Scottish rock singer Annie Lennox recently joined the UN agency fighting HIV/AIDS as its new spokeswoman.

On Wednesday, Lennox was appointed as the goodwill ambassador of UNAIDS and she vowed to deal with the "daily brutality faced by millions of women and girls" affected by the disease.

The 55-year-old musician is the other half of The Eurythmics and gained fame with the song Sweet Dreams which reached no. 1 in the US charts back in 1983.

Since then she went on as a solo artist while she was also a political and social activist. In October 2007, she launched the SING campaign which aims to raise awareness of AIDS-infected women in southern Africa.

"If we are to end the cycle of human devastation triggered by the AIDS epidemic, we must address the rights of women and girls, and challenge their second-class citizen status, which puts them at greater risk of HIV," Lennox said.