Africa-Women’s Regional Consultation-Gender & HIV/AIDS
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: May 1, 2006
Africa: The Johannesburg Position on HIV/AIDS and Women’s and Girls’
Rights
2006-04-26
“We stress with deep concern that in spite of the various commitments to
action, the provision of resources and the promotion and protection of the human
rights of African women and girls, given the devastating scale and impact of the
HIV and AIDS pandemic on African women and girls, there is need for renewed
urgent actions, at all levels and in all sectors, to promote and protect the
human rights of African women and girls.”
The Johannesburg Position on
HIV/AIDS and Women’s and Girls’ Rights in Africa
April 2006
We,
African women including HIV positive women, women’s rights activists, feminists,
scholars, professionals, community workers and policy makers from the African
continent participating in the African Women’s Regional Consultation on Women’s
and Rights and HIV/AIDS in Africa, in Johannesburg, South Africa, April 6-7,
2006 are:
Deeply concerned that despite various interventions aimed at
prevention, care, support and treatment of HIV and AIDS, the global pandemic has
had and continues to have a devastating impact on the lives of African women and
girls;
Further concerned that in spite of the disproportionate impact of
the pandemic on women and girls, governments are yet to recognise the centrality
of promoting and protecting women’s and girls’ human rights in all HIV and AIDS
interventions;
Mindful of the fact that the assault on women’s human
rights continues through various forms of violence against women and girls,
including, but not limited to: rape, marital rape, domestic violence,
trafficking, harmful customary and traditional practices, violence and torture
during conflict, forced marriages and early marriages. These forms of violence
take place: within homes, at work, in schools, in clinics and hospitals, at
police stations and many other places and they are continuing and increasing at
an alarming rate fuelling HIV infections amongst women and
girls;
Recognising that violence against women and girls is a key driver
of increased risk and vulnerability to HIV infection among African women and
girls;
Aware that unequal power relations between women and men result in
the inability of many African women and girls to negotiate safe and pleasurable
sex;
Acknowledging that women living in militarised communities and
zones of armed conflict face peculiar and heightened risks of HIV infection as a
result of violence , sexual crimes and torture perpetrated against women and
girls, in war and emergency situations or as refugees and internally displaced
persons, with extremely limited protection of their human rights;
Further acknowledging that women’s: low socio-economic status, lack of
access to and control over empowering and emancipating resources such as land
and property increases women’s and girls’ exposure to many dehumanising cultural
norms, beliefs and practices that undermine women’s and girls’ emotional,
spiritual and psychological well being, choices and agency, bodily integrity and
self esteem and increase their vulnerability to HIV infection;
Noting
with grave concern, that little investment has been made in securing women’s and
girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights in the context of a pandemic
that robs many women of their choices related to childbearing and rearing, and
the enjoyment of their full sexual rights;
Concerned that diminishing
investments at the national and international level in the education of women
and girls has an adverse effect on the ability of women and girls to access HIV
and AIDS information, education and services that are critical for: the
prevention of new infections, re-infections, for treatment and care knowledge
and protection of women’s and girls’ human rights;
Further concerned
that women and girls, and in particular; HIV positive women, women living with
AIDS and orphaned girls, have been forced to become the backbone of the
community, family based care and nursing systems; with limited knowledge and
skills, without resources, remuneration or other forms of state support, further
adding to their already disproportionate burden of care and support for PLWHA,
in contexts of extreme poverty and inadequate state health services;
Dismayed that, notwithstanding the firm commitment to the indivisibility
and interrelatedness of all human rights, and the crisis of HIV/AIDS in Africa,
women’s and girls’ human rights are ignored by international financial and trade
institutions-WTO, IMF, World Bank. The aforementioned institutions urge African
governments to withdraw investment from health; to privatise basic services such
as health and to prioritise debt repayments in the face of two major pandemics
in the continent-HIV/AIDS and violence against women. These multilateral donors
are yet to commit significant resources to institutionalise women’s rights as
central pillars for halting the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa.
Mindful of
the fact that both the Abuja Declaration on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other
Related Infectious Diseases of 2001 and the UNGASS Declaration of Commitment on
HIV/AIDS of 2001 are under review in 2006, presenting clear opportunities for
heads of state and government to promote and protect African women’s and girls’
rights in order to mitigate the impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic on women and
girls, and to halt the pandemic in Africa by taking action to:
Reaffirm
commitments heads of state and government have made through regional and
international agreements on HIV&AIDS, and women’s human rights, in
particular, the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW) (1979); Vienna Declaration on Human Rights (1993); International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD Plan of Action (1994); Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), All the African Regional Conferences
on Women; The Millennium Declaration (2000); Protocol to the African Charter on
the Rights of Women in Africa (2003); Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in
Africa (2004) amongst others;
We acknowledge that limited progress has
been made in the response to AIDS at global and national levels in respect of
raising resources and extending access to services;
We Stress with deep
concern that in spite of the various commitments to action, the provision of
resources and the promotion and protection of the human rights of African women
and girls, given the devastating scale and impact of the HIV and AIDS pandemic
on African women and girls, there is need for renewed urgent actions, at all
levels and in all sectors, to promote and protect the human rights of African
women and girls.
