UNAIDS: Challenging the discrimination faced by women and girls

On Zero Discrimination Day this year, UNAIDS is challenging the discrimination faced by women and girls in all their diversity in order to raise awareness and mobilize action to promote equality and empowerment for women and girls.

Although some countries have made laudable progress towards greater gender equality, discrimination against women and girls still exists everywhere. Intersecting with other forms of discrimination—based, for example, on income, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity—these rights violations disproportionately harm women and girls. Ultimately, gender inequality affects everyone’s health and well-being. In many countries, laws that discriminate against women and girls remain in force, while laws that uphold women’s basic rights and protect them against harm and unequal treatment are far from the norm.

Download campaign brochure  |  Download spotlight on HIV-related discrimination against women and girls

"The struggle to beat AIDS is inseparable from the struggle for women's rights and from the struggle against all forms of discrimination," says Winnie Byanyi...