To mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November and the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, UNAIDS published Women living with HIV speak out against violence, a collection of powerful essays written by women living with and affected by HIV.
Intimate partner violence affects one in three women globally and has been shown to increase the risk of acquiring HIV, while research shows that preventing such violence can reduce HIV incidence by 12%. In some settings, young women who have experienced intimate partner violence are 50% more likely to acquire HIV than women who have not. As reported in the publication, women living with HIV also face institutional violence, including forced sterilization and forced abortion as well as denial of health services.
Sabine Böhlke-Möller, Ambassador of Namibia to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and Luiz Loures, UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director, jointly launched the publication. Depicting women’s experiences of violence and proposing action to end the AIDS epidemic and violence against women, the publication also highlights the imperative of a united and multisectoral response to eliminating violence against women and ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.
