In the most stirring speech from the High Level Panel on Civil Society, Mark Ahoud spoke by satellite from South Africa outlining the basic frustration around HIV and AIDS: Rich people live with HIV and poor people usually die.

In most parts of the world, human rights violations make HIV infection worse. Many people who fight for rights, in China and Zimbabwe among others, are repressed. Ahoud spoke about the vital role of civil society:

"It is the duty of civ society to uphold government commitments. When we gratefully accept the hand-me-downs of governments, we leave the poor and vulnerable even more vulnerable.

There is a direct link between civ soc pressure on governments and how well they uphold commitments."

Ahoud refuses for civil society to be beggars. Activists and young people working in advocacy must:

• Include systematic community action, human rights education, demanding to be meaningfully involved in every aspect of government.

• Demand continued funding, devise and implement systems that measure and monitor human rights.
• Demand investment in justic systems that poor people have access to.

• Mute witness to the demise of health systems.
• AIDS is not an exception. Every threat to the dignity and life of poor people should generate an exceptional response.

Over the past 30 years, Arab countries have experienced rapid changes that deeply shattered the structure of their societies and that had a significant impact on the life of young people. Greater exposure to the norms of global culture through the Medias, higher educational levels for both men and women, and the large recent trend of rising age at marriage in most Arab countries, have produced a rapid evolution of social norms and structures that resulted in important changes in young people’s life styles in the region, particularly in their sexual and reproductive life.

As a matter of fact, early age at first sexual intercourse and premarital sexual activity are growing trends, but cultural taboos surround sexuality matters, as well as the high social value placed on virginity - particularly for women - remain very strong. This leads to a critical situation where a significant proportion of young people does engage in sexual intercourse before marriage, but the lack of sexuality education inside the family and in public schools’ curriculum leaves them in the dark about their sexuality and puts them at high risk of unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortion, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases etc, as they often lack accurate information to make responsible choices and to have a safe sexual life.

Since the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994, most Arab countries have committed to invest more in youth’s sexual and reproductive health by integrating sexuality education into schools’ curriculum and by ensuring the provision of comprehensive health services, including contraception for sexually active adolescents. But despite some initiatives carried in a few countries (Tunisia, Jordan and Morocco), most of the Arab region still falls well short of ICPD’s recommendations.

The scarcity of evidence on young people’s sexual and reproductive knowledge and behaviour - highlighted by the Harvard Review of Young People’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Arab States and Iran - and the strong reluctance in conducting studies that would shed the light on the age of initiation of sexual intercourse or the frequency of premarital sexual activity is greatly limiting the knowledge base on youth needs and concerns and makes it extremely difficult to design appropriate evidence-based policies and programmes that would effectively address young people’s needs in terms of knowledge, information and services.

With alarming rates from the few existing studies such as 23% of young males and 40% of young females knowing nothing about the reproductive system in Egypt; only 30% of Military students engaging in sexual relations with multiple partners using condoms in Lebanon and 27% of boys aged 15-29 reporting not finding out about puberty from anyone in Algeria, there is an urgent need to identify areas in need of research, fill the numerous information gaps and provide a comprehensive database to facilitate the planning of effective action by governments, donors, and all organizations working on youth’s sexual and reproductive health both at the regional and national levels.

Imane Khachani, MD

Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Morocco

1. Bonnie L. Shepard, Jocelyn L. DeJong, Rana Jawad et al. Review of Young People’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Arab States and Iran. September 2004.

2. Inventory of Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviour studies related to Youth SRR in the Arab States – UNFPA, American University of Beirut. October 2004

10 June 2008

Young people at the United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS demand that their Governments keep their promises

1. Invest in youth leadership

Policies and programs 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, build capacities and create sustained spaces for youth participation. Youth representatives must be chosen democratically by youth-led and youth-oriented organizations and networks.

2. 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, the right to be free from violence and persecution and the right to confidentiality. They do not lose their rights merely because of their HIV status.

3. Make health services more accessible to young people

Stigma, discrimination and a lack of awareness make health services inaccessible to young people. Awareness must be raised about such 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.

4. Disaggregate data by age

Clear data is needed on how HIV affects young people. In all national censuses and health surveys, data must be disaggregated by age, sex and sub-population at the minimum. Such data once available will inform policies and programs to make them more effective.

