Women and girls are increasingly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS:

• Today women comprise at least half of all people living with HIV/AIDS.
• In sub-Saharan Africa, 58 per cent of those living with HIV are women. Among 15 - 24 year olds, two girls are infected for every new infection among boys in the same age group; in the most affected countries, the ratio is five or six girls for every boy infected in that age group.

Their heightened vulnerability stems from a variety of factors:

• Women and girls are biologically more susceptible to HIV infection: male-to-female HIV transmission is estimated to be twice as likely as female-to-male transmission.
• Women and girls don’t know enough information about AIDS or have enough access to HIV prevention services.
• In some of the regions worst-affected by AIDS, more than half of girls aged 15 - 19 have either never heard about AIDS or have at least one major misconception about how HIV is transmitted.
• Women and girls are often powerless to abstain from sex or to insist on condom use.  In South Africa, surveys show that 33 per cent of young women are afraid of saying “no” to sex. 55 per cent have sex when they do not want to because their partner insists.
• A study in Zambia found that on 11 per cent of women interviewed believed that a woman had no right to ask her husband to use a condom – even if he had proven himself to be unfaithful and was HIV-positive.
• Violence against girls and women is widespread and is a key risk factor for HIV transmission. Across the world, between one-fifth and one-half of all girls and young women report that their first sexual encounter was forced. 
• Marriage is no protection against HIV.  In many parts of the developing world, the majority of women are married by age 20, and they have higher rates of HIV than their unmarried, sexually active peers -- often because their husbands have several partners and bring the infection home.
• The availability of female-controlled HIV prevention methods, such as microbicides, could greatly enhance women’s ability to protect themselves from HIV. However, of the 40 potential microbicides under development today, none has a major pharmaceutical company sponsor.
• Education is one of the key defences against the spread of HIV but parents are more likely to spend limited funds on educating boys. In Afghanistan, Benin, Pakistan and Yemen, the gender gap in primary school education is more than 25 per cent.