Keynote address against HIV
Protecting mothers and children against HIV/AIDS – 8 March 2010, by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
(Article published in Lemonde.fr).
Barely 100 years after the first Women’s Day in 1909, the world has many reasons for celebration. And yet, this tribute to the social, political and economic emancipation of women has little meaning for the great majority of women who, throughout the world, are still fighting to obtain the basic right to education, healthcare and a modicum of control over their own lives. I am profoundly disturbed by the difficulties with which they are confronted, difficulties that people who have the privilege of living in a country like France find difficult to comprehend. This day must be an occasion for us to realize that we cannot continue to focus solely on our own problems.
The majority of women in developing countries are confronted with terrible difficulties. Every year, 560,000 women die giving birth, an event that should be one of the happiest of one’s life. And AIDS is the first cause of mortality among women of child-bearing age. This is not simply a question of health, but also one of power. People are infected by HIV when they lack the power to protect themselves. This is particularly true for women who have no power to decide in their sexual life, and children, who risk being infected at birth and are therefore completely powerless.
There is a great deal to be done to remedy these problems – and the positive point is that the necessary changes can be made very fast. I had the opportunity to see this when I focused more particularly on prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission over the last year. In West Africa, I saw tiny health structures supplying treatments against HIV, thereby rapidly improving the chances of women in this region to take care of themselves so as to be able to love and protect their children, and this type of change is starting to take place everywhere.
Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, France has been a driver of these changes, and we are proud of the people and organizations that work tirelessly to improve and save lives. In 1983, Professors Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier discovered the AIDS virus. Aides, a nonprofit working for people infected with and affected by HIV, works in partnership with African nonprofits to improve access to treatment in the countries hit hardest by the epidemic. Professor Michel Kazatchkine, former ambassador of France, charged with the combat against AIDS, today directs the Global Fund, which is one of the international and non-governmental organizations that has committed, under the aegis of UNAIDS, to eliminating mother-to-child HIV transmission by 2015, a goal that it is now possible to implement and achieve.
Just 10 years ago, the very idea of providing antiretroviral treatment for seropositive people in the developing countries was seen as utopian. Today, in the developing countries, four million people are receiving a treatment started, in most cases, in the last five years. If it is possible to provide treatment against HIV to mothers in the rural areas of Benin, one of the poorest countries on the planet, acting to ensure that no child is born with HIV by 2015 is a completely realistic goal.
But to achieve this essential and just goal, we must act fast. On the scale of the planet, we succeed in reaching only two out of five people that need treatment and only 45% of seropositive pregnant women to enable them to prevent transmission of HIV to their child. Every year, another one million women are infected with HIV and more than 400 thousand children are born with HIV – i.e. 1000 children every day. Is this not a crying injustice, when we consider that prevention and treatment could be available to all of them?
To succeed in this endeavor, we must understand that the fight against the disease is closely related to the combat to give women power over their own lives. Women are the heart of society: they earn money, they are caregivers, they nourish, they are the driver of change. Our common responsibility is to act so that, in the developing countries, our sisters also obtain access to the fundamental rights and basic services that most of us have the luxury of considering as a foregone conclusion. By investing in women, we are investing in health and the development of families, communities and, in short, entire countries.
We have always wanted to eradicate the scourges of HIV and maternal mortality and remove social handicaps such as lack of access to education. Today, we have the means to overcome these problems – and we will succeed in doing so if we can reach out to enough women.
