London - The
challenges women face in the developing world, such as poor
education and healthcare, child marriage and female genital
mutilation may seem insurmountable, but change can come through
solidarity from women in rich nations, said singer Annie Lennox.
While the disadvantages of women in poor countries are not
being addressed, women in rich countries could use their power
for good, Lennox said.
"This is how I see feminism, about the empowerment of
women," she told a summit of female business leaders in London
on Tuesday.
Lennox, an award winning singer-songwriter turned women's
rights and AIDS activist, started advocacy group The Circle to
enable influential women to use their skills and resources to
help women living in poverty.
She stressed the importance of men joining the women's
rights movement, praising a law change in Malawi to ban child
marriage.
In 2015, Malawi passed a law to raise the minimum age of
marriage to 18 with UN Women working with traditional male
chiefs to change local practices.
Lennox, who shot to global fame in the 1980s with the
Eurythmics band, now devotes most of her time to women's rights
campaigning and raising awareness about HIV/AIDS.
She decided to become an activist when she witnessed former
South African president Nelson Mandela in 2003 describing the
HIV/AIDS pandemic as a virtual genocide of the South African
people, in particular of women and children.
While great strides have been made in treating and
preventing HIV/AIDS, in many developing countries, inequality,
social pressures and lack of education about the virus often
make women more vulnerable to HIV infection than men. In
sub-Saharan Africa, women and girls make up the majority of the
HIV-positive population.
HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among women of
reproductive age, according to the World Health Organization.
"We think of HIV/AIDS in a particular way but we don't
understand who is at the epicentre of the AIDS pandemic in
Africa, and it is young girls and young women," Lennox told the
Fortune Women Summit in London.