UN Agencies, Western Donors Unveil Sexual Agendas Ahead of HIV / AIDS Summit
NEW YORK, (C-Fam) Under the pretext of fighting HIV / AIDS, United Nations agencies and Western-backed non-governmental groups have called on governments to legalize drug use and prostitution. This happened during a General Assembly consultation last week, where they also called for the sexual autonomy of children.
Although HIV / AIDS infections have declined globally since 2005, the HIV / AIDS pandemic continues to ravage "key populations", which include men who have sex with men, people who have sex with men, and those who have sex with men. identify as transgender and drug users. According to UN estimates, 54% of the 1.7 million new infections worldwide occur among key populations each year.
“The fight to end AIDS is linked to the fight to end human rights violations, including discrimination and violence against women and girls, as well as the marginalization and criminalization of people living with it. HIV and key populations, ”said Winifred Karagwa Byanyim, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV / AIDS (UNAIDS).
"These are sex workers, drug users, gay men, bisexuals and other men who have sex with men,
transgender people and other groups like prisoners," she said.
The UNAIDS agenda has a great influence on how international aid to fight HIV / AIDS is spent,
including the nearly $ 7 billion that US taxpayers give each year.
Speakers at the General Assembly included leaders of Western-backed non-governmental organizations,
such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
“I feel part of a collective failure, a collective failure to ensure that adolescent girls and young women in all their diversity, LGBTQIs and other key populations can access integrated quality services that meet their rights and health needs. Said Alvaro Bermejo, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Mr. Bermejo has been transparent about the challenges facing his own organization, which claims to provide more than 40 million HIV / AIDS services each year in developing countries.
“So we see that in many countries, adolescent girls and young women come to get their contraception and a year later come back with HIV infection,” he said. Bermejo blamed the failure on opposition to comprehensive sexuality education,
of which IPPF is the largest international provider.
"We have to be aware that we are facing an opposition, a conservative opposition, a populist opposition, which opposes comprehensive sexuality education, and which is a better organization, better funded and more aggressive than it is. never been. "
Other speakers also broadened the focus of HIV / AIDS treatment to other social policies.
Julian Boghos Kerboghossian, of the LGBT organization MPact Global, called on countries to "repeal laws that criminalize non-disclosure, exposure, transmission, consensual same-sex behavior, expression, consumption drugs, sex trade ”.
Ms Faith Ebere Onu, Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Nigeria, called for the provision of "safe abortion" and the repeal of "restrictive laws on the age of consent".
The consultation took place ahead of the General Assembly's high-level meeting on HIV / AIDS to be held June 8-10. The summit takes place every five years to adopt an accord to guide the UN system-wide response to HIV / AIDS.
Although HIV / AIDS infections have declined globally since 2005, the HIV / AIDS pandemic continues to ravage "key populations", which include men who have sex with men, people who have sex with men, and those who have sex with men. identify as transgender and drug users. According to UN estimates, 54% of the 1.7 million new infections worldwide occur among key populations each year.
“The fight to end AIDS is linked to the fight to end human rights violations, including discrimination and violence against women and girls, as well as the marginalization and criminalization of people living with it. HIV and key populations, ”said Winifred Karagwa Byanyim, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV / AIDS (UNAIDS).
"These are sex workers, drug users, gay men, bisexuals and other men who have sex with men,
transgender people and other groups like prisoners," she said.
The UNAIDS agenda has a great influence on how international aid to fight HIV / AIDS is spent,
including the nearly $ 7 billion that US taxpayers give each year.
Speakers at the General Assembly included leaders of Western-backed non-governmental organizations,
such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
“I feel part of a collective failure, a collective failure to ensure that adolescent girls and young women in all their diversity, LGBTQIs and other key populations can access integrated quality services that meet their rights and health needs. Said Alvaro Bermejo, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Mr. Bermejo has been transparent about the challenges facing his own organization, which claims to provide more than 40 million HIV / AIDS services each year in developing countries.
“So we see that in many countries, adolescent girls and young women come to get their contraception and a year later come back with HIV infection,” he said. Bermejo blamed the failure on opposition to comprehensive sexuality education,
of which IPPF is the largest international provider.
"We have to be aware that we are facing an opposition, a conservative opposition, a populist opposition, which opposes comprehensive sexuality education, and which is a better organization, better funded and more aggressive than it is. never been. "
Other speakers also broadened the focus of HIV / AIDS treatment to other social policies.
Julian Boghos Kerboghossian, of the LGBT organization MPact Global, called on countries to "repeal laws that criminalize non-disclosure, exposure, transmission, consensual same-sex behavior, expression, consumption drugs, sex trade ”.
Ms Faith Ebere Onu, Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Nigeria, called for the provision of "safe abortion" and the repeal of "restrictive laws on the age of consent".
The consultation took place ahead of the General Assembly's high-level meeting on HIV / AIDS to be held June 8-10. The summit takes place every five years to adopt an accord to guide the UN system-wide response to HIV / AIDS.
