programs to men and boys;
* Providing technical assistance and training to
build palliative-care capacity, thus relieving the
burden on women as the primary home-based
caregivers;
* Strengthening the ability of families and communities
to care for orphans and vulnerable children;
and
* Ensuring the importance of women’s inheritance
rights.
The U.S. government provides significant
resources to combat HIV/AIDS through the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, a
partnership established in 2001 among governments,
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