ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Gender and Development Discussion paper Series No. 18
GENDER and HIV/AIDS in the ASIA and PACIFIC REGION
December
2005
This manuscript has been issued by the Emerging Social Issues Division of UNESCAP. It is part of a series of publications previously known as the Women in Development Discussion Paper Series. It was not be reproduced or reprinted without the expressed permission of the United Nations. This discussion paper has been issued without formal editing.
CONTENTS
Page
I.
Introduction
3
II.
Trends in the Asia-Pacific Region
3
A.
Greater Mekong Sub-region 5
B.
Pacific Islands 7
III.
Factors fueling the HIV/AIDS
pandemic
10
A.
Poverty 11
B.
Gender discrimination 12
C.
Violence against Women 14
D.
Substance abuse 16
E.
Movement of People 16
IV. Effective approaches and lessons-learned
18
A.
Good practices -- examples from the
Pacific Islands 18
B.
Treating HIV/AIDS as a development
issue
19
C.
Commercial sex workers 20
V. Recommendations
21
VI. Concluding remarks
22