DUSHANBE, March 2, 2012, Asia-Plus – On February 28, key national and international partners working in the area of HIV/AIDS prevention reviewed and appraised the UN Women implemented Gender and HIV/AIDS project in Tajikistan on February 28, UN Women CO in Tajikistan reports.

The project has been supported by Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in the frames of Program Acceleration Fund (PAF) cycles.  The results of the project were presented in the form of a roundtable discussion with participation of implementing partners and beneficiaries.

The event was attended by partners from the Ministry of Health, Committee on Women and Family Affairs, officials from National AIDS Center, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, representatives of local NGOs, UN agencies, and mass media.  The objective of the event was to demonstrate best practice models and tools developed in the frames of the project and offer to the wide audience the expertise, partnerships, and capacities developed by UN Women in the process of project implementation.

In particular, major interest of audience was attracted to the studies on Gender Assessment of HIV programming in Tajikistan and access of PLWHA to social services.  The models of increasing community awareness and addressing HIV violence through religious leaders and sport activities, establishing support services on the base of local NGOs, and cross- referrals between governmental and non-governmental service providers were in the focus of discussions.  Notably, over the term of the project, with the support of UN Women, capacities of the newly established Network of WLWHA were built and integration of the Network into the group of human rights activists and NGOs representing PLWHA facilitated.  In the frames of the project, the network jointly with two other NGOs developed a report on the status of WLWHA in Tajikistan, to be submitted to the CEDAW Committee as an alternative report from Tajikistan.

Meeting participants discussed and developed recommendations for decision makers and policy makers to further address the issue of women’s lack of access to services, gaps in HIV programming, creating supporting environment in order to increase the momentum for change. In this regards multiple acute HIV based violence problems were stressed during the event. 

With the support of the project issues of uniformed women’s access to health and justice were assessed and model of women friendly services developed at the Ministry of Defense.