As of April 2005, approximately half of all people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide—nearly 20 million—are female, and increasingly young and poor. The number of HIV infected women and girls is on the rise in every region of the world.
In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute 57 percent of adults living with the devastating disease—with the rate among young women being 76 percent. Human rights violations, gender inequalities and poverty are contributing factors for women’s and girls’ increased vulnerability to HIV and AIDS.
