Emihle Dlamini (not her real name) lost both her parents to AIDS-related illnesses when she was young, so she was raised by her grandmother. For years, Ms Dlamini didn’t know that she was born with HIV. She was given medicine, but was told it was for tuberculosis. South Africa had approximately 260 000 children living with HIV in 2018. Around one third lived in the KwaZulu-Natal province that Ms Dlamini lives in.

One day, Ms Dlamini attended a lesson at school run by the Community Care Project, where she learned about HIV and was offered an HIV test. The result came as a shock, “I was in total disbelief. I knew that I was not sexually active, but my family had never told me that I was HIV-positive,” she said.

Ms Dlamini experienced feelings of anger, confusion and sadness. “Why did my family not tell me? On many occasions, I stopped taking my “tuberculosis” treatment because I wondered why I was taking it for so many years,” she said.

Many people do not disclose their HIV status out of fear of the stigma and discrimination that, despite improvement, remains a real barrier to people seeking access to health services. Particularly affected are young women seeking protection from sexually transmitted infections, as well as HIV diagnosis and treatment. Every day in South Africa, 200 adolescent girls and young women aged 15–24 years are newly infected with HIV.

The Community Care Project has shown the importance of equal and free access to primary and secondary education as a gateway to other social and health services. Almost 163 000 children (0–14 years) living with HIV in South Africa were receiving antiretroviral therapy in 2018, but many are still missing out: an estimated 66 000 children did not even know their HIV-positive status.

The project is accustomed to breaking the silence surrounding HIV as well as managing and reducing its effects. Founded in 1999, it is a faith-based organization from KwaZulu-Natal that helps communities and families manage HIV and respond to stigma and discrimination. Since 2007, it has partnered with secondary schools to run awareness programmes and provide services that help schools and pupils understand and demystify HIV. It also provides care for orphans and other vulnerable children and their families.

The Community Care Project provided Ms Dlamini and her grandmother with counselling by an auxiliary social worker, to help them come to terms with the HIV diagnosis and to ensure that Ms Dlamini follows a sustained treatment programme. Ms Dlamini says she is now coping much better with her situation emotionally and mentally. She has a better understanding of HIV and sexual and reproductive health and is adhering to her medication. She feels that she can have a bright future.

“The Community Care Project taught me positive life skills. I learned how to cope with my HIV status, deal with stigma and help others to do the same,” she says. “One day I would like to be a motivational speaker and empower my peers at school with HIV information and how to live without judgement.”

When Tahmina Khaidarova was married it was in accordance with her family’s cultural traditions—her parents chose her cousin to be her husband. She rarely saw her husband, who worked in another country, returning home to Tajikistan only for short visits once a year. When her little daughter fell seriously ill and died, she hoped to get pregnant again to ease the pain of her loss. During a medical examination, she was diagnosed with HIV. Soon her husband died of an AIDS-related illness.

Today, Ms Khaidarova is the Director of the Tajikistan Network of Women Living with HIV (TNW Plus), which educates women on HIV, protects their rights and breaks the vicious cycle of stigma against women living with HIV. She overcame her self-stigma and became a leader in fighting for the rights of women living with HIV in Tajikistan.

Ms Khaidarova explained that women who are aware of the risk of contracting HIV from their migrant husbands often can’t talk to them about using a condom. “I understand how serious the problem is, but I cannot ask my husband to use a condom, he will not understand,” one woman told Ms Khaidarova.

Women living with HIV in Tajikistan tell stories of discrimination. They can be driven from their home by their husband’s relatives and may be prevented from seeking medical services, including antiretroviral therapy and treatment for tuberculosis. They are also often subjected to domestic violence, with their husbands prohibiting their wives from seeking treatment or being told to leave their home, along with their children. After their husband’s death, they can endure violence and abuse by their husband’s family, especially in rural areas.

When women living with HIV seek help, they can face a new challenge—stigma and discrimination from health-care workers. Many women are told that they cannot have children in the future, or that they should only marry a man living with HIV or that they should not marry and have sex.

“Stigma and discrimination against women living with HIV can have devastating consequences. It can stop them accessing the health services they need, tear families apart and profoundly affect their ability to live a normal life,” said Ms Khaidarova. “Stigma and discrimination must be stopped, and stopped now!”

