HIV/AIDS continues to haunt the lives of millions throughout Africa and the world.

This past week in Toronto, the global AIDS community reflected on 25 years of AIDS and asked ourselves what the next 25 would bring. We felt outrage, sadness, hope and inspiration. We applauded Bill and Melinda Gates for their financial contributions, booed the Canadian government for not having the courage to send their highest leader, and cried for friends who have already been lost and weren't able to be here with us. At many times, those of us working in this movement questioned whether our work
makes any difference in the fight against the disease.

As I met the young woman from Uganda who told me how her organization was not able to receive funding from the U.S. government because she refused to implement abstinence-until-marriage programs and heard the Kenyan researcher discuss how the American one-size-fits-all prevention strategy was having devastating effects in Africa, I was re-energized to fight U.S. global AIDS prevention policies driven by ideology, not evidence. One of the strongest themes emerging from the conference was a global push-back on U.S. policies that hurt the fight against AIDS. These include moralistic prevention policies and trade policies that put corporate interests ahead of the needs of people living with AIDS. American AIDS activists have a tough charge ahead of us. We not only have to fight regressive policies, we must fight for the U.S. to pay its fair share to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria and other crucial multilateral agencies.

One of the strongest themes emerging from the conference was a global push-back on U.S. policies that hurt the fight against AIDS. These include moralistic prevention policies and trade policies that put corporate interests ahead of the needs of people living with AIDS.

The official theme of the conference was "Time to Deliver". The theme was apt because the global community is making progress in delivering on its promises, but not fast enough and many areas are being overlooked altogether. We must recognize that violence against women and HIV transmission go hand in hand. It is time to deliver support to community groups working to improve laws for women's rights in their countries which are key to stopping the increasing feminization of the pandemic, particularly in Africa. It is time to deliver honest HIV- prevention strategies that recognize evidence-based comprehensive prevention including access to condoms, reproductive health services and needle exchange. It is time to deliver resources for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. And most importantly, it is time for governments to deliver to their citizens and stop playing politics with people's lives.

On the closing day of the AIDS conference, renowned AIDS activist Zackie Achmat and members of the Treatment Action Campaign were arrested in South Africa, one of the biggest battlegrounds in the fight against AIDS. Last month, Treatment Action Campaign and 15 prisoners won a court case against the government ordering them to provide AIDS drugs to prisoners immediately. This morning, activists demanded the arrest of South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang following the death of an HIV-positive prisoner involved in that court case. Protests earlier this week over the lack of leadership from Canadian prime minister Steve Harper and Zackie's arrest demonstrate that the next 25 years of AIDS are dependent on change from our global leaders.

It is time to deliver honest HIV- prevention strategies that recognize evidence-based comprehensive prevention including access to condoms, reproductive health services and needle exchange.

Unfortunately, it's not just our global leaders that need change. As the conference closed, Canadian activists led a march from the conference center to the headquarters of the Canadian paper, The Globe and Mail, angered over an article by columnist Margaret Wente. Wente published an article earlier this week claiming that activist rhetoric was useless and implied that human rights violations, racism and poverty were not root causes of HIV infection and that the community needed to focus more on personal responsibility and behavior.

Our community is larger than ever in the 25 year of AIDS. But we face a risk of being drowned out by the voices of the celebrities, former presidents and billionaires. The fight against AIDS is being fought not here in Toronto but in the villages and towns of Africa, Asia and Latin America. It remains our duty to ensure that the people whose voices matter the most—those who are actually living the disease—are at the forefront of fighting this disease.




Contributed by Naina Dhingra, the director of International Policy at Advocates for Youth. Reprinted with permission from TomPaine.com.

To read another Global Envision article about AIDS and prevention, see Beating HIV/AIDS Still Needs a Scientific Approach.



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