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Strategic objective C.3.
Undertake gender-sensitive initiatives that address sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, and sexual and reproductive health issues
Actions to be taken
108. By Governments, international bodies including relevant United Nations organizations, bilateral and multilateral donors and non-governmental organizations:
f. Facilitate the development of community strategies that will protect women of all ages from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases; provide care and support to infected girls, women and their families and mobilize all parts of the community in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic to exert pressure on all responsible authorities to respond in a timely, effective, sustainable and gender-sensitive manner;
g. Support and strengthen national capacity to create and improve gender-sensitive policies and programmes on HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, including the provision of resources and facilities to women who find themselves the principal caregivers or economic support for those infected with HIV/AIDS or affected by the pandemic, and the survivors, particularly children and older persons;
h. Provide workshops and specialized education and training to parents, decision makers and opinion leaders at all levels of the community, including religious and traditional authorities, on prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and on their repercussions on both women and men of all ages;
Beijing Declaration (1995)
The facilitation of the welfare of women and girls in the light of the, at the time, HIV/AIDS pandemic but which continues to be a problem for many people around the world. The building of locale-specific strategies for dealing with HIV/AIDS can be effective in the prevention of transmission and care, compassion, and concern through reduction of stigma for those infected with HIV/AIDS.
For those girls and women who have been infected, there is a call on the communities to act on this facilitation and work to prevent future occurrences of its spread through the population. Now, one of the issues plaguing is the spread of the diseases. But another layered one relates to institutions.
The culture, too, and the institutions have a lack of responsiveness to the needs of women and girls in regards to their health and wellness. This links into the section of the focus for this article today.
We can see the need to strengthen the national capacity of the gendered lens across institutions through their respective implementations of “policies and programmes” in relation to STIs and STDs. All important for the improved health and wellbeing of women.
In addition to this, we can see the developments of a spread in the caregiver responsibilities from mostly women to a more egalitarian split. Because the majority of the housework, childcare work, and the care of the old and sick sits firmly with women.
It is a burden thrust upon them unduly and unfairly. It is not from on high, or from down-low from some perspectives, but, rather, the conscious decisions of people in power and in culture to subordinate some of the most tedious caring work of the society to women. This can change with human decisions in a similar manner in which this has changed before.
Now, the educational aspect continues to crop up in the discussions in the Beijing Declaration. There is a continual need to focus on education because this remains one of the first forms of self-defence against lies and distortions as well as the mobilization around a common cause for gender equality, which is, 20 years after the Beijing Declaration, one of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the international community through the United Nations.
This education should be directed at all levels, “parents, decision makers and opinion leaders at all levels of the community, including religious and traditional authorities.” The reason simply is health and working with people where they’re at rather than enforcing a generalized mould on everyone.
However, it is in this that we can see the problems of prevention and the difficulty in education, because there has to be a general framework for the education and provisions for the public. It is in this pervasive attempt at education about, prevention of, and care for those infected by HIV/AIDS that the world can begin to reduce and eventually eliminate the “pandemic” of HIV/AIDS and continue the long battle against STIs and STDs plaguing much of the world and, in particular, the developing world with lifelong impacts on women and, if they have them, their offsprign and, thus, families and communities over generations. This can be solved, but only with diligent work.
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- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
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Photo by Jonathan Daniels on Unsplash