The need to counter stigma and discrimination against women in general and against women living with HIV has been recognized by the government. Women were included as one of the priorities in the national development strategy. The new national AIDS programme for 2021–2025 includes a separate block on human rights and reducing stigma and discrimination against women living with HIV.

To bring attention to the issue of HIV-related discrimination in the family, in society and, too often, in medical settings, Ms Khaidarova took part in the #InSpiteOff social media campaign. Featuring the right of women living with HIV in eastern Europe and central Asia to live with dignity and respect, the #InSpiteOf campaign featured Instagram stories showing different aspects of women living with HIV and challenged the stereotypes and myths that surround the virus.

A common feature of all the women featured in the campaign is that they were supported at a critical time in their lives by their loved ones, women’s organizations or communities and are now not only living with HIV and challenging society’s stereotypes, but helping others.

“I told my story in order to help those women who face the same challenges today. I strongly believe that we all together can break the vicious cycle of stigma against women living with HIV in Tajikistan. We have to cope with our own fear in order to fight stigma and discrimination in society,” said Ms Khaidarova.

GENEVA, 1 March 2020—On Zero Discrimination Day, which is commemorated every year on 1 March, UNAIDS is calling for an end to discrimination against women and girls and for equal rights, opportunities and treatment.

Despite progress in some areas, in 2020 coercive practices, discriminatory legislation and gender-based violence are just some of the human rights violations that are continuing to have a disproportionate impact on the lives of women and girls around the world. UNAIDS is highlighting areas where change is urgently needed: equal participation in political life; human rights and laws that empower; economic justice—equal pay for equal work; ending gender-based violence; provide health care without stigma or barriers; equal and free access to primary and secondary education; and climate justice.

“Feminism, human rights and zero discrimination are values shared across the world,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “They express our humanity, our recognition that we share a vision for a better future, and they are central to ending AIDS.”

Globally, at least one in three women and girls have experienced violence in their lives, with adolescent girls experiencing higher rates of intimate partner violence than adult women overall. This figure hides deep disparities, with more than 50% of women in some countries reporting violence just in the past 12 months.

Although some countries have made progress towards greater gender equality, discrimination against women and girls still exists everywhere. We know that without equal opportunities early on, without access to education, inequality will persist. Yet, nearly one in three adolescent girls aged between 10 and 19 years from the poorest households globally has never been to school.  

Inequalities, discrimination and violence continue to be enabled within the very structures of society. In many countries, laws that discriminate against women and girls remain in force—in areas of work, property, criminal law and sexual and reproductive health and rights, among others.

More than 80 countries criminalize some aspect of sex work, and women are disproportionately affected by laws that criminalize drug use. Meanwhile, laws that uphold women’s basic rights and protect them against harm and unequal treatment are far from the norm. For example, only 88 out of 190 countries have laws regarding equal pay for work of equal value for men and women. Intersecting with other forms of discrimination, on income, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity, these rights violations disproportionately harm women and girls.

Numerous government commitments to end violence and discrimination against women and girls have been made over the years, yet hundreds of millions of women and girls continue to be subjected to discrimination, abuse and violence, at huge cost to themselves and to their families, communities, societies and economic development.

“We need to transform our societies so that no one is second class,” said Ms Byanyima. “We must end gender-based violence, inequality and insecurity, and ensure that women and girls have equal access to education, health, public life and employment.”

For this transformation, we need women in roles of leadership, at the community level as well as nationally, regionally and globally. Representation of women’s interests is central to changing structural inequalities. Yet, in 2019, less than a quarter of parliamentarians were women.

Compounding these inequalities are the burdens of unpaid care and domestic work, unequal property and inheritance rights and limited financial autonomy. It is estimated that women carry out three quarters of care work in the household—work that is still not given recognition for its importance in society and the economy and remains unpaid.

Ensuring that women’s rights are protected, ending discrimination against women and girls and removing discriminatory laws will be central to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and ensuing equity and equality for all.

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

As the Executive Director of UNAIDS, I lead the work of the United Nations to tackle AIDS. I’m also someone who has lost family members to AIDS. This is personal.

Both my own family experience and our collective experience at the United Nations have highlighted the same key lesson: the struggle to beat AIDS is inseparable from the struggle for women’s rights and from the struggle against all forms of discrimination.

AIDS can be beaten, but it will only be beaten if we take on the social and economic injustices that perpetuate it and spur more scientific innovations to address the real needs of women and girls and people living with and vulnerable to HIV.

