World AIDS Day is coming up, and this year’s theme is Human Rights and Universal Access. To stop AIDS, we must promote and protect human rights—especially those of women and girls. Therefore, to celebrate World AIDS Day 2009, PHR is launching a campaign to urge the US Senate to ratify CEDAW—and to officially recognize that protecting women promotes their health and the health of societies worldwide.
CEDAW, or the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, is an international convention adopted by the United Nations in 1979. It serves as an international bill of human rights for women, specifically extending provisions laid out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to women while also addressing issues unique to women worldwide. Many of the provisions laid out in CEDAW, such as the right to health for women, the right to civil and domestic equality, and the right to reproductive freedom, directly pertain to controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS. Although women all over the world have used CEDAW to enact positive changes in their own countries, the United States remains one of only eight member countries of the U.N. that have not ratified CEDAW—the others include Iran, Sudan and Somalia. This World AIDS Day, we’re looking to change that.
To gear up for your school’s involvement in World AIDS Day, here are a few introductory factsheets on CEDAW and U.S. Ratification. Use these as articles for discussion groups, addendums to relevant course reading, informational handouts during tabling or events, etc. These serve as a great way to familiarize yourself, your chapter, and your peers with what CEDAW is and how the United States can join the international community in supporting women’s rights:
- The American Bar Association’s Information on and Summary of CEDAW
- Amnesty International’s CEDAW Factsheet and Common Myths
- Amnesty’s CEDAW and Maternal Health Factsheet
- The Working Group on Ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women’s Factsheet
For a more in depth read, check out these sites:
If you’re wondering how exactly CEDAW and the global AIDS pandemic relate:
- UNIFEM’s free informational booklet on CEDAW and AIDS, Turning the Tide
- UNAIDS Global Coalition on Women and AIDS
Finally, check out some of PHR’s material on the feminization of the pandemic:
- Epidemic of Inequality: Women’s Rights and HIV/AIDS in Botswana & Swaziland
- Health Rights=Healthy Women Platform
- Halting the Feminization of AIDS: Lessons from Kenya
