The 24th Summit of the African Union and related events reaffirmed that Africa is committed and will remain committed to women’s empowerment and to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030. The Summit took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 23 to 31 January 2015 under 2015 annual African Union theme of “Women empowerment and development towards Africa’s Agenda 2063”.

The importance of ending AIDS was particularly articulated during the gender pre-summit meeting, at which the participants noted that member states should ensure that ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 is part of Agenda 2063 and that it has an inclusive human rights approach that leaves no one behind, including children, adolescents, women of child-bearing age and women and girls in conflict and post-conflict settings.

The participants at the pre-summit meeting also noted that member states should ensure that the sexual and reproductive health and rights of African women are implemented without renegotiation of their content.

The Summit adopted Agenda 2063, the African Union vision of the next 50 years, and endorsed the formation of the African Group of Negotiators on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the single negotiating body acting on behalf of the continent. 

Quotes

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. 

Quotes

25 November 2014

Michel Sidibé
Executive Director of UNAIDS
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

As we unite against gender-based violence, I dedicate this message to every woman and every child who has experienced violence.

One in three women experience some form of gender-based violence in their lives—and around 120 million girls are sexually assaulted or raped before they reach the age of 20.

Violence often exists in near total impunity hidden behind a notion of cultural values.

The link between violence and HIV is irrefutable.

For women living with HIV, violence in the form of forced sterilization is a fundamental human rights violation.

I commend the decision of the Namibian Supreme Court, which upheld the earlier verdict that the rights of three women living with HIV had been violated when they were forcibly sterilized.

We can never be silent. We can never be neutral. We can never tolerate violence against women and girls.

To end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 we must eliminate all forms of violence against women.