Event

HIV and AIDS and Property Rights - Overcoming Barriers to Women's Economic Empowerment

This interactive panel will focus on the impact that HIV has on a woman’s right to own and manage property. Panelists will address stigma and discrimination toward women living with HIV, including deprivation or dispossession of property rights, and they will share best practices and potential pathways to promote and protect women’s economic equality.

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Significant strides have been made in the reduction of HIV infections and AIDS- related deaths since HIV was first identified in the 1980s. However, HIV still has a devastating impact on many populations, who are neglected and often overlooked. Women and Girls bear a disproportionate burden of the HIV epidemic.

In 2015 there were an estimated 17.8 million women living with HIV (15 or older), with approximately 8600 new infections per week among adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 24. Women and Girls often do not receive the same level of attention as other demographics. In many parts of the world, women living with or affected by HIV are often excluded from holding a job, inheriting and controlling property, and otherwise exercising economic independence. All these factors hamper the true economic empowerment of women.

This interactive panel will focus on the impact that HIV has on a woman’s right to own and manage property. Panelists will address stigma and discrimination toward women living with HIV, including deprivation or dispossession of property rights, and they will share best practices and potential pathways to promote and protect women’s economic equality. The economic empowerment of women is the priority theme of the 2017 Commission on the Status of Women.

For more information, please download the event flyer (pdf, 319 KB)