Partners for change: enlisting men in HIV/AIDS prevention

Efforts to include men and boys in sexual and reproductive health policies and programmes have intensified worldwide in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Condoms, long promoted as protection from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, have become a focus of HIV/AIDS campaigns in many countries. HIV/AIDS has also called attention to the imbalance of power between women and men. People are questioning widely held cultural beliefs and attitudes about masculinity that contribute to situations of risk and make it easier for the virus to spread.