Latest News
Thai women of all ages unite to fight against HIV/AIDS
12 November 2004, Bangkok: The United Nations in Bangkok, Thailand in collaboration with partners and celebrities will commemorate the “World AIDS Day”, 1st December, to encourage girls and women to say no to unsafe sex, revealing that the many Thais are still afraid of living together with HIV/AIDS-infected and affected persons in the society, the voices and needs of the infected victims remain unheard of, an important problem awaiting to be solved.
The main supporting agencies to hold this significant “World AIDS Day” are the UNDP, UNAIDS, UNICEF, and Media of Medias. The purpose of this event is to stimulate teenagers and general populations to actively prevent themselves from getting infected with HIV/AIDS and to promote better understanding about how to live with HIV positive people and those affected by HIV/AIDS. Thus, the responsible UN agencies are now preparing measures to increase public awareness and promote better understandings on this issue.
Mr. Sompong Chareonsuk, Programme Adviser to the UNAIDS and representative from the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS in Thailand, revealed that all nations would concurrently hold the AIDS event on December 1st annually to stimulate their citizens to be aware of HIV/AIDS, fatal and incurable communicable diseases, as well as to emphasize the importance of HIV/AIDS self-protective measures. To date, the total number of the death caused by AIDS has gone up to more than 20 million people worldwide, or approximately 3 million people per year, with the newly infected patients of 4.8 million people annually. In the case of Thailand, there are about 10,000 newly infected cases each year.
The AIDS event in this year will focus mainly on teenagers and people in general under the United Nation’s theme of “Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS” as women and girls are at risk. The number of women and girls living with HIV/AIDS is increasing remarkably. Considering that, the activities for this event will be organized in the areas conveniently accessible to teenagers and families, such as the Center Point, Siam Square and the Seacon Square.
In order to encourage the society to understand about the risk and negative impacts on girls and women, the main purposes of this event are to stimulate men and women to understand self-protective measures for unsafe sex; to change behaviors and attitudes toward sex among teenagers; and to promote gender equality with respect to sex between men and women. As a result, the activities in this event will mainly focus on educating people on HIV/AIDS self-preventive measures, including the use of condoms when having sexual intercourse as well as sex education especially for female to say no to unsafe sex. Regarding the measure, it is the best way to prevent girls and women from getting infected with HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Other measures also include promoting better understanding among publics that everyone can live together with HIV/AIDS infected persons, specially infected women and girls in terms of their needs and rights.
“Another factor attributing to the widespread of HIV/AIDS is the fact that women are not able to persuade their partners to use condoms. As a result, they, unwillingly and inevitably in most cases, end up having sexual intercourse without condoms in order to satisfy their partners’ needs, without knowing their partners’ sexual backgrounds, while putting them at risk of HIV/AIDS infection. To deal effectively with this problem, it is necessary to stimulate and encourage women and girls to exercise their rights and powers to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS simply by negotiate with their partners to use condoms or otherwise immediately refuse to have sexual intercourse, a critical preventive measure the UN gives importance upon” added by the UNAIDS Programme Adviser.
The event will focus on educating women and girls on HIV/AIDS-related issues as the number of HIV-infected patients among these groups in Thailand has increased sharply. The HIV prevalence among pregnant women is 1.8 percent in 2003. In addition, approximately one third of the people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS since 2002 is female, while the infected youth among the age of 15-19 years are most female.
The activities of this event will be held throughout November with the goals to promote awareness among the target groups and encourage them to prevent and help solve the problem. The event will be held three times in sequence: The first one starts from 12-13 November at the Centerpoint and the second from 20-21 November at the Activity Ground, the 4th Floor of the Seacon Square. The activities include the discussion of celebrities and teens under a topic "keep virginity can prevent AIDS?", paintings from famous celebrities such as Sujira Arundpipat (Nui), Sira Patrut (Yai), Rawich Terdwong (Pip), and Napat Patamasingha (Poy); the exhibition on HIV/AIDS; and the displaying booths and products for sale from the HIV/AIDS Network.
Later on 28 November, the event will be held at the BEC TERO Hall from 16.00 – 22.00 hrs. The activities include the concerts of Christina Argila, Ka-La, Modern Dog, etc; T-shirts hand-painted by HRH Princess Siribha Juthaporn available for sale the revenue thereof will be donated to the HIV/AIDS Network; paintings of celebrities for sale; the discussions of youths, superstars and artists; the displaying booth and products for sale from the HIV/AIDS Network; and the exhibition to promote the knowledge on safe sex.
In this regard, the UN in Thailand strongly encourage knowledge disseminations as well as to promote better understanding on HIV/AIDS issues so that everyone can live together with people living with HIV/AIDS.
