The XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012) recently announced the 15 plenary speakers who will present at this year’s event, to be held June 2012 in Washington.

Following the announcement, Alice Welbourn, HIV-positive activist and member of the Athena Network steering committee, has written to the President of the IAS criticising the lack of involvement of HIV positive-women in the proceedings.

As Poz.com reports, the letter to the IAS points out that, despite the global HIV pandemic disproportionately affecting women, there were ‘no women living openly with HIV; no young women; and no women of color from North America’ on the program. The letter also stated that none of the participants announced in the IAS press release were identified as people living with HIV.

On its conference website the IAS states that one of the conference principles is to ‘ensure gender equality in representation at all levels of the planning and in the implementation of the conference’. Poz.com has critiqued the plenary announcement as being contrary to the GIPA principles (Greater Involvement of People living with HIV/AIDS), which the IAS supports as part of its mandate.

The full program for AIDS 2012 is currently under development; further details will be announced on the IAS conference website www.aids2012.org in the coming weeks.