More on Rwanda.

Interesting that Rwanda is the highest in political representation because gender inequity is alive and thriving (well like everywhere else really) and is connected still to violence against women and increased HIV/AIDS infection among girls and women.

via AllAfrica.com…
Globally, women and young girls now make up nearly two thirds of those living with HIV/Aids, and the majority of whom are people below 24. Women’s vulnerability to infection can be attributed to society’s inequalities which puts them at riskâ-oepoverty, abuse, and violence, lack of information, coercion by older men and men having several partners. That’s why many mainstream prevention strategies are untenable; for example those based on the ‘ABC’ approach. Abstain, Be faithful, and use Condom.

“Where sexual violence is widespread, abstinence or insisting on condom use is not a realistic option for women and girls. There is no full access to prevention options-including microbicides and female condoms. Nor, does marriage always provide the answer, in many parts of the developing world, the majority of women will be married by the age of 20 and have higher rates of infection than their unmarried sexually active peers, often because their husbands have many sexual partners,” observed Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general.
Thanks Kofi, you might want to tell Ellen Sauerbrey about that! You mean empowering women might help in the “growing AIDS epidemic?”
Annan suggests mobilizing global gender movements, which I think is happening. What we/they need is some SERIOUS financial and resource backing, not this ABC spouting nonsense.
Another thing, I was just talking to my friend about how when people talk about other countries they use the name of those countries, but when folks talk about Africa they don’t refer to countries, the say Africa. That is annoying.