Discours - ONUSIDA

"AIDS and gender equality: a time for new paradigms" - Speech by Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director - Opening of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 53rd Session, 2 March 2009

02 mars 2009

It troubles me greatly to say that caring societies are in recession. We are bombarded with news and reports of increasingly terrible acts perpetuated on women. In South Africa according the Medical Research Council of Cape Town University, one in four women report being abused by an intimate partner – and every six hours a woman is killed. In the UK according to the British Crime Survey, a reported 80,000 women suffer rape every year2. Research from a number of countries confirms what seems common sense: there is a strong relationship between intimate partner violence and HIV status.