Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) Passes a Resolution on Women and HIV!

By U.S. Positive Women’s Network

Read the press release. | Read the Resolution on Women and HIV.

Advocates across the country celebrated a historic victory last week when Obama’s Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) passed a resolution on women and HIV!

Among other provisions, the resolution recommends that the U.S. National HIV/AIDS Strategy Implementation Plan be updated to include specific progress, metrics, and goals to measure progress on reducing new infections among women and for increasing access to care and improving health outcomes for women living with HIV. The resolution additionally calls for improving gender-sensitive care by integrating HIV prevention and care with sexual and reproductive health services and intimate partner violence prevention and counseling, and recommends that the President “expand and expedite” the provision of services that facilitate HIV-positive women’s access to care.

Passage of this resolution follows President Obama’s March 30th memorandum establishing a White House working group on the intersection of HIV/AIDS, violence against women, and gender-related health disparities, which will be co-chaired by Lynn Rosenthal, White House Advisor on Violence Against Women and Girls, and Grant Colfax, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. The memorandum calls for the working group to be established within 60 days from the March 30th memo. PWN, women’s advocates, and allies look forward to seeing the list of work group members once it is publicly released.

As a membership body of women living with HIV in the United States, including transgender women, the U.S. Positive Women’s Network commends PACHA for passage of this historic resolution.