Human Rights, HIV/AIDS Prevention and Gender Equality. An Impossible Cocktail for Faith Based Organisations. 2008

Position Paper. (2008) The position paper is co-signed by DanChurchAid, Christian Aid, Norwegian Church Aid, FinnChurchAid, ICCO, Brot fur die Welt, Kerk in Actie.

Faith based organisations (FBO’s) have a unique possibility and responsibility to address one of the most important drivers of the AIDS pandemic, namely gender inequality. FBO’s provide moral and social leadership, establishing norms which determine how individuals with faith, and communities of individuals with faith, respond to HIV and AIDS concerns (for example, what prevention methods are acceptable, whether people living with HIV are stigmatised and discriminated against and which kind of gender behaviour that is considered acceptable). FBO’s provide, therefore, extensive existing community-based structures for responding to HIV. At the same time dealing with human sexuality and gender equality is a real challenge to most FBO’s. 

Download PDF (343.20 KB. 4p.).