The causal factors of the high HIV prevalence in young women and girls in Africa will be investigated this week.

Civil society organisations, United Nations agencies and other partners are working with the SADC Parliamentary Forum to hold the first ever Women's Parliament in Mahe, Seychelles this week 5 and 6 July.

The organisers say the parliament will bring together SADC female MPs and their counterparts from other parts of the world to critically discuss and sustain the engagement of parliaments to implement Resolution 60/2 of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) which focuses on women, the girl-child and HIV and Aids. Through Resolution 60/2, the UNCSW calls for full attention to the high levels of new HIV infections among young women and adolescent girls, and their root causes. As the Report of the United Nations' Global Commission on HIV and the Law noted almost exactly five years ago, such root causes include a country's body of laws concerning HIV and Aids.

The evidence indicates that an enabling legal environment, including one that ensures both the legal and practical equality of women and girls, is much more likely to result in lower rates of HIV infection than a punitive one that enshrines historical inequalities. Consideration of women and girls in the HIV discourse is a response to the high burden of disease among women and girls in the region and globally. United Nations statistics indicate that 51% of all adults living with HIV globally as of 2015 were women aged 15 years and older. In east and southern Africa, women account for more than half of the total number of people living with HIV.