As HIV/AIDS rates hit a global high, Bermuda?s activists say young people, particularly women, are putting themselves at risk for contracting the disease by engaging in unprotected sex.

As the 15th International AIDS Conference opened in Bangkok, Thailand yesterday United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan told health policymakers from all over the world they?re not doing enough to combat the spread of the disease. understands that Bermuda does not have a Government representative at the conference.

More than 15,000 scientists, doctors, politicians and social workers will spend this week assessing the world?s progress in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

The theme of the conference is ?Access for All,? meaning access to essential HIV-related science, prevention, treatment and resources for the people who need it.

According to the United Nations, women now account for half of all adult infections world-wide and 58 percent of women in Africa are living with the disease.

Carolyn Armstrong, Director of the Lighthouse, the Island?s only residential home for people with HIV/AIDS in Smiths Parish, said Bermuda?s young people have enough information about the disease but continued to engage in promiscuous behaviour at a young age without using condoms.

She said she knows first hand of young people?s perception of the disease as the coordinator of the AIDS awareness group STAR: ?Young people, particularly our young girls, are not getting the message. STD rates are still very high. Our young people are still living as though they?re invincible.?

The Lighthouse, which provides a home to people who are living with the disease, is currently filled to capacity. She has had ten referrals to the home in the last several days, five of whom are women.

?Six people are on the waiting list for a Six people are on a waiting list for a bed in the facility.

Agencies such as the Allan Vincent Smith Foundation, which acts as an information centre for people with the disease, and the Health Department have had to hold crisis intervention talks and education programmes in public schools to deliver the message of safe sex to young people who are not informed about the risks of AIDs.

While women contract the disease more easily due to their physical anatomy, Mrs. Armstrong said young women in their teens and 20s, are pressured by men who say they will not use condoms. She said young women are also being coerced into oral and anal sex.

?We have young women who think they are still virgins after engaging in oral and anal sex,? she said. ?There are young women in public who talk about the sexual relations they have, and while you have the ones with only one partner some will have two or three in a week.?

In Bermuda, ten cases of HIV reported to the Health Department last year with 30 percent in the 20-29 year age group, meaning the people who contracted the disease were infected while in their teens.

Mrs. Armstrong urged women to make wise choices and to take responsibility for their actions, particularly during summer parties and festivities.

Michael Fox, director of the Allan Vincent Smith Foundation, said women?s risk for contracting the disease is increased by the male macho attitude which remains a risk factor in the spread of the disease.

He said men were failing to tell women when they had multiple sex partners.

He said the availability of condoms is still an issue in Bermuda with some shops selling them at behind the counter locations which may increase the embarrassment factor.

?They should be placed on a store shelf where people can look at them and pick them up without them having to ask for them in a line behind someone they know,? said Mr. Fox.