Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS - World AIDS Day 2004

Have you heard me today?

This year's World AIDS Campaign posters, with the strap line "Have you heard me
today?" explore how gender inequality fuels the AIDS epidemic.

Copies of this year's posters and other campaign support materials are now
online at http://www.unaids.org/wac2004/index_en.htm

Posters will be available from Geneva in English, French, Spanish and Russian.
We are hoping to arrange for Arabic and Chinese versions to be made available
locally. Blank templates of images and text will also be available for local
adaptation - following requests from previous years.

Please direct any World AIDS Day enquiries that may come to you either directly
to the website pages,

or mailto:wac@...
or to +41-22-197-1027.

As you may know, World AIDS Day 2004 continues to build on the theme of HIV and
AIDS-related stigma and discrimination with a specific focus on women and girls.
We hope to encourage people to address female vulnerability to HIV - including
the role men and boys in tackling the underlying gender inequalities that
fuel the epidemic. All over the world women do not enjoy the same rights and
access to employment, property and education as men. Women and girls are also
more likely to face sexual violence. This makes them more vulnerable to HIV and,
as the primary care givers, to the impact of AIDS. The posters end with the
strong message: "Equality for women helps fight AIDS".

As usual the global epidemiological update will be launched to the media in the
run-up to World AIDS Day, this year on 23 November. It will include a section
highlighting the impact of HIV and AIDS on women and girls.

--
Bob Verbruggen
Technical Advisor Mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in Development
& Focal Person for the Partnership with the GTZ
Strategy Support Division (CRD)
E-mail: <verbruggenb@...>