Many women and girls are vulnerable to HIV because of the high-risk behavior of others. This year’s World AIDS Campaign, with the strapline ‘Have you heard me today?,’ seeks to raise awareness about, and help address, the many issues affecting women and girls around HIV and AIDS.

Globally, young women and girls are more susceptible to HIV than men and boys, with studies showing they can be 2.5 times more likely to be HIV-infected as their male counterparts. Their vulnerability is primarily due to inadequate knowledge about AIDS, insufficient access to HIV prevention services, inability to negotiate safer sex, and a lack of female-controlled HIV prevention methods, such as microbicides.

At the same time, 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, which can accelerate the spread of HIV.

Around half of all people living with HIV in the world are female. This is why HIV-positive women have a unique and valuable role to play, both in society and in fighting HIV and AIDS. Women hold families and communities together and they are a source of great strength in the face of HIV and AIDS.

This year’s World AIDS Campaign, which culminates on World AIDS Day – 1 December 2004, explores how gender inequality fuels the AIDS epidemic, and is conceived to help accelerate the global response to HIV and AIDS by encouraging people to address female vulnerability to HIV.