AIDS Response, special meeting at CSW 57

Special event at the Commission on the Status of Women

seeks to accelerate zero-tolerance towards gender-based violence through the AIDS response

Co-chaires Hon Thokozani Khupe, Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe (left) and Hon Julia Duncan-Cassell, Minister of Gender and Development of Liberia at the High Level Consultation Accelerating Zero-Tolerance to Gender based violence through the HIV response. New York City on March 9, 2013. Credit: UNAIDS/M. Taamallah

 
NEW YORK — These critical questions dominated a high level consultation which took place in New York on 9 March during the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

• How much progress has the global AIDS response made in ensuring that women and girls live their lives free from violence?
• What are the next steps needed to strengthen the challenge to gender-based violence and its links to HIV?

Convened by UNAIDS and UN Women, and cosponsored by the Government of Ireland, the UN Development Programme and UNFPA consultation brought together key civil society activists, United Nations organizations and government representatives.

“The birth of a child is commonly the happiest day in a woman’s life. But in certain countries, the day a child is born from a mother with HIV, is the day when she dies or she starts to face discrimination”. ~ Jennifer Gatsi, Namibia Women’s Health Coalition

Co-chaired by Hon Thokozani Khupe, Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe and Hon Julia Duncan-Cassell, Minister of Gender and Development of Liberia, the consultation took the priority theme of the CSW: elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls as a springboard to find ways to accelerate the attainment of Millennium Development Goals 3 (promoting gender equality) and 6 (halting HIV).

Participants also discussed how to position HIV and gender-based violence on the post-2015 development agenda.

“The post-2015 agenda must be seen as finishing the last mile,” said Thokozani Khupe, Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. “We must see the things that are unfinished and try to tackle them differently,” she added.

Read the full story on the UNAIDS website.

The Commission on the Status of Women, which meets annually, is one of the main global policy-making bodies committed to gender equality and the advancement of women.

This year’s meeting is taking place from March 4-15.