AFRICANEWS

ChildRights

Kenya

'We need ownership of the decisions that affect our futures'

AIDS

Why is my generation dying over a war between those who advocate abstinence and those who advocate condom use? To me, the alarming statistics about youth HIV infection are more than numbers on a piece of paper. Those people are daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, and friends. I know this because I have lost a cousin to AIDS, because some of my neighbours are infected.

As a young person from a province in Kenya where a third of the youth are HIV positive, I wish to voice the concerns of young people around the world who are at risk of HIV infection because of misguided policy-making concerning youth and AIDS. Consider the abstinence-only AIDS prevention policy embraced by many conservative governments. At a recent meeting before the UNGASS (UN General Assembly Special Session) on AIDS, delegates from these countries expressed disapproval of tactics of prevention that focus on sexual education and condom use.

The young people I work with would strongly reject this approach. We share a common belief that the disagreement between the religious establishment and liberal NGOs may well be contributing to the spread of HIV infection. Safe sex and abstinence are, in fact, the two ends of the same continuum of AIDS prevention policy options. We are not dismissing the importance of abstinence, but rather advocating for the right to be informed about every option so that we can have safe alternatives.

The commitment of the global community to combat HIV/AIDS in youth has been timid. From the above resolutions, it is obvious that one of the main problems in overcoming this pandemic is that young people are not involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of AIDS conventions, declarations and policy.

I often hear reference to the importance of youth involvement in fighting AIDS, yet there are no steps taken to ensure such involvement. I believe that the most crucial step toward achieving results will be to both include and respect the voices of youth in the making of youth AIDS policy. How many recommendations made by young people are actually incorporated into any document where youth are a key group? And how much 'youth participation' is actually token representation?

It is paradoxical that in attempting to protect young people from early sexual activity, we are handing them a death warrant. The reality of youth in the 21st century is such that we live in a world very much unlike that of the generation who are driving our policies. We need ownership of the decisions that affect our futures. We cannot continue to write off entire generations because of myopic and archaic policy-making. AIDS information for youth is a vital right, and all policy should reflect that, otherwise ours is a losing battle.

The reaction of African youth to this impasse is very strong. We are in shock that, in this day and age, policy makers think we are too young to learn about safe sex, but not too young to die of AIDS.

Lydiah Bosire, 23, is from Kisii, Kenya. She is the co-founder of Youth Against AIDS (YAA), a network of young people that seeks to mobilize and empower young Africans in the campaign against AIDS. For more information about YAA, visit www.worldvoices.org/aids. Reprinted from CRIN.

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