An opinion piece in this weekend's Washington Post, deatils one woman's attempt to obtain emergency contracpetion, also known as "Plan B" and her inability to get it as a reuslt of ideological policies pursued by opponents of abortion. In her case, it actually caused one. The author also participated in an online chat session today, the transcript of which reveals the very real tension around these issues.
A new online resource recently launched "Mapping Our Rights: Navigating Discrimination Against Women, Men and Families."
This interactive web site unambiguously illustrates the interconnectedness between reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and the sexual rights of Americans contingent upon where they live. "The objective of this map is to document the vast differences in laws and policies on a state level and show the linkages" between the issues.
HIV/AIDS is now older than many of the lives lost to it along the way, and while the shock of it has worn off in the US, where access to decent health care and medical treatments makes the disease "manageable," AIDS shows no signs of being under control. Today's New York Times features several short profiles of people whose lives have been touched by the disease. One telling line in the article states "AIDS is often cast as an epidemic of bad choices. But it is also ... an epidemic of the choiceless."
I am on my way back to Washington, rolling away from the rollicking clatter of New York City and the seat of international administration at which over the past week, dozens of brilliant young activists have made their presence felt as profoundly as possible. As didactic and occasionally enthralling as the meeting was, I can’t seem to shake the lingering sense of disappointment at the ultimately mediocre strength of the session’s results. The final political declaration to come out of the 2006 UNGASS review was a mixed bag; encouragingly, it included the strongest youth language ever seen in such a document, as well as a demand for national targets (if not specific quantitative nor global ones) and some mention of putting life before intellectual property rights through access to generic drugs.
Paragraph 26 reads: “(Therefore, we) commit to address the rising rates of HIV infection among young people to ensure an HIV-free future generation through the implementation of comprehensive, evidence-based prevention strategies, responsible sexual behaviours, including the use of condoms, evidence-and skills-based, youth specific HIV education, mass media interventions, and the provision of youth friendly health services.”
Here is the final Declaration of Review from the UN on HIV/AIDS following a week long Special Session of the General Assembly reviewing the historic 2001 Declaration of Commitment. It is important to note that Secretary Kofi Anan was instrumental in convening the global community in 2001 in to discuss AIDS, the first time the UN met specifically to consider a health issue. That was 20 years into the pandemic, and without his leadership it might never have happened. This review happens at a time when many question the UN and the funding commitments required to keep the body functioning.
So after months of preparation and work, we’re finally at the close of the UN High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS. Was it worth it? What did we get? What did we learn? And where do we go from here?
Let’s start with the process. “Dazed and confused” best captures our attempts to fathom the torturous negotiations around the political declaration. The lack of transparency resulted from the fact that the UN instituted a completely new process for this meeting jettisoning the standard procedures that we all understood and that provided a pretty clear read on individual nation’s positions on various issues. The new approach featured a convoluted co-chair process that cloaked individual nation’s intentions and created new drafts without governments really negotiating the tough issues together.
NGOs were extremely frustrated with the co-chairs and did not feel they were receptive to civil society views. The whole affair felt like a rush to consensus by avoiding the real issues- a perception that only fueled further discontent. Governments friendly to our issues such as EU and Canada felt the co-chairs were openly hostile to them for continuing to request changes in the document. The President of the General Assembly intervened and became intricately involved in the document drafting after pressure from civil society.
The Rumor Mill is hearing that Scott Evertz, former AIDS Czar for the Bush Administration, was forced to cancel all pending media interviews as a result of interference and intimidation from government officials. We understand government officials contacted his place of employment and urged that he stop speaking out. As we reported earlier this week, Mr. Evertz was speaking out against the current efforts by the U.S. delegation at the UN, stating the Bush administration has reached out to Islamic governments, including those it considers terrorist states, to promote a new declaration supporting abstinence and fidelity as important tools in preventing the spread of HIV. As we have reported all week, it appears the US has successfully used this alliance to block more inclusive language being promoted by Latin American nations and India, and public health advocates that were included in these meetings as Civil Society Organizations.
Throughout the past three days, youth members of civil society have traveled a rollercoaster of emotional and political turbulence, as moments of exasperation and elation, gratitude and outrage flowed throughout continued civil society meetings. Following on the high hopes that many carried in from the youth summit, the present (and likely final) version of the declaration, though it includes positive language on youth—thanks in large part to the demands and pressure of youth advocacy—remains a disappointingly watered down document. Youth and civil society at large have expressed a variety of grievances towards the meeting, ranging from the impotency of institutional process through to the lack of access for civil society to actual negotiations.
The first official speech of the UN General Assembly meeting today on HIV/AIDS was made by King Mswati III of Swaziland, the nation with the world's highest rate of HIV. Not sure if his prominent placement was to underscore the importance of being married (he has 13 wives), or women's rights (women compete bare-breasted to be chosen as his wife) or to promote abstinence-only (they must be virgins) or the need for women's economic empowerment (being chosen is the ticket to the good life), but it certainly is worth noting.
The final political declaration of the United Nations, to be endorsed today by a unusally large assembly of global governmental officials and diplomats, improved on its commitment to women and girls and young people generally compared to earlier drafts. That's the good news.
How that language gets implemented is hard to imagine given that the UN fails to set specific targets for the 2001 Declaration of Commitment. The equally vulnerable populations who failed to get specific mentions in the document (men who have sex with men, sex workers, prisoners, and intravenous drug users) remain officially invisble to governments of the world. Thus, the lessons from 25 years of AIDS are largely being ignored by the global community. That, quite obviously, is the bad news.