5. 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 in the context of young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights.

6. 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” programs fail and actually cause more harm. Young people must have the information, knowledge, skills and commodities they need to protect themselves from infection and lead healthy lives.
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This document was prepared by young people attending the High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS. For more information, contact youthaHLM@gmail.com.

This is a progressive youth caucus. We don’t have a singular voice for all young people – this one is just for progressive - other youth may have diff objectives and anti choice, etc.
Results of e-discussion summary: A majority of participants could not get information on who would be on government delegations. Large gaps exist in communication between government and Civil Society.
Introduction to UNGASS 2001-2006
In 2006, there was positive reception to youth advocates. There had been groundwork done already by youth advocacy organizations so the reception garnered range of reactions. In general government delegates were more receptive to youth agenda than regular Civil Society.
2006 – what worked?
- Youth caucus had members on government (e.g. Dutch) delegations. Specific governments were receptive to our message and that was our entry point.
- GYCA had a youth summit prior to UNGASS 2006. The main advocacy strategy created a specific youth platform.
Key points
For this high level meeting there are no changes in the document, so what is our role and how will we go about giving input?
It is so important to have youth included in country delegations. In 2006 there were lots of closed-door bilateral meetings. In general it was very poorly organized and non-transparent.
Make sure to invite ourselves (young advocates) to all meetings. Attend all open meetings and show that youth have a presence.
We must involve ourselves with the youth speakers. The Youth Statement is ambitious and unclear. What does ‘youth knowledge’ mean? Reporting indicators are too black and white (e.g. Are you training youth? Yes or No).
1. Country Reports: we need to specify that young people have been working in their own countries on the reporting structure. Civil society creates shadow reports to include information missing or misreported by governments.
2. We should look at the event program and the entire agenda. What to expect, etc. Identify opportunities to advocate.
3. Identify who the speakers are going to be and get in touch with them. Youth Speaker and other speakers sensitive/sympathetic to youth.
4. Keep in mind to observe how many young people are speakers (we wanted in 2006 to have 1/4 or 1/5 as speakers in the plenary).
National Delegation Involvement
Some Youth Caucus participants are also members of their country’s official delegation. We examined whether the participation was meaningful. To show our governments that youth delegations add value is in the exchange of information. It’s very important to keep the lines open with other youth – that’s our value.
“I’ve been in touch with lots of Civil Society organizations to give speaking points, info to send to the government, and fine-tune speaking points of Canada’s address during the Opening Ceremony.”
Participants noted that in 2006 governments were more open to youth participation than regular Civil Society. Civil servants were very open to our suggestions. Civil Society felt that we were stepping on their toes.
“For Brazil they aren’t really open to youth. But in general Brazil has a great dialogue with Civil Society. Government brings Civil Society to validate the process rather than give a meaningful input. We’re only involved at the last minute.”
“I’m an activist so I can be only on the delegation by forcing myself forward. When I enter the room they know I’m speaking the truth and that I’ve been involved in the shadow reports. So long as I’m part of the delegation I will speak out.”

“I contributed to our country’s shadow report (Indonesia) but the indicators were spread out, not integral. There was no holistic view of youth.” The indicators are a problem. It’s too quantitative and there is no voice from countries. We have been working on shadow reports and have developed our own indicators to become more qualitative. Yes and No is not sufficient."
A major theme of this meeting is travel restrictions. It’s up to Civil Society to ask for something this year. We should decide whether the travel restrictions theme should be the banner for this session.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Progressive youth from across the globe are meeting today on Wall St. to define their objectives for UNGASS: the 2008 High Level Meeting on AIDS (HLM). Young people are gathering to:

• share information
• identify opportunities for youth advocacy at the HLM
• develop messages and strategies for advocacy
• identify ways to follow up and ensure continuity

We will be updating throughout the day to keep you informed on youth priorities, voices, and action.

Whether it’s your first time at UNGASS or you want the inside scoop on what is happening and how young people are involved in sexual and reproductive health and rights, this is the blog for you.
We’ll be updating daily throughout this week of high level meetings around UNGASS – the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV and AIDS.
This blog will provide breaking news, behind the scenes info, and everything you need to know about advocating for youth participation in decision-making for Universal Access.
So check back here for the youth view of UNGASS 2008!