30 November 2006

TRIPLE FUNDING FOR REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS PREVENTION

Funding for sexual and reproductive health programs, including HIV and AIDS prevention, needs to be tripled according to Australia’s Parliamentary representatives at an international forum in Bangkok last week.

Dr Mal Washer and Senators Claire Moore and Ruth Webber participated in the Third International Parliamentarians' Conference on the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action (IPCI/ICPD) on 21-22 November. Altogether, 180 parliamentarians attended from 103 countries.

The conference agreed to the ‘Bangkok Statement of Commitment’ in which participants committed to attain at least ten percent of national development assistance budgets for ‘population and reproductive health programmes including HIV and AIDS prevention’.

Australia currently gives 3.7 per cent of its aid budget to sexual and reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS.

“Papua New Guinea, the main recipient of Australia’s aid program, is losing one teacher a week to AIDS,” says Dr Washer. “There are 115 new cases a day of HIV in PNG. The disease has now reached epidemic levels in both urban and rural communities.”

Dr Washer said that the emphasis until now had been on treatment of HIV/AIDS but not nearly enough on prevention. “HIV/AIDS will afflict 1.2 million people within four years in PNG if current trends continue”.

Unlike Australia, the main mode of transmission of HIV/AIDS in PNG is through heterosexual sex. In the 15 to 29 year age group, more women than men are affected. The Bangkok Statement stated that the failure of previous national development plans could be partly attributed to ‘the failure to invest in sexual and reproductive health and to promote the rights of women and girls’.

“Sexual violence and gender inequality increases the vulnerability of women to the disease because they often have difficulty in negotiating sexual relations and condom use. Thus a critical part of the solution must be raising the status of women and girls,” says Dr Washer.

Media Contacts:
Dr Mal Washer MP, Member for Moore. Contact phone: 02 6277 2114 or 0417 881 389
Senator Claire Moore, Senator for Queensland. Contact phone: 0419 673 126
Senator Ruth Webber, Senator for Western Australia. Contact phone: 08 9409 9599