Speech by the Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang at the Women in Partnership Against AIDS Summit in Durban

Theme: 'Leading the Way to a World without AIDS'

Programme Director,
MEC for Health Peggy Nkonyeni,
Councillors,
Representatives of the Women in Partnership Against AIDS,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Sisters, friends and comrades

Good Morning to you all

It is indeed a great honour for me to officially open this Summit of the Women in Partnership Against AIDS (Wipaa).

As we all know, August is a very significant month in our calendar as Government and as people of South Africa. This significance is based on the historical role that women of South Africa played in the fight against the system that sought to subject the majority of the people of this country to being second-class citizens in the country of their own and to condemn them to eternal servitude.

It was during this month in 1956 that the women of South Africa stood up and said: "Enough is enough." And it is against this background that we grow from strength to strength as women and as the nation. Fifty-one years later, here we are, building on that solid foundation.

Programme Director, this two-day Summit, like many other gatherings across our country during this month, creates a platform for women and girls to reflect on their daily social and economic challenges as well as acknowledge the important role women play to improve their circumstances.

This Summit builds-on the achievements of the Wipaa Summit of 2003 where four themes emerged, namely:

* Women play central role in the fight against HIV and AIDS in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Region
* Managing HIV can postpone and even prevent the onset of AIDS defining illnesses
* Nutrition as an essential component in improving and prolonging the health of people infected with the virus
* Healthy living and healthy lifestyles are the key to better health
* Partnership and collaboration across all sectors of society as crucial in combating HIV and AIDS.

Our Government has always been mindful of the severe impact of gender imbalances, poverty, malnutrition, unemployment to the general population of our country, and the role these social determinants of health play in further disempowering the most vulnerable group of our society � women, children and the elderly.

Because of this unequal society, we are aware that relationships tend to be much more transactional and the role this plays in fuelling HIV infections. The majority of our people are poor and dependent on men and under those circumstances may not be free to take decisions about their health and life in general.

And although we uphold the right of dignity as Government, we have observed a continued disregard of the safety of women and children in our communities. The recent alleged incident in Umlazi township, where a young women was attacked for wearing pants and her home gutted down, attest to that. This is an unfortunate situation that has to be condemned.

On the other hand, HIV and AIDS disproportionately affect women compared to men. And as Government, we are doing everything within the limited resources to curb the spread of HIV and reduce the severe impact of AIDS on our communities.

The theme of this Summit, 'Leading the Way to a World without AIDS,' therefore places a huge responsibility upon all of us to revisit the role of both women and men as important partners in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Our first challenge is that we need to understand and respond to the realities and circumstances that render people vulnerable to HIV infection, secondly to ensure safer societies and safer homes where women and children are allowed to live their lives free from the threat of physical or emotional abuse and harassment.

Programme Director, the vision of a world without AIDS (or even a South Africa without AIDS) could be realised when we eradicate the social and economic conditions that drive HIV infections, which brings me to another challenge. We need to focus on these conditions so that our collective and individual response would be better informed and thus more effective.

Over the past year, our Department of Health has made a number of significant shifts aimed at the strengthening and re-alignment of our response to HIV and AIDS. Most of us at the Summit are probably familiar with the newly launched HIV and AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) National Strategic Plan (NSP) for 2007 to 2011, which builds-on the achievements of the Strategic Plan of 2000 to 2005.

As part of our campaign to promote partnerships, this Summit, among other things seek to mobilise partnerships in our efforts to enhance the implementation of the NSP. The Plan acknowledges the good that has been done over the past decade. It also reinforces the country's multi-sectoral response to HIV and AIDS and its impact.

The Summit also comes after the release of the Report of the National HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey, which indicated a decrease in HIV prevalence amongst pregnant women from 30,2% in 2005 to 29,1% in 2006. These are positive signs and we need to sustain the trend by continuing to strengthen our prevention programmes.

I would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation for the good work done by our partners, particularly the ordinary men and women in our communities and those operating in under-resourced settings since the birth of the Partnership Against AIDS in 1998. The Summit presents us with the opportunity to re-affirm our commitments in this regard.

Although our Government is committed to the strengthening of health systems, it remains the responsibility of each individual to modify risky behaviour, to take the necessary protective precautions and to strive towards more health affirming lifestyles.

We want to encourage parents to participate more actively in the lives of children. We need to make sure that children focus on their education and do not divert to such things as being sexually active or pregnant earlier in their lives. Ladies and Gentlemen, for us as a nation perhaps we need to ask ourselves: are we doing enough in our own homes and neighbourhoods to engender life-affirming skills among our youth?

I would like to call upon all of us gathered here to use this Summit to deepen the partnerships that will enable us to find solutions to these challenges. As we deliberate in our commissions, let us be mindful of the expectations of the millions of our people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

The topics allocated to various commissions suggest that you will have an opportunity to interrogate some of the critical issues affecting women. These issues include:

* alleviation of poverty
* economic Empowerment
* teenage pregnancy
* accelerated HIV and AIDS prevention, care and treatment.

I would like to wish you well in your deliberations. I believe that if we approach the challenge HIV and AIDS with the same determination and spirit as that of the women who marched to the Union Building in 1956, we shall achieve a world that is without HIV.

Programme Director, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me to declare this Summit opened.

Malibongwe

Issued by: Department of Health
7 August 2007