The Executive Director of the United Nation’s Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Noreena Heyzer, has urged the international community and national governments to pick up the pace of delivery on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls to reverse the feminization of the AIDS pandemic.
“Ten years ago, women saw what was happening, especially in Africa, and began speaking out. For ten years, supported by UNIFEM and others, they have been working to place gender inequality and HIV on national and international agendas — demanding greater attention to the ways in which gender discrimination, poverty and violence intersect with the disease to increase its spread — along with its dreadful consequences on lives.”
…We cannot wait another 25 years,” Heyzer said, calling on the international and national leadership to meet the “two urgent leadership challenges of halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS and delivering on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.”
I was watching a great British fictional film last week, “The Girl in the Café”. The film was, in part, about the G8 and how decisions are being made to meet (or not meet) the Millennium Goals (set out by the Beijing Conference for Women). The conference set clear international criteria to support the betterment of women’s quality of life worldwide. The movie showed a group of mostly powerful men making financial decisions regarding their national priorities and how they were planning to put off allocating funds into the millennium Goals. In the end a subtle but powerful women showed how necessary that it is that we prioritize women’s rights worldwide and how we must provide protection and opportunity to those who can not protect themselves. The movie was great!! We now need to create change in the real world!!!
I do not think we have a choice we must reprioritize the equalization of resources in the world even if it means personal sacrifice. I recently came across the work of British economist Noreena Hertz (The Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy). She has the full support of Bono and Sting and many other aware activist stars. Noreena is one of the world's leading young thinkers who looks closely at corporate power and is already sparking intense debate on both sides of the Atlantic on the equalization of resources. She argues that governments' surrender to big business is the deadliest threat facing democracy today. I personally believe that work with corporations, governments and politician’s world wide is what need is now.
We have much work before us when we think about the equalization of power between men and women and when we think about women’s rights, but it is very clear that women must be strong and step forward to represent the millions of voices who will never make it to the table ---for they will not be heard otherwise.
Maureen Simon
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