This report focuses on the gender dimensions of HIV-related stigma. It aims to fill a gap and advance a more nuanced understanding and more effective advocacy on how stigma affects women and girls living with HIV more, less or differently to men and boys.
One in every three girls in the developing world is married by the age of 18. One in seven marries before they reach the age of 15. In countries like Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea and the Central African Republic (CAR), the rate of early and forced marriage is 60 per cent and over.
This publication is part of a larger IPPF initiative called Girls Decide. The initiative aims to ensure that girls’ and young women’s sexuality and pregnancy-related issues are effectively addressed by leaders and service providers.
The international community has repeatedly recognized the importance of achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health, with reinvigorated efforts in 2010.
The past decade has witnessed a dramatic increase in awareness about early and forced marriage of girls as a widespread violation of human rights. In short, early and forced marriage exacerbate gender inequality and the likelihood of poor outcomes throughout life.
Adolescent girls face serious health risks, especially to their sexual and reproductive health. During this phase, they also acquire health-related behaviors and knowledge that have lifelong impacts on them, their families, and their future children.
This 52-page report documents the many obstacles women and girls face in getting the reproductive health care services to which they are entitled, such as contraception, voluntary sterilization procedures, and abortion after rape.
In the context of the five-year countdown to the Millennium Development Goals, missed targets on universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care, and the Third Replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the report details the unique demand-creation mode
The lack of universal access to women's reproductive health services has contributed to the collective failure to be on target to achieve the MDGs by 2015.
Sex, love and intimacy play an important part in what it means to be human. Whether for pleasure and/or procreation; whether straight, gay or bisexual; and irrespective of gender or HIV status making informed choices about our sexual and reproductive lives helps shape our dreams and desires.