The Center for Reproductive Rights’ Lilian Sepúlveda will be talking about forced sterilization at this week’s international HIV-AIDs conference in Washington. She details a groundbreaking case her center is pressing in Chile.
The International AIDS Conference convenes in Washington July 22-27 and activists are demanding more policies and investments reflecting the fact that women are now more than half of all people living with HIV.
Muslim female soccer players will be allowed to wear specially designed head coverings during games after the International Football Association Board lifted the ban,The Huffington Post reported March 5. The new attire will be tested for four months. Soccer’s international governing body, known as FIFA, has prohibited headscarves since 2007, citing safety concerns. The new headscarves will be fastened with Velcro rather than pins.
After decades of research, vaginal microbicides that prevent HIV infection are on the horizon. To fulfill their medical promise, a Rhode Island researcher says users’ sexual pleasure must be considered.
People living with HIV face an additional risk of getting tuberculosis because of weakened immune systems, poverty and malnutrition. HIV-positive women are especially susceptible because they care for TB patients here.
Some advocates at last week’s International AIDS Conference greeted news of the results of an HIV gel coolly, saying more was needed than a “medicalized” response to an epidemic that travels a social pathway of infringed women’s rights.
A Somali woman in Kenya faces an arranged wedding knowing she could infect her husband with HIV-AIDS. She contracted the disease through unsafe anal sex to preserve her virginity.
South Asian women from three spheres–journalism, politics and advocacy– recently planned a coordinated attack on HIV-AIDS among women. Their focus is on transportation, property rights and education.
On Dec. 1, the 20th annual World AIDS Day, health advocates are raising the alarm about the quadrupling of HIV-AIDS among American women and the failure of the U.S. heath care system to address this growing pandemic.
(WOMENSENEWS)–Cheers Yuriko Koike is the first woman in Japan to seek national leadership after announcing the she will run for prime minister within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the Sept. 22 elections, Agence France-Presse reported. Koike is the nation’s first female defense minister and said she would run following the Sept. 8 resignation of Yasuo Fukuda as prime minister.”I would like to put into practice policies from the viewpoint of women, so that female power can be put to better use and women can be a part of society while being free from anxiety to give birth and raise children,” Koike said at a news conference, Japan Times reported.Koike, with 16 years of political experience under her belt, also pledged to focus on the economy and the environment.Facing at least four male contenders for party leadership–a requisite to become Japan’s prime minister–her candidacy remains a long shot. Japan ranked 91 out of 128 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2007 Global Gender Gap Report.More News to Cheer This Week: More than 1.4 million economic stimulus checks disbursed to “deadbeat” parents this year by the federal government have been seized and directed to their custodial parents, most of whom are women, the Associated Press reported Sept.