NEW YORK (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) -- The United Nations on Tuesday launched a five-year plan to fight for an end to gender inequalities and human rights violations that put women and girls at risk of HIV infection.

"For too long, the inequalities that affect women and girls have made them more vulnerable to HIV," said UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro, the former foreign minister of Tanzania.

"For too long, societies have been unable -- or unwilling -- to talk about those inequalities as drivers of the epidemic," she said. "For too long, cohesive action to address those inequalities have been lacking."

Migiro, who was addressing the 54th session on the Commission on the Status of Women at UN headquarters in New York, and other government delegates as well as non-governmental organizations said deeply entrenched societal attitudes about women and girls resulted in their human rights being neglected and hence their inability to protect themselves against the global epidemic.

UNAIDS said the five-year plan will call on governments to reinforce their actions to focus on women and girls as the centre in the AIDS response worldwide and to ensure that their human rights are respected.

"Violence against women is unacceptable and must not be tolerated," said Michael Sidibe, UNAIDS executive director. Sidibe said when robbed of their dignity, women and girls become the victims and the world will lose their crucial contribution to global development.

Annie Lennox, an AIDS activist, called for a broad movement for change to help women and girls protect themselves against abuse.

UNAIDS said up to 70 per cent of women worldwide experience violence in their lifetime, and fearing violence, they are less likely to negotiate for safe sex, request an HIV test or access to treatment. Forced sex increases the risk of HIV transmission.

It said 60 per cent of HIV-infected people in the sub-Saharan regions are women. In southern Africa, women aged 15 to 24 years are on average three times more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS than men. In South Africa, a woman is raped every minute.

The UN conference, which brought together some 2,000 delegates from 50 countries, was aimed at reviewing progress in the implementation of a Platform for Action adopted in Beijing in 1995.

Copyright 2010 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH