I leave tomorrow for Mexico City to attend the XVII International AIDS Conference, and wonder: when will the world's leaders realize that women, especially young women, are a priority concern in stopping the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

Today, women account for six out of every ten people living with HIV in Africa, the world's most affected region. According to a report released yesterday by UNAIDS, nearly half of new HIV infections last year in adults were in young people, acquired largely through heterosexual sex. Globally, three out of four young people living with HIV are female. Yet, many of the world's leaders and national governments have not recognized women's and young people's rights to sexuality education, to be free from violence and coercion, and negotiate safer sex, all of which are crucial to preventing new HIV infections.

Young women are contracting HIV every day because they do not have the knowledge and tools to protect themselves. A report by the UN Secretary General's office this year, found that as of 2007 only 36 percent of young women can correctly identify ways of preventing transmission and reject the major misconceptions about HIV transmission. This is inexcusable.

I call on all the attendees of next week's AIDS conference to ask yourself: are we really doing everything we can to empower the three billion women who are HIV-negative to stay negative? Do we recognize the rights of the 15 million women living with HIV to affordable and accessible counseling and testing, to treatment and care, and to live their lives with respect and dignity?

I stand with a group of activists and organizations known as With Women Worldwide to End HIV/AIDS in asking for a stronger commitment from all those attending AIDS 2008 to enable women and girls to protect themselves against infection. We ask you to:

• Secure leadership that is strong on the health and rights of women and young people. In the next year, UNAIDS will recruit an Executive Director, new posts on gender will be filled in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the next U.S. President will appoint key AIDS officials.  It is essential that such leadership has requisite expertise in achieving gender equality, working with civil society, including women and young people, and delivering prevention, care and treatment for women and girls.  Policies and programs will be more effective if they involve women and young people, particularly those living with HIV, meaningfully in all stages of planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
• Support sexual and reproductive rights and health as essential to HIV/AIDS responses.  For girls and women HIV infection is a sexual and reproductive rights and health issue and, as such, requires increased access to male and, especially, female condoms; improving young people's access to services, through campaigns reaching young people, sensitizing health care personnel, and providing comprehensive, affordable and confidential services; and counseling and other interventions that promote mutual responsibility between partners for prevention and for care and support of those living with HIV/AIDS.
• Invest more in prevention, particularly for girls and women.  More progress is needed on:
  • comprehensive sexuality education for all children and young people, beginning before they are sexually active, that promotes gender equality and human rights;
  • research on more effective, attractive and affordable female condoms, microbicides, pre-exposure prophylaxis, and vaccines (for HIV, HPV and Hepatitis B);
  • interventions aimed at factors that make girls and women vulnerable, including prevention and mitigation of violence, discrimination and stigma, particularly against girls and women;
  • promotion of equal opportunity for education, employment and livelihoods, opportunities, properly and inheritance rights, prevention of harmful practices, violations of human rights such as child marriage, female genital cutting.
• Collect better evidence.  Lack of data by sex and by age (especially for subgroups among 15-24-year-olds) seriously hampers planning.  Donors should provide adequate resources to evaluate the efficacy of interventions for women in reducing HIV incidence and those that address women's vulnerability.

With Women Worldwide: A Compact to End HIV and AIDS is supported by more than 300 organizations worldwide.

The With Women Worldwide Compact is an action agenda designed to compel the policy changes needed to prevent increasing HIV infections in women and young people, and ensure their equitable access to treatment, care, and support. The Compact was developed at a global meeting convened by the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC) in 2005, which brought together 28 women from seven constituencies.