UN agencies join forces with Johnson & Johnson to tackle violence-AIDS link

Two United Nations agencies along with Johnson & Johnson, the global manufacturer and provider of health care products and services, today announced new grants for organizations tackling the perilous correlation between gender-based violence and the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Under the initiative, contributions from the company, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS and the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) will go to groups in ten developing countries.

UNIFEM’s Executive Director, Noeleen Heyzer, welcomed the partnership, pointing to the importance of public-private initiatives in contributing needed resources to the fight against gender-based violence and the AIDS epidemic.

She said in the coming year, the Trust Fund would “support innovative community initiatives to raise awareness and spur public action, provide medical, psycho-social and legal assistance to survivors of violence and women living with HIV, and support HIV-positive women’s networks to diminish stigma.”

Dr. Anu Gupta, Director of Johnson & Johnson Corporate Contributions, said the grants will help women “who have become infected with HIV/AIDS as a result of violence or who suffer escalated violence due to their HIV-positive status.”

Praising Johnson & Johnson for its contribution, Deborah Landey, Deputy-Executive Director of UNAIDS said the initiative was critical. “There is an urgent need for programmes like this one that provide funds to community initiatives that directly benefit women in developing countries.”

Data from around the globe show a growing link between gender-based violence and HIV, particularly among young women. Studies from Rwanda, Tanzania and South Africa indicate that the risk for HIV among women who have experienced violence may be up to three times higher than among those who have not. Sexual violence, increasingly prevalent in recent conflicts around the world, is fuelling the spread of the disease. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a large majority of the estimated 250,000 women who were raped contracted HIV.

Projects receiving support include community initiatives targeting social groups that have suffered spikes in rates of HIV-infection and gender-based violence, cultural radio programmes, and assistance to survivors of violence and women living with HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Vietnam, India and Haiti.

The grants were awarded as part of the UNIFEM-managed UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women.