In Africa, women infected with the HIV virus now outnumber infected men. Nearly two-thirds of the world's illiterate people are women, and more than 70 percent of women live in poverty, according to advocates for women attending a U.N.-sponsored conference this week. The trafficking of women as sexual slaves is also among top issues at the conference. Trafficking of women and girls is estimated to be an $8- billion-a-year industry. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan characterized the practice in an address to the conference as "an outrage dating back to biblical times" which "has now become a worldwide plague."