Commonwealth event debates why AIDS wears "the face of a woman"

16 June 2007, IPS - The issue of women continuing to be at higher risk of HIV infection than men has received considerable attention at a gathering of women's affairs ministers from Commonwealth countries underway in Uganda's capital, Kampala.

Of the 53 Commonwealth member states, 38 are represented at the '8th Triennial Commonwealth Women's Affairs Ministers Meeting' (8WAMM), being held under the theme 'Financing Gender Equality for Development and Democracy'. The three-day event ends Thursday.

United Nations statistics indicate that women and girls in Commonwealth countries make up a third of all HIV infections. In addition, women between the ages of 15 and 24 in sub-Saharan Africa -- the region most prominently represented in the Commonwealth -- are two and a half times more likely to be infected than men of the same age.

Sub-Saharan Africa is also the region worst affected by HIV/AIDS globally. Although this part of the world is home is to about 10 percent of the world's population, it houses over 60 percent of all people living with HIV/AIDS.

Delegates to the Kampala meeting say women's limited power to negotiate safe sex is one of the greatest obstacles to reducing their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.

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