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Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System --------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Aug 2006 Title: Women in stable relationships more prone to HIV: Dep President --------------------------------------------------------------- By Shaun Benton Cape Town - There has been an increase in cases of HIV and AIDS among women in stable relationships, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Wednesday. She was addressing hundreds of women working in local government gathered for a conference in the city. The Deputy President said these women had decided that their relationships were stable and that they did not have to use condoms unless they wanted to prevent pregnancy. "That's when death strikes," Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka told about 500 women - from ward councillors to community development workers to a few women municipal managers - gathered at Cape Town's International Convention Centre for the two-day conference. Such cases are abuses of trust, she said, adding that if women could not be safe "under the sheets ... where is the equality?" to a loud applause from the audience. Numerous independent studies on HIV and AIDS have found many cases in South Africa where women who practise monogamy in relationships and remain faithful to their partners have nonetheless become infected with HIV. Scientists involved in several of these studies have also cited the difficulties that women have in persuading longstanding male partners to use condoms, explaining this by profound discrepancies in equality between men and women on the interpersonal emotional and psychological level. According to the United Nations AIDS Programme (UNAIDS), 13.2 million women in sub-Saharan Africa alone are HIV infected, accounting for 76 percent of all women living with HIV. In Africa, 77 percent of new infections occur in women. "It is a matter of trust," Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka said. "These are the things that we are concerned about. How do we close this gap," she asked. "How do we make sure that women are really protected?" It is against this background world leaders have been urged to promote the human rights of all people in vulnerable groups, particularly women and girls. World leaders have also been urged to put the power to prevent HIV in the hands of women by accelerating the search for microbicides and other new HIV prevention tools. This by giving them tools that will allow women to protect themselves, as women should never need her partner's permission to save her own life. The Deputy President added that work towards real equality with men, while shored up and reinforced with progressive legislation was also ultimately, a personal struggle. Called "Women Leading in the Age of Hope" and hosted by Western Cape Local Government and Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi, the conference is focusing largely on capacity-building around municipal integrated development plans, local economic development, housing programmes and overall democratic governance. Despite progressive gender policies that have been developed and implemented in South Africa, the country continues to experience gender violence, the deputy president said, adding the country was not yet at the point where real equality with men was making a marked and lasting impact on women's lives. About 70 percent of people who suffer from contact crimes are victims of perpetrators whom they know, she said, adding that the majority of crimes committed against women were at the hands of "somebody that they know, that they trust and they love". Work towards gender equality in South Africa was taking shape through the "mainstreaming" of gender issues rather than an isolationist approach of focusing separately on women such as through a department of women's affairs, which government had decided against. "Wherever you are it is a site of struggle for issues to do with women," said Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka, adding that "gender mainstreaming means considering gender in every part of society. It means going the extra mile". "There has got to be something you are doing which is destiny-changing," the deputy president told the local government employees. South Africa was moving towards the targets of representation set by a special session of the United Nations General Assembly in June 2000, under the banner 50/50 by 2005: Women in Government - Getting the Balance Right. In March 2002, South Africa became the 11th country to adopt the campaign and now, said Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka, one-third of the country's Members of Parliament were women, 43 percent of ministers and deputy ministers in national government departments were women, while at the provincial level there were four women premiers. At local government level, three metropolitan municipalities are led by women as mayors, along with a number of women who lead district municipalities, she said. "Generally as women we have massive access to leadership and decision-making," she said, adding that women need to continuously evaluate the quality of their collective strength, adding that numbers alone were not sufficient a marker of development. Rather, real development is a question of individual and collective responsibility. "Once you are there in a position of power, earn it," she said. Urging the local government employees to be courteous and professional in dealing with members of the public, whose only personal experience of government as a whole is through local officials, she said: "You are the most important cadres of our democracy because you are at the coal-face of service delivery." - BuaNews |
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