Why women’s group got involved in world aids day and safe sex week

World aids was on the 1st December, it is a day to mark the progress made in the fight to tackle the aids epidemic. The aim of bringing this campaign to the university was to raise awareness about aids and to help address the issues.

When I first heard about the day from other groups and societies on campus I realised how little I really knew about this issue, even though the death toll by aids is incredibly high. So some members of the women’s group decided to research around the topic, and it appears that many of the issues around HIV and AIDS affects women and girls across the globe at an increasingly alarming level. Women make up half of the nearly 40 million people across the world living with aids. Globally women and girls are becoming infected with HIV at a faster level than men and boys. Likely explanations for this lay in that fact that women all over the world do not enjoy the same rights as men: they have lower educational rights, less access to employment and property. Women and girls are also more likely to face sexual violence.

A common assumption is to assume Aids is a problem that does exist in our own country, however this is not true and the importance for people to realise this is another reason why we got involved in the campaign. For information and articles about Aids and HIV in Britain click here!