| From: |
Ricardo Baruch [ profile ] |
| Subject: |
High Level Meeting on HIV - We have a political declaration
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| Sent: |
Jun 9th, 2011 - 08:42:21 |
| Attachments: |
2011 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS.pdf
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The High Level Meeting starts with an agreed Political Declaration.
Yesterday morning, at the opening, Ban Ki Moon called the leaders of the world
to promote a comprehensive response to the epidemic if we really want to achieve
Universal Access by 2015. The same message was repeated at the March and Rally
that took place in front of the UN building, more than 300 people from all over
the world participated. The demands were focused on having clear treatment
targets for at least 15 million people by 2015, end trade deals that put profits
and patents ahead of lives and completely eliminate mother to child
transmission, also by 2015. The demonstration was organized by several
organizations including Health GAP, Act UP, Housing Works, Gay Men’s Health
Crisis and GYCA among some others.
Negotiations for the outcome document finished yesterday morning, conservative
countries did not accepted mentioning key populations including men who have sex
with men, sex workers and drug users but at the end they were included somehow.
They also promoted the importance of families over the rights of young people
which at the end are mentioned in a couple of limited paragraphs:
"Commit to encouraging and supporting the active involvement and leadership of
young people, including those living with HIV, in the fight against the epidemic
at local, national and global levels; and agree to work with these new leaders
to help develop specific measures to engage young people about HIV, including in
communities, families, schools, tertiary institutions, recreation centres and
workplaces; "
and
"Reaffirm the central role of the family, bearing in mind that in different
cultural, social and political systems various forms of the family exist, in
reducing vulnerability to HIV, inter alia, in educating and guiding children and
take account of cultural, religious and ethical factors, to reduce the
vulnerability of children and young people by ensuring access of both girls and
boys to primary and secondary education, including HIV and AIDS in curricula for
adolescents; ensuring safe and secure environments especially for young girls;
expanding good-quality youth-friendly information and sexual health education
and counselling services; strengthening reproductive and sexual health
programmes; and involving families and young people in planning, implementing
and evaluating HIV and AIDS prevention and care programmes, to the extent
possible;
You can find the whole document attached.
While negotiations among missions were taking place, yesterday one important
panel took place focusing on women and girls: Celebrities such as Alicia Keys
and Annie Lenox joined the UN officials such as Michelle Bachelet
and Purnima Mane to call for the empowerment of women and girls around the world
to help them prevent sexual violence and HIV infections. UN Women will be
playing a key role now that has a clear strategic plan and is finally well
established. Lindsay Menard-Freeman, GYCA staff of the north secretariat, spoke
at another succesful panel about Women and Girls; Jaevion Nelson from Jamaica
and Anita Krug from Australia were other young speakers who had the chance to
speak in the high-level panels yesterday with great interventions about the
response to HIV and young people.
There are two more days of HLM and we'll be sending more updates through our
list-serve.
GYCA team
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