Women account for nearly half of HIV infections worldwide and almost two-thirds of those among young people, with female infections rising in almost every region. Yet twenty-five years into the global AIDS epidemic, there is still no widely available technology that women can both initiate and control to protect themselves from HIV. Due to gender norms and inequalities, many women and girls lack the social and economic power to control key aspects of their lives, particularly sexual matters. As a result, women are in a difficult, and often impossible, situation when it comes to negotiating with their partners over abstinence, fidelity, or condom use.
This report focuses on violencve as a global public health problem. Attention has been paid to youth violence, child abuse and neglect by parents and other caregivers, violence by intimate partners, abuse of the elderly, sexual violence, self-directed violence, collective violence and recommendations for action.