This is a great question.
It's a two-pronged approach. As you know, the UNFPA, the UN, works through governments.
Part of my task as the head of UNFPA is to work with responsible officials. Not only the minister of health but the minister of finance and the minister of education understand that the taboo and the stigma are what drives something like HIV, where the highest prevalence of new infections is the African adolescent girl.
In fact, the statistics and the evidence are there, but they have to be interpreted country by country. We have the advantage of having a local presence in over 150 locations over the world, where we've been there before, we're there for COVID, and we will be there after.
The second piece which is as important is to interpret statistics and epidemiology through the eye of the end user. For me, it's that 12-year-old girl who I described. She may be really smart but she doesn't know, and ignorance should not kill her. In a place like Niger we have écoles des maris for the husbands to be taught by midwives. They come in droves. The men sit around under the tree, or whatever it is, and the midwife explains to them what happens during childbirth. This is why, if his wife has children every single year, her body can be depleted, and he can do something about that. This is what a condom is, and this is what other options are for birth control.
We also work very closely in tandem with NGOs. Nutrition International happens to be one where we actually overlap. You've heard Joel say that anemia can be one of the causes of death during childbirth. That's preventable. Let's do something to help explain to a woman what she should be eating, what she should do if she is short of breath, and who to call.
My last thing is—and here again the help of Canada—I just have to tell you very sincerely how honoured I feel to give this testimony today.
Gender-based violence is a taboo and it's prevalent. It's a crime that affects one in three women and girls over the course of a lifetime. The shame and the stigma apply to her, and it's so unfair. What we're trying to do, especially this year, is to give a voice against sexual and gender-based violence, against the terrible situation where you actually have sexual exploitation, sometimes by humanitarian workers. We're determined to end this and to have zero tolerance working as a united UN, under the directorship of our secretary-general, who's called for peace in the home.
This is a call that Canada responded to. That ceasefire also needs to take place in our own backyard, and we need to involve ourselves in the protection of the rights of women and girls.
Thank you very much.