Worldwide, AIDS remains the biggest killer of women aged 15–49 years. To end AIDS by 2030, we must end gender-based violence, inequality and insecurity and we must ensure that women and girls have equal access to education, health and employment.

We need to transform our societies so that no one is second class and everyone’s human rights are respected. AIDS cannot be beaten while marginalized communities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, people who inject drugs and sex workers, live in fear of the state or of socially sanctioned violence and abuse.

Beating AIDS depends on tackling all forms of discrimination.

I want to thank all the brave and determined social justice movements who are the true leaders in this work.

I salute you.

Feminism, human rights and zero discrimination are values deeply rooted across the world: they express our humanity, our recognition that I am because you are. And they are central to the struggle to beat AIDS.

Let us beat AIDS. It can be done.

Winnie Byanyima

Executive Director of UNAIDS

Gains have been made against HIV-related stigma and discrimination, but discriminatory attitudes remain extremely high in far too many countries. Discrimination can manifest in criminal laws that give license to discrimination, aggressive law enforcement, harassment and violence, pushing key populations to the margins of society and denying them access to basic health and social services, including HIV services.

Surveys and studies across regions show that large percentages of key populations are victims of physical and sexual violence: among 36 countries with recently available data, more than half of sex workers in eight countries reported experiencing physical violence, and in two countries, at least half reported experiencing sexual violence.

In four of 17 countries with recently available data, more than one in five gay men and other men who have sex with men reported experiencing sexual violence.

Charlot Jeudy, the President of Haiti’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community organization Kouraj, was found dead at his home in November. Investigations into the circumstances of his death are ongoing. UNAIDS remembers Mr Jeudy as a fearless campaigner for human rights.

In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in 2010, the people of Haiti worked to overcome the loss of homes, businesses, public services and more than 100 000 lives. But amid the shared trauma and determination, a harmful narrative emerged.

Some people began to blame the masisi—a derogatory Haitian Creole term for gay men. They thought that the disaster was a divine punishment for the sins of the LGBT community. Members of sexual and gender minorities found themselves subject to intensified exclusion and abuse. Human rights organizations documented cases of LGBT people being denied access to emergency housing, food, health care and work. There were also reports of physical assaults and homophobic rape.

Rather than accept the situation, Charlot Jeudy decided to act. He created Kouraj, which means courage in Haitian Creole. In the struggle for equal rights, Kouraj emphasized the importance of community empowerment and aimed to inspire pride and confidence among LGBT people.

“We wish to put forward an alternative discourse on homosexuality in Haiti because for too long only homophobes have discussed our reality and proposed their own interpretation,” Mr Jeudy said in 2011.

Over the next eight years, Kouraj evolved to offer community training, legal and psychosocial services and sexual health education. It became one of Haiti’s leading advocates for ending discrimination against LGBT people and has played a key role in resisting the introduction of discriminatory laws.

The organization was aptly named. Its members have contended with verbal abuse and death threats. Three years ago, it had to cancel a festival to celebrate the Afro-Caribbean LGBT community after numerous threats of violence. According to friends, Mr Jeudy resisted their pleas to leave the country at the time. In response to a spike in reports of anti-LGBT street violence last year, he worked with the United Nations on a project to promote tolerance and equal rights.

John Waters, Programme Manager of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, paid tribute to Mr Jeudy’s leadership.

"I have watched Charlot Jeudy grow from a young, impatient and impassioned activist into a thoughtful, strategic leader, capable of using human rights not as a sword, but as a shield,” said Mr Waters. “He won over the hearts and minds of others to create allies. Mr Jeudy has left a huge gap in human rights work in the Caribbean. He raised the bar for those who must now follow in his footsteps.”

Mr Jeudy was also an active civil society representative on the body that oversees the management of Haiti’s response to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

“Under Charlot Jeudy’s leadership, Kouraj was a model partner,” said Fritz Moise, Executive Director of the Foundation for Reproductive Health and Family Education. “His death is a big loss for the response to HIV in Haiti.”

UNAIDS has added its voice to the expressions of grief and also paid tribute to the leadership of Mr Jeudy.

“Charlot Jeudy exemplified the power of communities to be the voice for the voiceless and to make meaningful change in people’s lives,” said UNAIDS Country Director for Haiti, Mame Awa Faye. “This World AIDS Day we celebrated the power of communities to make a difference. Mr Jeudy did just that.”