Sexual and reproductive health and rights information, education and evidence-informed data are key to ensuring that young people know how to protect themselves from HIV and access HIV testing and treatment. This was the main message from an event—Breaking Down Barriers to Youth Empowerment—organized by the Permanent Mission of Denmark to the United Nations in Geneva and UNAIDS and held on 24 May, on the sidelines of the 70th World Health Assembly.

The event provided a platform for young people to be at the centre of the discussion, with a call to double efforts in scaling-up and ensuring adequate access to quality sexual and reproductive health and rights information.

The participants noted that access to clear, accurate and evidence-informed information and education supports the capacity of young people to protect their health, rights and dignity and to stand up to discrimination and violence. It also serves as a critical stepping stone for accelerating socioeconomic growth and progress. Yet, there are major barriers and challenges that must be addressed.

In many settings, access to sexual and reproductive health and rights information is constrained by legal and policy barriers, such as parental consent requirements for adolescents and youth to access services, including HIV testing. In countries with high levels of early and forced marriage, spousal consent requirements also put young women and girls at increased risk of HIV infection.

The participants concluded that limited access to accurate, high-quality, evidence-informed information, education and data on sexual and reproductive health and rights jeopardizes young people’s health and survival.

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Ayushi Tripathi is a student at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, a city in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

She explains that she comes from a family where talking about sex is taboo. “We never talk about it at home. Even seeing an advertisement about condoms is uncomfortable for my parents,” she said. But nonetheless, she was intent on attending a youth health workshop.

This week, she joined 27 other students for a three-day workshop to raise young people’s awareness of their sexual and reproductive health and rights. The training was led by the Dove Foundation, a youth-led organization based in Varanasi and supported by UNAIDS. The advocacy materials used were developed by the PACT, a global coalition of 25 youth networks working on HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

“When I was younger, I didn’t have knowledge on where to get information and access to HIV services,” Ms Tripathi said. “Until I took this workshop, I had no idea that young people in India face challenges in accessing HIV testing and services.”

Monique Long from the Jamaica Youth Advocacy Network led the training, which provided youth and adolescents with the skills and information necessary to tackle the different barriers affecting their health.

“Working with this diverse group of intelligent and energetic young people reminds me of why we say youth are the future. This training also reaffirms that youth right here and right now have the capacity and the will to do amazing things to change the world,” Ms Long said.

Asia and the Pacific is the region with the largest number of young people in the world. In the region, people are starting sex at an increasingly younger age and having multiple sex partners, placing young people at higher risk of HIV.

During the training, the participants stressed how many countries are not tailoring their programmes to young people. For example, India requires people under 18 years old to have parental consent for HIV and other sexual and reproductive health services. Comprehensive sexuality education is often not taught in schools. The low levels of HIV knowledge and discrimination faced in health-care settings further exacerbate the situation.

The PACT and UNAIDS have been working with governments and other partners in advocating for the revision and reform of age of consent laws. The training provided young people with the techniques and skills needed for prioritizing advocacy issues, mapping different stakeholders, crafting key advocacy messages and lobbying.

“UNAIDS knows that the future of the HIV response lies in the hands of young people,” said Aries Valeriano, Youth Officer at the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Asia and the Pacific. “We are working hand in hand with youth organizations and community groups to break down the barriers that young people face and that keep them from staying healthy and productive.”

After completing the workshop, Ms Tripathi said she plans to start a community of advocates at her university to push for ending the age of consent laws in India. As Ms Tripathi received her completion certificate, she beamed. “The workshop helped to open my eyes on social activism,” she said. “I am so inspired and hope to really influence policies in my university and beyond.”

UNAIDS is working to ensure that the target in the 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS of ensuring that 90% of young people have the skills, knowledge and capacity to protect themselves from HIV and have access to sexual and reproductive health services by 2020, in order to reduce the number of new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women to below 100 000 per year, is met.

