Empowering women is critical to ending the AIDS epidemic
UNAIDS, Geneva, 8 March 2015—As we celebrate International Women’s Day, world leaders and civil society are gathering in New York to take part in the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. There, they will review the progress made since the adoption 20 years ago of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which set ambitious targets designed to improve the lives of women around the world.
The Platform for Action strived to make sure that women and girls could exercise their freedom and realize their rights to live free from violence, go to school, make decisions and have unrestricted access to quality health care, including to sexual and reproductive health-care services.
In the response to HIV, there have been major advances over the past 20 years and new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths are continuing to decline. However, in reducing new infections this success has not been shared equally. (UNAIDS Press statement)
Read more also on the fifty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 9 to 20 March 2015. Representatives of Member States , UN entities, and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from all regions of the world attend the session.