HIV/AIDS prevention and care for women faulted

The federalgovernment getsa failing grade on supporting girls and women in the fight againstHIV/AIDS, according to anew report card by anadvocacy group.

Tuesday's report by the Coalition for a Blueprint for Action on Women and Girls and HIV/AIDS assigned Ottawa poor grades for funding cuts, laws and practices that it says run counter to the evidence on how to stem the disease.

For a country rich in resources, Canada is doing poorly on fighting HIV/AIDS because of a lack of political will,charges Louise Binder, a Canadian lawyer diagnosed with HIV in 1994, and whois part of the coalition.

"We have certain populations in Canada that are actually in Third World conditions as it relates to prevention, care, support, and legal and ethical issues," Binder said in an interview with CBC Radio's Metro Morning from the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C.

"The aboriginal population that makes up less than three per cent of our overall population has more than 10 per cent of the infections. Half of them are women."

If the federal government was doing a good job in prevention, then those numbers in Canada would drop,Binder said.

Federal funding has been cut forabout a dozen aboriginal health groups,aboriginal women's groups and the NationalAssociation of Women and the Law, Binder said in a release.

Health research investments

Binder called on the federal government to reverse those cuts as a starting point.

Funding for aboriginal HIV/AIDS groups has been protected, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq counteredin an interview with CBC's Power and Politics fromWashington, where she isattending the19th International AIDS Conference.

"Since the reductions in other areas, our government invested an additional $25 million in aboriginal health research with aboriginal people by aboriginal peoplein partnerships with universities," Aglukkaq said. "We our protecting frontline health-care services."

Aglukkaq called it historic thataboriginal groups were part of the conference's main session, a change she saidCanadians pushed for.

The International AIDS Conference ends Friday.