International development charity ActionAid has launched a New Year campaign asking people to send in their shoes to highlight the link between violence against women and HIV infection.

Sign the petition, or find out how you can send a shoe

The campaign aims to collect 2, 876 shoes from the British public – one for every women who contracts HIV across the world each day.

More than 15 million women are living with HIV globally. Every half minute another becomes infected. Widespread violence against women and girls increases their risk of HIV infection.

A girl born in South Africa has a higher chance of being raped than of learning to read. With 5 million South Africans living with HIV the risk of HIV infection for women is extremely high.

In their new international development strategy on HIV and Aids, the UK government acknowledged the links between violence and HIV infection and pledged to help tackle the problem, but has not yet taken practical steps to do so.

ActionAid believes the government must now move from acknowledgement to action and is asking the public to put their foot down and tell the UK government to take action on violence against women and HIV and Aids.

ActionAid campaigner, Fionnuala Murphy said that over the next seven years the government will spend £6 billion on health in poor countries:

"As part of this spend, ActionAid wants the government to do something about violence against women – a major driver of HIV and Aids.

"We have launched our ‘put your foot down’ campaign that will run until International Women’s Day (March 8) asking the government to use its strong global position to make sure that women are placed at the centre of the global Aids response."

The UK public can show their support by signing ActionAid’s online petition or sending the charityshoe, which will be presented to the Department for International Development on International Women's Day. Fionnuala Murphy continued:

“Taking part in our campaign will help send a message to government that there are huge numbers of people out there who are willing to put their foot down to put an end to the spread of HIV.”