Ethiopian girls are up to four times more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS than boys, the United Nations said on Monday – International Womens Day.
Marking this years theme, Gender and HIV/AIDS, the UN warned that young girls aged between 15 and 24 were bearing the brunt of the pandemic crippling the country. – Young girls and women are the most affected and infected, Björn Ljungqvist, the head of the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) in Ethiopia, told IRIN.
In Ethiopia, HIV has infected as many as 3 million people, most of them women, and orphaned a million children. The crisis has prompted prominent women in the country to establish a National Coalition of Women to combat the virus.
Among key figures in the coalition are Azeb Mesfin, who is the wife of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and Education Minister Genet Zewdie. The group aims to break social taboos by talking openly about sex, with its members touring rural areas to spread the message and campaign for women’s rights.
– Women, especially girls, are biologically more susceptible to HIV infection than men, said Monique Rakotomalala, the head of UN Population Fund. – In addition, the social impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls is greater, she said at the UN Conference Centre in the capital, Addis Ababa.
– They are the ones who assume the burden of care when family members are affected by the disease, putting severe constraints on their access to education, employment, food cultivation and often treatment,” she noted.
Negartu Mereke, the head of the governments anti-AIDS task force, the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office, said women must be targeted in the effort to overcome the virus. – We recognise the situation of women in Ethiopia, and are committed to act in order to change the gloomy picture of womens lives in the country, he said on Monday.
He noted that the government was now focusing on “empowering” women and girls to protect themselves through safe sex and access to condoms. But even so, access in Ethiopia is woefully poor: just 8 percent of women have access to condoms country-wide, according to a UN study.
On Saturday, the government pledged in a statement marking International Womens Day to place women at the heart of the countrys development strategy.
It said women must form the backbone of the countrys development, noting that more needed to be done to end discrimination. It warned that archaic social and cultural factors like polygamy and sexual violence were increasing the vulnerability of the nations women.
The statement said important progress was being made, citing the National Policy on Women as a vital piece of legislation designed to improve the lot of women.
– It must be emphasised that ensuring the equality of women can only be attained mainly by the struggle of the women themselves, it added.
Meaza Ashenafi, the head of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association, said the 1993 legislation was comprehensive, but needed updating and implementation was poor. – It is not enough just to have good policies – they need it to be implemented. It is a broad, comprehensive framework, but needs to be put into practice, she told IRIN
She added that key areas like womens access to land and preventing harmful traditional practices like female genital mutilation remained inadequately addressed. – There are efforts, but there is not an aggressive programme of public education to raise awareness at the macro-level or womens participation in decision making, she noted.
Massive obstacles also persist in areas like health and education, says UNICEF. In Ethiopia, UNICEF says, just 8 percent of women participate in national government, compared with a 25 percent in Rwanda and 30 percent in South Africa.
Aid organisations say access to education lies at the heart of development. Currently, one-fifth more boys in Ethiopia went to school than girls, UNICEF added in its latest State of the Worlds Children report.
But the Ethiopian government insists that it is making rapid progress towards closing the educational gender gap, aiming to have equal numbers of boys and girls at school by 2005 and, under the Millennium Development Goals, universal education by 2015.
According to the education minister, the government is increasing enrolment of girls by 6 percent each year, and will meet its targets.
Kilde: FN-bureauet IRINnews
