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Rights. Respect. Responsibility.®—The Fix the GAP Campaign Toolkit [PDF]
Resources
Talking Points on PEPFAR
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is a $15 million campaign, launched by the U.S. government to fight global HIV and AIDS. Under PEPFAR, young people only receive abstinence-until-marriage information for HIV prevention.
- Young people need HIV prevention education that meets their needs for comprehensive and accurate information. They must be armed with accurate information about condoms, skills to talk openly and directly with a partner, and the understanding that they have the ability and power to make healthy decisions about sex.
- We must embrace a realistic, comprehensive approach that includes information about abstinence and condoms, because condoms can help prevent sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. To deny them this information is to violate young people’s fundamental human right to accurate health information.
- Abstinence is, of course, the only 100 percent effective prevention for HIV and all STDs, but since more than 11 million unmarried young people in PEPFAR's focus countries are sexually active, they need more than “just say no” education.
- HIV prevention education is not an either/or thing. Abstinence is important, but condoms can help protect from pregnancy and disease, regardless of when people become sexually active.
- More than 51 million young women and girls, under the age of 18, are already married. International Center for Research on Women reports that married girls in Kenya and Zambia are more likely to be HIV-positive than are their sexually active, unmarried counterparts, because a young woman’s husband is often 10 or more years older and may already be infected with HIV.
- Half of all people infected with HIV during 2003 were between the ages of 15 and 24. Youth need accurate, complete information so they can protect themselves.
- Studies by organizations such as the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Medical Association show that comprehensive sexual health education programs—which provide accurate information about both abstinence and also risk reduction, such as condom use—help youth to delay the onset of sexual intercourse and also help sexually active young people to protect themselves from pregnancy, HIV, and other STIs.
- Information is power. Education makes for better decisions. Censorship promotes ignorance, and ignorance promotes disease.
Online Resources on HIV and AIDS
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