“Age of consent: my body, my rights”, “Rights have no age” and “#Sex happens” were some of the creative advocacy messages that young people came up with during the pilot training on an age of consent advocacy manual that took place in Harare, Zimbabwe.

As part of the All In partnership to end adolescent AIDS, UNAIDS and the PACT, a global coalition of 25 youth-led and youth-serving organizations and networks working on HIV, developed a comprehensive advocacy manual on age of consent policies that relate to the sexual and reproductive health and rights of youth and adolescents. The manual seeks to provide youth advocates with the skills and information they need to respond to legal barriers, specifically age of consent laws and policies related to sex, HIV and sexual and reproductive health services.

As stated in the UNAIDS Prevention gap report, “In many settings, parental and other third-party consent requirements for access to HIV and sexual and reproductive health services remain an important barrier to their uptake. Adolescents often are reluctant to seek services that require the consent of a parent or guardian. Similarly, laws that restrict people’s access to health services—for example, by requiring third-party authorization for accessing sexual and reproductive health services or by criminalizing certain consensual sexual behaviours—exclude people from the health information and services they need”.

The piloting of the manual in Zimbabwe was facilitated by Youth Engage, a youth-led advocacy organization that brought together 25 youth advocates from diverse backgrounds.

Young people, with support from the National AIDS Council of Zimbabwe, are now mobilizing and preparing for a dialogue with parliamentarians to discuss the age of consent laws on marriage, sex and HIV testing in Zimbabwe and young people’s access to sexual and reproductive health services.

The manual will soon be piloted in India and will become a key resource for advocates to challenge legal and policy barriers that pose obstacles for young people’s access to HIV and sexual and reproductive health services all over the world.

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At a high-level event held on the margins of the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States of America, the Organisation of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA) met with partners from the private sector, civil society and multilateral organizations to discuss how to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights for young women and adolescent girls.

First ladies from some 20 African countries took part in the session, during which participants reiterated their support for the 2016 Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, which includes commitments to gender equality and reducing the disproportionate impact of the HIV epidemic among young women and adolescent girls. 

The first ladies heard from 14-year-old Hawaya from Chad, who at the age of 10 was married and faced violence from her husband on a daily basis. She escaped and found support just as Chad declared a ban on child marriages.

During the event the President of Namibia, Hage Geingob, joined the proceedings in support of his wife and the agenda for young women and adolescent girls. The First Lady of Japan and Yoo Soon-taek, the wife of the United Nations Secretary-General, were also present.

The Vice-Chairman of the China–Africa Business Council, Zhang Huarong, announced a donation of US$ 100 000 for OAFLA and voiced ongoing support for the first ladies’ mission.    

In his remarks, the UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibé, underlined the significant role played by the first ladies both at the national level and internationally, reiterating their transformative powers and UNAIDS’ commitment to continue supporting their work.  

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Human rights experts have called for concerted efforts to end human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

A report launched today during the 58th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, being held in Banjul, Gambia, summarizes a historic dialogue that took place in November 2015 between United Nations human rights experts and representatives of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The report, Ending violence and other human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, highlights grave violations that take place in all regions of the world against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.

The report notes the impact of these abuses on the health of LGBTI people and their access to HIV prevention and care, but also emphasizes positive developments made around the world in protecting the rights of LGBTI people.

In 2014, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted a resolution calling for the protection of people against violence and other violations on the basis of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Commenting on the launch of the report, Pansy Tlakula, Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, said, “Violence and other human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity constitute universal challenges that require concerted responses by national, regional and United Nations human rights institutions.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has established a rapporteurship on the rights of LGBTI people. James Cavallaro, President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, highlighted a fundamental element of the work of the Commission. “Bringing the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people into our work is to challenge the invisibility of the serious human rights violations that they continue to face throughout the Americas and hold States accountable for these violations,” he said.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has passed two resolutions condemning violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. “The dialogue allowed us to share good practices to guide our common struggle to combat impunity and to ensure the protection and realization of the human rights of all individuals, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people,” said Christof Heyns, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

The UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibé, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said on the launch of the report, “Ending violence, criminalization, discrimination and other human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people are priorities for our organizations and for the entire United Nations system.”