We note with urgency that there is a critical need to
move from rhetoric to action if we are to see a major change in the spread of
the HIV and AIDS pandemic and its increasing and alarming feminisation.
We therefore urge all African heads of state and government and other
relevant stakeholders to ensure the following:
1 Women’s and Girls’ Human
Rights
African heads of state and government take all necessary measures to
create a national and international community that places top priority on the
development of policy, legislative and administrative environment in which the
human rights of Africa women and girls, especially those living with HIV and
AIDS are actively promoted, fully enjoyed and protected within and through
national, regional and continental responses to violence against women and
girls, and through HIV and AIDS policies, programmes and interventions.
2. Leadership and Accountability
We urge all African heads of state
and government to provide the necessary leadership for the fulfilment of women’s
and girl’s human rights in the context of HIV and AIDS.
We urge all
African heads of state and government to bear full accountability for the
commitments they have made to women’s human rights as signatories to various
national, continental and global women’s and girls’ human rights and HIV and
AIDS agreements.
We urge African heads of state and government to be
exemplary, in both their public duties and private lives on the matter of the
promotion and protection of the human rights of African women and
girls.
We call upon all African heads of state and government to
intensify the protection of the rights of African women and girls by enacting
and implementing laws that protect women from all forms of violence that
increase the legal age of marriage for young girls and that protect women’s and
girls’ access to, ownership of and control over resources, including
land.
African heads of state and government should create mechanisms to
provide solidarity and support that enable HIV positive women and girls can
meaningful and effective participate in and provide leadership, by occupying
strategic positions of leadership and power, to strengthen movements of women
living with HIV and AIDS so that their voices are heard loudly and clearly on
issues affecting HIV positive women.
They should further address policy
and legal gaps that exist with regards to discriminatory, statutory, customary
and religious laws that deny women and girls their full and equal rights and
increasing their vulnerability to HIV infection and burden of AIDS. These
include but are not limited to enactment and implementation of laws against
violence against women and girls, for land and property rights and women’s and
girls’ sexual and reproductive rights.
3 HIV and AIDS Programme
Interventions
African heads of state and government strengthen HIV and AIDS
programming by giving pivotal priority to women’s and girls’ rights
in:
Prevention strategies, in particular, expand the current prevention
paradigm to promote and protect women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive
rights, legislate and implement interventions that protect against violence
against women and girls, legislate and implement property and inheritance rights
of women and girls, ensure access to appropriate and evidenced based prevention
information, provide PEPs to all women and girl survivors of sexual violence and
invest in fast tracked development of microbicides.
Treatment. Ensure
that women and girls have access to, appropriate, free and comprehensive
treatment-including but not limited to nutrition-services on HIV and AIDS.
Further ensure that women and girls have an equitable share of treatment
services.
Remove social and institutional barriers that prevent women
and girls from accessing HIV and AIDS treatment and services, including violence
they face as a result of their status
Expand PMTCT interventions beyond
protecting the foetus to include comprehensive pre and post natal treatment of
women.
Ensure interventions such as VCT and PMTCT do not contribute to
increased risk of women and girls to stigma and violence.
Care. Invest
in reducing the burden of care on women and girls through programmes that
provide enhanced access to palliative care and that compensate women and girls
equitably for their contribution.
Prioritise the strengthening of health
services and infrastructure through adequate resources to reduce the burden of
care and medical costs of HIV and AIDS on women and girls in
Africa.
Ensure that women’s access to appropriate treatment and care
facilities is scaled up, especially rural areas, where a majority of African
women live.
Given the limited resources African governments are directing
to public health care, in part because of the aid restrictions and
conditionality of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, governments
should take back their mandate and responsibility to provide quality, affordable
public health care to its citizens so as to effectively eliminate the burden on
women and girls of home based care.
Further governments should
compensate women and girls for the care work they perform in respect of HIV and
AIDS as this burden takes women and girls away from other forms of economically
productive and income earning activities.
End the bias that currently
exists in AIDS treatment programmes which, especially in the commercial sector,
benefit predominately male work forces, by ensuring that HIV positive women and
girls have access to treatment as citizens in their own right.
Provide
sex disaggregated data clearly illustrating how women and girls are benefiting
equally in care programmes and access to health facilities that are specifically
designed to address women’s care and treatment requirements.
4
Resources
That all African heads of state and government increase investment
and resources for the protection and promotion of women’s and girls’ rights,
concerns and priorities in HIV and AIDS at the national, regional, continental
and international levels through the following mechanisms:
Specific
Women’s and Girls’ Resource Facility from existing global funding mechanisms
targeted at ensuring that women and girls have access to and control over HIV
and AIDS resources, with clear, pro-HIV positive women policy guidelines for the
management and disbursement of the resources that formulates specific guidelines
of the kinds of resource disaggregation.
