Statement to the XVI International AIDS Conference August, 2006 Toronto, Canada

We, women’s groups from all over the world, meeting in Toronto, Canada, August 10-14, 2006, as members of the Feminist Task Force of the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP);

Cognisant of the fact that women’s human rights are central to development, poverty eradication and HIV/AIDS prevention, care, treatment and support;
Do hereby urge the XVI International AIDS Conference participants including and not limited to: UN Agencies, Development Agencies and Foundations, Civil Society Organisations, Community Based Organisations, Organisations of People Living With and Affected by HIV/AIDS, Faith-based Organisations, Governments, Traditional Leaders, Youth, Health Sector, Academia/Researchers, Scientists and Pharmaceutical companies, to commit to implement, resource, support actions and policies targeting to halt the infection of and impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls all over the world.
We, therefore, urge you to: 

• Intensify efforts to increase the capacity of women and adolescent girls to protect themselves from the risk of HIV-infection including: creating and committing adequate resources to an enabling environment for the empowerment of women. 

• Protect and promote women’s and girls’ full enjoyment of all human rights including their rights to have control and decide freely on all matters related to their sexuality, including their sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence

• Ensure access to comprehensive health care and health services, including male and female condoms; and invest in the fast-track development of female controlled prevention methods and microbicides, universal access to Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), programmes aimed at the prevention of parent to child transmission and extending the lives of mothers (PPTCT+) and the development of vaccines and other new women-controlled technologies. 

• Ensure full access to comprehensive information and education, including sexuality education. 

• Invest in reducing the burden of care on women and girls through programmes that provide enhanced access to palliative care and that compensate women and girls equitably for their contribution. 

• End the bias that currently exists in AIDS treatment programmes which, especially in the commercial sector, benefit predominantly male work forces, by ensuring that HIV positive women and girls have access to treatment as citizens in their own right.

• Strengthen women’s economic independence; and reiterate the importance of the role of men and boys in achieving gender equality. 

• Commit to strengthening legal, policy, administrative and other measures for the prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls, including harmful traditional practices, abuse, early and forced marriage, rape, including marital rape and other forms of sexual violence against women is addressed as an integral part of the national and international HIV/AIDS response; and providing post-exposure prophylaxis to women survivors of violence. 

• Guarantee that HIV prevention, treatment, care and services are provided to all vulnerable populations, including women and girls (especially in situations of conflicts and emergencies), active injecting drug users, children, youth, sex workers, prisoners and migrant populations; and recognize and address the ways in which the pandemic is racialized as well as gendered across the globe. 

• Place top priority on the development of policy, legislative and administrative environment in which the human rights of women and girls, especially those living with HIV and AIDS are actively promoted, fully enjoyed and protected within and through national, regional and continental responses to violence against women and girls, and through HIV and AIDS policies, programmes and interventions. 

• Create mechanisms to provide solidarity and support that enable HIV positive women and girls to meaningfully and effectively participate in and provide leadership. By occupying strategic positions of leadership and power, to strengthen movements of women living with HIV and AIDS so that their voices are heard loudly and clearly. 

• Address policy and legal gaps that exist with regards to discriminatory statutory laws on issues affecting HIV positive women that deny women and girls their full and equal rights and increasing their vulnerability to HIV infection and burden of AIDS. These include but are not limited to: enactment and implementation of laws against violence against women and girls, for land and property rights and women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive rights. 

• Urge international institutions whose policies and interventions have a strong impact on the social and economic position of women and girls to actively advance and protect the human rights of women and girls as outlined in international norms and standards, as they are intrinsic to halting the HIV/AIDS pandemic, in all their policies and programmes. Their macro-economic policies promoting privatisation of basic services should stop to reduce the burden of care and cost for HIV/AIDS on women and girls. International institutions must in particular pay due heed to the rights of women and girls living with HIV and AIDS by ensuring that they have administrative and policy procedures that respect and protect the human rights of HIV positive women and girls. 

• Use the opportunity provided by this Conference to listen and respond to and work with civil society, especially women’s groups and women living with HIV/AIDS, in setting of goals and priorities, the determination of funding streams and program guidance, design, planning, implementation and evaluation of HIV/AIDS policies and programs at all levels. 

Resolved by the undersigned on August 13, 2006, Toronto, Canada.

We, the undersigned:

ActionAid International

African Women’s Economic Policy Network (AWEPON)-Uganda

Association for Women in Development (AWID)-Canada

Copper Belt Land Rights Centre-Zambia

Education, Networking for Latina Empowerment and Development (ENLACE)-USA/LAC

Forum Solidaridad –Peru

GCAP Facilitation Team-Latin America

International Council of Adult Education/Gender and Education Office-Latin America

Low Income Families Together (LIFT)-Canada

Jagaran Nepal/NGO Federation of Nepal-Nepal

Red de Educacion Popular Entre Mujeres (REPEM)-Latin America

Women’s Resource and Advocacy Centre/Research/WICEJ-India

Women in Development Europe – Belgium