Civil society organizations have also welcomed the report. “Ongoing collaboration and openness to experience-sharing between regional and international human rights systems reinforces the idea of the universality of human rights, and can only help advance the protection of human rights for everyone, including for LGBTI people,” said Sibongile Ndashe, Executive Director of the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa.

In collaboration with UNAIDS and other partners, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and IRTG, a Global Network of Trans Women and HIV, have released a new publication today entitled Implementing comprehensive HIV and STI programmes with transgender people: practical guidance for collaborative interventions. The publication presents concrete steps that public health officials, health workers and nongovernmental organizations can adopt to implement HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) programmes with transgender people.

Topics covered in the publication include community empowerment and human rights, addressing violence, stigma and discrimination, and delivering transgender-competent services, especially for HIV and STI prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care. The publication also covers community-led outreach, safe spaces and the use of information and communications technology in service delivery. It describes how to manage programmes and build the capacity of organizations led by transgender people and shows how services can be designed and implemented to be acceptable and accessible to transgender women. Wherever possible, it gives particular attention to programmes run by transgender organizations.

The publication was developed in collaboration with transgender people and advocates, service providers, researchers, government officials and representatives of nongovernmental organizations from all over the world. UNDP and IRTG coordinated its production, with the support of the United Nations Population Fund, the University of California, San Francisco, Center of Excellence for Transgender Health, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the World Health Organization, the United States Agency for International Development, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and UNAIDS.

The document is based on recommendations included in the Consolidated guidelines on HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care for key populations, published in 2014 by the World Health Organization.

Transgender women continue to be heavily affected by HIV, being 49 times more likely to become infected with HIV than non-transgender adults.

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As part of the global effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), countries around the world reported major gains in the health and wellbeing of women and children between 1990 and 2015. The global rate of maternal mortality fell by 47 per cent and child mortality declined by 49 per cent. However, any celebration of progress is tempered by the reality that millions of women, children, newborns, and adolescents continue to die every year; mostly from preventable causes. As the world transitions from the MDGs to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we must uphold our commitment to keep reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH) at the heart of the global agenda. Fulfilling this promise is both a practical imperative and a moral obligation.

The UN Secretary-General's Global Strategy for Women's, Children's, and Adolescents' Health sets out a plan to give every woman, child, and adolescent the opportunity to not only survive, but to thrive and transform his or her community. Implementing the Global Strategy and achieving the SDG targets requires an unprecedented level of alignment and coordination amongst each and every one of us working in the field of RMNCAH.

On behalf of the six organizations responsible for promoting and implementing the global health agenda across the UN system, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, WHO, and the World Bank Group, we, the undersigned, stand united in our commitment to operationalize the Global Strategy.

Building on our tradition of working together to support countries in achieving the MDGs, we, as members of the H6 (previously known as the H4+), will provide coordinated technical support to country-led efforts to implement the Global Strategy and achieve the ambitious targets of the health-related SDGs. At the same time, we will continue to advocate for evidence-based RMNCAH programmes and policies at the global, regional, and national levels.

As the current H6 chair (2016-2018), UNAIDS will lead the partnership in fulfilling its mandate to leverage the strengths and capacities of each of the six member organizations in order to support high-burden countries in their efforts to improve the survival, health, and well-being of every woman, newborn, child, and adolescent.

As representatives of the H6, we renew our commitment to implement this mandate in support of the Global Strategy. We call on RMNCAH activists and advocates worldwide to join us in fulfilling this shared pledge to women, children, and adolescents everywhere.

Michel Sidibé, Executive Director, UNAIDS

Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director, UNFPA

Anthony Lake, Executive Director, UNICEF

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director, UN Women

Margaret Chan, Director General, WHO

Tim Evans, Senior Director, Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, The World Bank Group

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.