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Key messages to Advocate for STI’s, HIV and SRH and Young people
About this event: Young People Take The Lead. Stop AIDS

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Global and Regional messages
 Invest in youth leadership: Policies and programmes will be most effective if they involve young people meaningfully in all stages of planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Governments must foster mentorship by initiating youth-adult partnerships, by building capacities for mentorship programmes, and by creating sustained spaces for youth participation. Furthermore, youth representatives must be chosen democratically by youth-led and youth-oriented organizations and networks. Advocating for (core) funding, mentorship and political will to support youth organizations and for greater partnership between young people and political leadership on STI’s, HIV and SRH, but it’s not just having a seat at the table –it is about making that opportunity legitimate, effective and representative for civil society participation.

 Address HIV in the context of other sexual and reproductive health needs: HIV does not occur in isolation. With HIV, young people often experience sexual assault, gender-based violence, maternal mortality, unsafe abortions and discrimination based on sexual orientation. Therefore, HIV must be seen and addressed not as an isolated problem, but in the context of young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights.

 The realities of young people’s lives must be taken into account in program and policy development, and implementation: It is crucial to acknowledge the specific needs of marginalized young people who experience an increased risk of HIV transmission. The experiences and expertise of young people living with HIV (YLHIV), young men who have sex with men (MSM), young injection drug users (IDU), and young sex workers must be respected and included in program and policy development to ensure that they are relevant and effective. In many parts of the world, injecting drug use is fuelling concentrated epidemics. Young IDU’s need access to youth friendly harm reduction programs that include needle and syringe exchanges, information about sexual health, HIV prevention, treatment (including substitution therapy), and support to protect themselves and their sexual partners. Young people living with HIV must have access to anti-retroviral treatment and complete health education with respect to HIV and AIDS, so they are able to manage opportunistic infections and maintain their personal well-being. All young people have rights to information, education, services, and support, which they do not lose as a result of their HIV status.

 Take positive steps to promote and protect young people’s rights: The violation of young people’s rights puts them at greater risk of harm. The key to reducing vulnerabilities lies in the promotion and protection of these rights. Young people have all human rights irrespective of their age, gender, race or other status. These rights include the full range of their sexual and reproductive rights, including the right to be free from violence and persecution/stigmatization, and the right to confidentiality. These rights must be guaranteed regardless of HIV status.

Regional and Local messages
 HIV is transmitted primarily through sex: Young people’s access to comprehensive, evidence-based sex education and HIV prevention programs that are safe, confidential, welcoming, and free from stigma and discrimination are imperative in responding to the HIV epidemic. Young people must also have access to youth-friendly services for testing, treatment, and care from trained providers in convenient and affordable locations. Sexual and reproductive health knowledge gives young people the tools they need to make educated decisions regarding their own health and to prevent HIV infection. HIV should be discussed from a young age by families, schools, and communities so that young people grow into adolescence with an understanding of the virus and the vulnerabilities particular to young people specific to gender, age, location, and sub-population.

 Make health services more accessible to young people: Stigma, discrimination and lack of awareness contribute to making health services inaccessible to young people. Awareness must be raised about these services, and their use must be promoted by messages in local languages and popular means of communication. Spaces for young people must be established at existing service centers. Respect for confidentiality and privacy must be ensured at these spaces. Ensure access to comprehensive sexuality education. The provision of evidence based HIV prevention and comprehensive sexuality education is the most effective and sustainable mode of prevention. The best available evidence shows that “abstinence only” programmes fail and actually cause more harm than good. Young people must have the information, knowledge, skills and commodities they need to protect themselves from infection and to lead healthy lives.

 Young people need a supportive and enabling environment with social norms that reinforce positive behaviors across generations: Local and global communities, governments, civil society, and young people themselves have a responsibility to make this environment a reality. Young people’s experiences are diverse and many find themselves in circumstances that greatly limit their ability to practice safer sexual behavior, even with access to sexual health information. Poverty, gender inequality, racial and ethnic discrimination, homophobia and transphobia, education inequality, homelessness, substance abuse, transactional sex, and sexual violence must be addressed in partnership with young people. Clear, comprehensive data on how HIV affects young people is needed. In all national censuses and health surveys, data must at the minimum be disaggregated by age, sex and sub-population. Such data, once available, will inform policies and programmes making them more effective.

Global, Regional and Local message
 Young people Most-at-risk: Young people constitute a significant percentage of most-at-risk populations in several countries. Interventions should specifically target vulnerable and most-risk groups of young people who are often at the centre of HIV transmission. Many young people are particularly at risk of becoming infected with HIV because of the situations in which they live, learn and earn; as a result of the behaviors they adopt, or are forced to adopt because of social, cultural or economic factors. Limited amount of focus is placed on young people most-at-risk, which is a factor which is contributing to their vulnerability to HIV. The three groups most at risk of becoming infected with HIV: young sex workers, young injecting drug users and young men who have sex with men. Many of these young people live on the fringes of society, and are unlikely to be reached by interventions implemented through schools, health services or the media.

 Young people have knowledge, skills, and creative energy to make an invaluable contribution to the HIV and AIDS response, and must be involved in the design, implementation, and evaluation of HIV and AIDS programs and policies that affect their lives. Young people must have access to capacity building and leadership opportunities to facilitate their active contributions and be trained and empowered with skills to spread the information they have gained to their peers. This is particularly true for those young people most affected by the epidemic.

 Criminalization of HIV - The evidence shows that criminalization of behaviors and communities (most-at-risk population). Many governments persist in implementing policies which have no proven public health benefits (travel and residency restrictions for PLHIV, mandatory testing for migrants denial of health care for prisoners in direct violation of prisoners rights and an over-simplistic and ideological approach to while law and policy reform were often cited as solution, law and policy reform won’t work if it is not enforced or the enforcers are the perpetration of violence.

April 2, 2009 | 1:34 PM Comments  1 comments

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yashoda Yashoda
April 2, 2009 | 2:16 PM
Good Messages
Hope all the advocates would take in mind these key messages, being responsible youth leaders and advocates because advocating is the process of disseminating correct information to those who need it most.
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