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I left Mexico City absolutely inspired by the amazing international student advocacy I saw. From Y-Peer’s efforts to use celebrities as messengers for AIDS education campaigns to YouthRise harm reduction advocacy efforts for IDUs, students are at the leading edge of the movement. I was especially moved by a Peruvian student group’s video on comprehensive sex education. The Peruvian group runs a peer education program for middle school aged kids about human rights and sex education. I was struck by how sophisticated, simple and hard hitting their message is: Access to information is a human right, and access to comprehensive sex education is a human right they must demand from the governemnt and educators. I didn’t even know what human rights were until college!
And speaking of human rights, I saw a huge potential for the Student Program’s Health and Human Rights Education (HHREd) curriculum at the conference. Each time I mentioned the PHR Student Program’s HHREd curriculum to students and faculty that I met in Mexico City, they were really enthusiastic. They all noted that traditional medical ethics does not prepare health profefssional students for the complex situations they will deal with as a professional. Many said that learning to look at the world through a human rights lens helps one to be a better advocate.
I couldn’t have said it better myself and am excited to continue to build our HHREd program and help students to be stronger advocates.
At the International AIDS Conference in Mexico, HIV-related travel restrictions in a handful of countries worldwide—including the US—drew sharp criticism from participating officials and civil society. I had the good fortune of attending many of the related sessions to learn and participate in the growing international momentum for HIV-related travel restrictions to be reversed.
In the early 1980s, many countries established travel restrictions, out of ignorance and fear, to prevent the virus from entering their borders. Today, we know that HIV positive travelers do not pose a threat to public health because HIV cannot be transmitted through casual contact (through the air, or from common vehicles such as food or water). At least 67 countries still have some form of HIV-specific travel restrictions, thirteen of which ban people living with HIV from entering for any reason or length of time (including Armenia, Brunei, China, Iraq, Qatar, South Korea, Libya, Moldova, Oman, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and United States). Travel restrictions usually take the form of a law that requires people to indicate their HIV-free status before entering or remaining in a country. Some countries require people to undergo an HIV test whereas others require an “HIV-free” certificate or simply ask that people declare their HIV status. Many receiving countries require that the testing be done, at the expense of the traveler, in the country of origin.
Such requirements not only discriminate by hindering HIV-positive people from travel to certain countries and affecting their work, livelihood and human rights—such requirements also perpetuate stigma and discrimination that lead people to hide their status and not seek the care they need. Assuming that people living with HIV will act irresponsibly is also highly prejudicial.
The World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, oppose the use of HIV-related travel restrictions. UNAIDS in fact, has set up a new international task team to heighten attention to the issue of HIV-related travel restrictions on international and national agendas and move towards their elimination.
In the US, Congresswoman Barbara Lee has been championing the issue for many years—getting the US Congress to reauthorize PEPFAR with a provision included to remove the current statutory ban on travel for people living with HIV/AIDS. During the conference, PHR thanked the Congresswoman for her leadership on global AIDS and human rights (pictured right).
Even though the US action to repeal the HIV entry ban is in keeping with international momentum, the Administration still lists HIV on the list of “communicable diseases of public health significance” that automatically preclude a person from entering the United States—and this must change in order to truly end the discriminatory travel ban. Here in the US, PHR is mobilizing health professionals to contact their Representative to co-sign a letter urging the White House to completely abolish the discriminatory travel ban.
Please take action by contacting your Representative.
In the age of globalization, and in the setting of dramatic improvements in HIV care and treatment, HIV-travel restrictions are archaic and highly inappropriate. Repealing the discriminatory travel ban is the right thing to do and it is long overdue.
During the campaign to bring affordable HIV treatment to people all over the world, South Africa’s Treatment Access Campaign volunteers spontaneously adapted the songs that united people during the fall of apartheid to the struggle that was keeping people in Africa from accessing HIV treatment. On July 10, in the halls of Mexico City’s Centro Banamex, the PHR Health Action AIDS team was part of yet another spontaneous rewriting of these songs. This time, instead of singing “We want AZT, we want Nevarapine,” we were singing about the global need for health workers.
We were part of a rally to raise awareness about the global health worker shortage that is curbing attempts to treat and prevent HIV across Sub-Saharan Africa. Organized by the Treatment Action Campaign, Medecins sans Frontieres, Health GAP, and PHR, this rally drew hundreds of supporters from the conference who marched through the Exhibition Hall, the conference center, and the Media Center singing, chanting, and speaking to the pain and suffering of people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa who lack access to health workers. Holding signs stating “Where is my nurse?” and “Stop poaching our health care workers,” the rally brought together health workers from around the world with the organizations who support them to send a message to global development partners that the time to for action to solve the health workforce crisis is long overdue.
As Eric explains, AIDS activists and global health experts at the International AIDS Conference were unified in their recognition of the need to strengthen health systems and address the health workforce shortage. But, the resources are not yet flowing to address the gap between the health workforce needed to meet critical health goals such as Universal Access to HIV treatment or the Millenium Development Goals and the existing health workforce. We have had some successes—including the inclusion of training 140,000 new health workers as part of the United States Global Leadership against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008—but the funding available still falls well short of being adequate to address the global shortages.
And so, in partnership with health workers across the globe, we will continue to sing, to speak out, and to rally until the funding and the support follows.
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