Ensure that from this facility
governments establish resources targeted at prevention mechanisms that enhance
women’s human rights, such as, programmes that are aimed at preventing violence
against women through:
• strengthening the role of the police force in
preventing violence against women;
• the raising of consciousness among
women and girls against violence
• strengthening the role of the judiciary in
preventing violence against women by providing a clear legislative frame work
criminalizing violence against women and girls and providing training on
approaches to criminalization of violence against women in the context of HIV
and AIDS;
• Ensure that special resources are availed for the protection of
the rights of sex workers from violence.
Develop, at continental level, a
HIV specific target within the Abuja commitment to allocating 15 per cent of
national budgets on health, of which at least 50 per cent must directly address
rights of African women and girls.
Ensure that all forthcoming
international financing commitments on HIV and AIDS, made to global, continental
and national initiatives, at a minimum channel 50 per cent of all resources to
programmes that protect women and girls from rights violations, for instance,
violence against women.
Targeted support for women’s organizing at local
and community levels. Providing financing for the development of sustainable,
viable and independent initiatives that ensure HIV positive women and girls have
access to prevention, treatment, care and support that is designed specifically
for their needs and requirements as citizens.
Scaling up HIV and AIDS
Special Efforts and Interventions Proven to be Effective in Preventing New
Infections in Women and Girls. These include universal access to Post Exposure
Prophylaxis (PEP), programmes aimed at the prevention of parent to child
transmission and extending the lives of mothers (PPTCT+) and fast tracking the
development of microbicides, vaccines and other new women-controlled
technologies.
Ensure that resources are availed to enable women to
access VCT facilities that are specifically designed to provide information and
services that are appropriate to female clients with HIV and AIDS related
queries of a specifically feminised nature
Ensure that there is
widespread access to Post Exposure Prophylaxis for women who have been exposed
to HIV transmission through acts of sexual violence and
aggression
Promoting and Protecting Women’s and Girls’ Sexual and
Reproductive Health and Rights. Ensure that women in their own individual right
as citizens have access to appropriate services that address their reproductive
health and care needs beyond the limited frame of child birth and pregnancy, as
there is increasing evidence of opportunistic infections of a reproductive
health nature being witnessed in women who many not necessarily be pregnant or
in child birth.
Scaling up Broad-based Women’s and Girls’ Rights
Programmes. Particularly in areas known to minimize women’s and girls’
vulnerability to HIV infection, including but not limited to: prevention of
violence against women and girls and promotion of women’s and girls’ sexual and
reproductive health and rights, expanding girls’ access to education, increased
access to and control over land and property and economic empowerment.
5. International Institutions of Development
We stress the need for
international institutions whose policies and interventions have a strong impact
on the social and economic position of African women and girls to actively
advance and protect the human rights of women and girls as outlined in
international norms and standards, as they are intrinsic to halting the HIV/AIDS
pandemic, in all their policies and programmes.
Their policies
discouraging governments from investing in social services, particularly health,
and privatisation of basic services should stop to reduce the burden of care and
cost for HIV/AIDS on African women and girls.
International institutions
must in particular pay due heed to the rights of African women and girls living
with HIV and AIDS by ensuring that they have administrative and policy
procedures that respect and protect the human rights of HIV positive African
women and girls.
Conclusion
We, African women are profoundly
concerned and aggrieved that it has taken so long for governments to fully
appreciate the centrality of African women’s rights and voices in dealing with
HIV/AIDS, which is one of the greatest threats to our collective existence as a
people and the continent. As African women, we demand meaningful participation
and involvement in institutions and processes that shall guide the global
responses to HIV and AIDS. As women of Africa, we fully commit ourselves to
working with our heads of state and government and other stakeholders to
mitigate the impact of HIV and AIDS on African women and girls, the continent
and the world. Women’s rights are not negotiable. The women and girls of Africa
deserve more. The time to act is now!
April 7, 2006
Signed:
ActionAid International, African Union, Akina mama Wa Afrika, ANERELA, AWDF,
AWID, CIRDDOC Nigeria, COMESA, COVAW – Kenya, EANNASO, Empinsweni Aids Centre,
EQULALITY NOW, FAMEDEV, FEMNET, FIDA – Ghana, GAMCOTRAP, Gender AIDS Forum,
ICW
ICW / FOCAGIFO, INCRESE, Nigeria, MRC, Musasa Project, National Human
Rights Commission – Abuja, OPIC, OSISA, Positive Women’s Network, SAFAIDS, SWAA
– Nigeria, SWAA – Sierra Leone, SWAA International, SWAPOL, TAC, The Women’s
Trust, UNIFEM, WASN, WLSA, WOLDDOF – Sierra Leone, Women in Law &
Development (WILDAF), Women’s Aid collective (WACOL), World YWCA – Geneva
Switzerland, WSCF, YWLN
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