Windhoek - 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 next week from Wednesday to Thursday.
The organisers say the Women's Parliament will bring together SADC women members of parliament, 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).
The resolution focuses on women, the girl-child and HIV and Aids, which is still a major grim reaper claiming countless lives.
Through Resolution 60/2, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) calls on governments, international partners and civil society to give 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.
The SADC Parliamentary Forum is the deliberative body that brings together 14 National Parliaments in the SADC Region to discuss common issues affecting the SADC region as well as to support the regional integration agenda.