Mozambique Partners With U.N., Flemish Government To Launch Program Addressing HIV/AIDS Among Women

The Mozambican government on Friday announced that it has partnered with the United Nations and the government of the Belgian region of Flanders to launch a four-year, $12.8 million program to address the increasing "feminization" of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country, China's People's Daily reports. Mozambican Health Minister Ivo Garrido on Friday said that women and girls in the country are at an increased risk of HIV infection because of gender inequality, lack of economic opportunities, limited power, socio-cultural customs and a lack of knowledge about sexual health, according to the People's Daily. Fifty-eight percent of HIV-positive people in Mozambique are women, and 75% of HIV-positive people in the country are between the ages of 15 and 24, according to health ministry data. The program, which will be financed by the Flemish government, will focus on areas of intervention identified by the U.N. Secretary General's Task Force on Women, Girls and AIDS in Southern Africa, including education, prevention strategies, violence prevention, inheritance and property rights, the role of women as caregivers, and care and treatment for HIV-positive women (People's Daily, 5/8). UNFPA will implement the program in Mozambique. "The program is one answer to the growing feminization of the HIV and AIDS epidemic," Geert Bourgeois, minister for administrative affairs, foreign policy, media and tourism in the Flemish government, said, adding, "It will help to strengthen integration of gender within Mozambique's national response" (UNAIDS/Flemish government release, 5/6).