Geneva– ? From Armenia to Zambia, thousands of activists turned out to sing in mighty cathedrals, light candles in city squares and march and have dance-athons on World AIDS Day as the United Nations focused on protecting women and girls, often sidelined in the fight against the disease.

Nearly half the 39.4 million people infected with HIV worldwide are female. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said three-quarters of all HIV-positive women lived in sub-Saharan Africa. About 57 percent of the adults with HIV are women, he said.

“The number of women living with HIV is on the rise in every region. Today the face of AIDS is increasingly young and female,” said Peter Piot, head of UNAIDS.

“Prevention methods such as the ABC approach — Abstinence, Be faithful and use Condoms — are good, but not enough to protect women where gender inequality is pervasive,” he said.

Laws must be passed against domestic abuse and rape and to make sure women have property rights because that will make them more secure and “far less vulnerable to HIV,” Piot said. “We must be able to ensure that women can choose marriage, to decide when and with whom they have sex and to successfully negotiate condom use.”

In Asia, where the disease claimed 540,000 lives this year, campaigners in Japan and South Korea handed out condoms. Thailand, Vietnam, and Bangladesh had marches.

China ordered local officials to learn about the disease and televised a rare visit by President Hu Jintao to AIDS patients in a hospital.

With an estimated 840,000 infected with HIV, China has been criticized for reacting too slowly to the threat of AIDS. The United Nations has warned that China could have as many as 10 million people infected by 2010 if it doesn’t act.