BANGKOK, March 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Women and girls are the weakest link in the global campaign against HIV/AIDS due to their less-advantaged economic and cultural position in the society, said an official of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in an interview with Xinhua on Sunday.

    "The International Women's Day is a day both to celebrate women and to raise awareness about their situation," said UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Kathleen Cravero, who launched a related workshop on the International Women's Day.

    In her and other UN experts' eyes, women and girls around the world are now in a critical situation in face of the epidemic of HIV/AIDS. That's why "women and girls and HIV/AIDS" are chosen as the theme of this year's International Women's Day and why specialattention is called for to the specific group of women and girls among the whole population.

    "In 2002 and 2003, the statistics showed that in Africa, in the Caribbean countries and in selected countries in Asia, the number of new infections among women were equal to or greater than that among men," said Cravero.

    "We feel and we know there are increasing infection among womenand the statistics show it clearly," she grew even more serious when mentioning specific numbers indicating the trend of increasing infection rate among women and girls.

    Globally, women account for half of the 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In sub-Saharan Africa, 58 percent of those living with HIV were women as of the end of 2003.

    In Asia, 30 percent of adult infections are women in the Mekongregion, including China's southwestern part, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, and the rate is believed to keep increasing.

    What makes the situation worse is the long-existing inequality that puts women into an economic and cultural passive position when talking about HIV/AIDS.

    Economically speaking, when a family is threatened by poverty, women and girls are the first to be deprived of the right education which might help them know more about HIV/AIDS and how to prevent the disease.

    When there are both male and female patients infected with HIV/AIDS, women and girls are usually the last to be given treatment.

    When their partners or husbands feel ill of the epidemic, womenusually play the care-taking role, but their efforts are hardly repaid when the partners die.

    "It's usually the woman who takes care of her partner who has been infected with HIV/AIDS for several years and she might be infected and get sick before the man dies," Cravero elaborated thesituation by giving examples she encountered when she worked on various UN programs in Africa during an add-up period of almost a decade.

    "But as soon as the partner dies, the partner's family comes toher to take away the house, the furniture and everything which might be bought by the woman.

    "Then, the woman ends up with nothing. She ends up having to engage with risky behavior so as to raise her children," said the UN official.

    According to her, the economic position is one of the key reasons that women are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, the same way as they are vulnerable to violence and vulnerable to all kinds of diseases and problems.

    The UNAIDS initiated Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, which started on February 2 in London. One of its major goals is to urgegovernments to help women retain their property and their inherentrights.

    Culturally speaking, traditions can make it more difficult for girls and women to get the information and services required to protect themselves from the epidemic and more easily to fall ill for their partners' behavior.

    Take the Mekong River region as an example, experts have noticed the trend of increasing infection rates among ordinary wives and mothers in monogamous marriages.

    The trend is believed to be fueled mainly by three reasons: some husband have more than one sex partners, women get married atan earlier age with older men and the culture taboo prevent women from acquiring related knowledge.

    "There's a paradox of low risk but high vulnerability, which means, for most women, they don't engage in risky behaviors, they're married and have one partner, but their partner might have more," said Cravero.

    "The culture silence makes them impossible even to ask whether their partners have more partners, not to mention using condoms ortaking tests."

    In Thailand, 40 percent new infections occurring in last year were spouse to spouse transmission, noted Cravero. Among those spouse to spouse transmission, only 14 percent were from female tomale.

    Violence and the fear of violence are anther concern of expertsto address the issue of women and HIV/AIDS. Victims of violence and the fear of violence are 8-10 times vulnerable than average females to be infected with the epidemic, for they dare not to choose whom, how and when to have sex with their partners.

    "The lack of attention to women's rights is fueling the HIV epidemic," Cravero warned. This is not only a threat to women.

    Lessons learned by some African countries show that the community and society could hardly manage a less-harvest year as usual for a large number of women fell ill of the epidemic, she said.

    Women, an important part of the coping mechanism to help community survive natural disasters, couldn't go to field or work any more, for they are either sick or have to take care of the sick people, explained Cravero.

    In Asia, though the number of infection is relatively low, somevillages and families face the same plight.

    "This is a warning signal, a serious signal. Women are the backbone of coping mechanism. They are the foundation of care-giving and to keep family together. If we don't take action now, the society could be in serious trouble," warned Cravero. Enditem