This special issue of Forced Migration Review sheds light on the necessity to address sexual violence as a crime, a humanitarian emergency and a major challenge to development efforts. Each article takes a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities for combating such violence during conflict, post-conflict and in development recovery contexts. Issues that are raised include sexual exploitation and abuse and its link to HIV/AIDS and public health and sexual health rights.

This paper was presented at the South African symposium on "Preventing and Coping with HIV/AIDS in Post-Conflict Societies: Gender-Based Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa", by the Tanzania country director of the African Medical and Research Foundation. The paper addresses the ways in which post-conflict societies witness a huge increase in HIV prevalence rates affecting both the refugee and the host populations. The author uses the influx of Rwandan refugees into Tanzania after 1994 as an example, and explains the impact such increased prevalence has on women in particular. The paper also discusses the impact of a program in Tanzania established by the African Medical and Research Foundation in association with other local civil society organizations. The aim of the program was to create an environment where a woman would enjoy an improved reproductive health status through respect for her rights at the family, community and service delivery levels and by accessing quality reproductive health information and services.

In April 1994, Rwanda suffered one hundred days of violence, targeted at the Tutsi and moderate Hutu population. Ten years later, the consequences of the violence have not been dealt with adequately, neither by the international community nor by the Rwandan government. Survivors of violence still cry out for medical care; survivors and families of victims clamour for justice that is slow in coming. Women continue to die from diseases related to HIV/AIDS, which some of them contracted as a result of rape during the 1994 genocide and armed conflict. Survivors of rape and their families face human rights violations that themselves lead to further and overlapping violations: survivors of sexual violence may have contracted HIV/AIDS, as a result of which they and their families often face stigma, which can in turn lead to loss of employment, difficulty in asserting property rights, and a loss of civil and political rights. This document highlights the legacies of the conflict as having a particular effect on women and girls, and outlines how these legacies contribute to the transmission of HIV.

In this report, the ICG focuses on the destructive interplay between HIV/AIDS and violent conflict, on the disease within armed forces, refugees and displaced persons, and on how well international peace operations are meeting the challenge. The report is the third in a series on HIV/AIDS as a security issue and draws particularly on the policy experience of Uganda. It provides analysis along with recommendations to the donor community, the United Nations, to governments, and to NGOs and other international organizations. Although the report does not focus on the intersection of gender, HIV/AIDS, and conflict, it does provide insights that are useful in this regard.

FAS organized a workshop on the theme "Linking AIDS to Women's Peace Advocacy" from April 3-7, 2000. The workshop took place at the OAU Conflict Management Center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It drew together women from Africa to consider the issues of gender and HIV/AIDS in peace advocacy in the continent. The publication explores the nature of the epidemic and the lessons that can be learned from the workshop.

The voices of women, their experiences during war and their struggles to build peace are at the heart of this report by independent experts Elisabeth Rehn (Finland) and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia). Because of the specific way in which women are targeted during conflict, and because Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security called for further study, UNIFEM appointed the two women, both politicians and government officials in their home countries, to travel to conflict areas, interview women and bring their concerns to the attention of the United Nations and the world. The report covers many areas of concern, from the gender dimensions of violence and displacement during conflict to the role of peacekeepers and the need for women to play a central part during peace negotiations and reconstruction. Key recommendations focus on finding ways to protect and empower women. Chapter Four focuses on HIV/AIDS, Women and War. It discusses how wherever a woman lives with conflict and upheaval, the threat of HIV/AIDS and its effects are multiplied. Women are more susceptible to infection than men, yet often have little control over their sexuality, and at the same time are forced by conflict conditions to trade sex for money, food, shelter and any other number of necessities. Education, protection and access to treatment are essential for people in conflict zones if the rates of infection are to be reduced. The full report is available on-line

The 1994 Genocide in Rwanda resulted in a number of women contracting HIV/AIDS, which subsequently has serious implications on human security and on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) justice process. This document traces the impact of ICTR on the lives of women who were victims of rape and violence, and highlights the definition of rape, defined for the first time in international law, as a component of genocide. The need to address gender violence and its impact on the spread of HIV/AIDS is critical.

The scale of the HIV/AIDS epidemic led the United Nations Security Council to make a historical move in 2002 by adopting a resolution, which not only addresses a health issue for the first time, but specifically links the spread of HIV/AIDS to the maintenance of global peace and security. This document addresses (1) the ways in which HIV/AIDS threatens human security, (2) the negative synergy between HIV/AIDS and poverty, HIV/AIDS and conflict and HIV/AIDS and gender relations, and (3) the critical interaction between soldiers, youths and women. The second part of the document is devoted to recommendations and guiding principles that should direct efforts to combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic worldwide.

Human security presumes freedom from want and from fear, as well as access to and control of resources and opportunities. The basic elements of human security include survival, safety, opportunity, dignity, agency and autonomy. These preconditions for human security are essential in reducing vulnerability to HIV infection and its impact. However, gender differences and inequalities affect the extent to which men and women, boys and girls are able to enjoy these basic security needs. Those most deprived of these needs are themselves most highly vulnerable to HIV infection and most disadvantaged in coping with its impact. This document discusses gender-related inequalities that threaten human security and add to HIV vulnerability and outlines principles and opportunities for action.