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To advance and cement the organization’s support for women and young girls, the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights is today, through this issue introduced. Its purpose is to advance knowledge and create further awareness on developments surrounding the said community sector and to help audiences stay updated on such, further guiding means of both action and reaction to these developments.
This week we discuss What parliamentarians can do to advance HIV prevention.
Parliamentarians can champion prevention plans and targets, and advocate for the prevention needs of the most vulnerable and marginalised people, including women, girls and key populations. They can advocate for governments to adopt and implement the 10-point plan in the 2020 Prevention Road Map. They can play a particularly important role in creating a conducive policy and legal environment to promote evidence-informed and human rights based prevention programmes.
Undertake advocacy research: Parliamentarians can initiate research into the barriers to HIV prevention, particularly for key populations and adolescent girls and young women. It is important to understand the reasons why people are not accessing HIV prevention services as reasons will differ between countries and by understanding the dynamics in their own countries, parliamentarians could encourage evidence-based policies and programming. Parliamentarians can investigate the availability of HIV prevention services and commodities in public health facilities, whether health care workers have been trained to advise and deliver CSE, including prevention services and testing for key populations and adolescents and young people. Parliamentarians can also initiate research into special programmes that promote HIV prevention for key populations and women, including young women, women with disabilities, adolescent girls and women displaced by conflict and natural disasters.
Enact and strengthen protective laws: Parliamentarians can draft and enact laws that support comprehensive HIV prevention efforts. They can ensure that laws:
- Promote equality and prohibit discrimination;
- Promote gender equality and prohibit and punish GBV;
- Do not punish drug users for being in possession of drugs for personal use;
- Do not criminalise consensual adult sex, including same sex conduct and sex work, and repeal laws that criminalise or discriminate against sex workers, gay men and other men who have sex with men; • Do not prevent the distribution of condoms and lubricant to prisoners, sex workers and other at-risk populations;
- Promote equal, non-discriminatory access to HIV prevention information, services and commodities; • Do not require spousal or parental consent to access HIV prevention information, services or commodities;
- Do not promote coercive approaches to prevention, including mandatory HIV testing and criminalisation of harm reduction;
- Respect the right to medical confidentiality for everyone, including women and girls and members of key populations; and
- Promote CSE for adolescents and young men and women, including information about HIV prevention.
Ensure accountability for implementation of commitments: Parliamentarians can undertake legal audits to assess the extent to which laws and policies are consistent with their international and regional human rights commitments and do not hamper access to HIV prevention. They can meet with the relevant parliamentary committees to share information and concerns about discriminatory laws and assess what changes are necessary to advance access to HIV prevention information, services and commodities. They can meet with international and regional experts to discuss what law reform is necessary and advocate for legal and policy reform to ensure compliance. They can monitor and hold government ministries accountable for reporting on their progress towards amending discriminatory laws and enacting protective ones, and they can encourage civil society to monitor whether protective laws are being implemented.
Budget monitoring: Parliamentarians can advocate for adequate budgets to be allocated for measures to advance HIV prevention information, services and commodities: UNAIDS recommends that 25% of HIV budgets should be allocated to primary prevention programming.101 They can analyse budget allocations for HIV prevention to assess that programmes will reach women, including young women, and key populations. They can also analyse budget allocation for condom promotion, which is typically under-funded. They can encourage various ministries (e.g. health, education, justice) to budget for relevant programmes and that human rights are fully integrated into programmes on contraception and appropriately costed to ensure implemented.
Be an opinion leader and influencer: Parliamentarians can become opinion leaders on the importance of HIV prevention and encourage debate about prevention programmes that is based on scientific evidence and best practices, and not shaped by stigma. By speaking out, parliamentarians can encourage the recognition of the specific prevention needs of key populations and encourage a human rights-based approach to HIV prevention. They can attend events and speak out to advocate and frame HIV prevention as a human rights issue. They can use international or national human rights days to increase awareness about the importance of HIV prevention. They can also work within Parliament and in Parliamentary forums and networks, to raise awareness amongst fellow parliamentarians. They can share lessons learned at regional and global level with other parliamentarians.
Engage with civil society: Parliamentarians can engage with CSOs, including key populations organisations, youth groups, health care workers and other groups working on various aspects of HIV prevention. They can invite CSOs and the communities they work with, to provide expert information at parliamentary hearings on the barriers to HIV prevention and empower members of key groups to advocate on their own behalf. They can present the findings of these meetings and hearings to relevant government ministries. Parliamentarians can play an important role in ensuring that the voices of key groups are included in discussions about their lives and that they can influence all aspects of planning, including design, implementation and monitoring, of HIV prevention interventions. Thus, they can ensure and apply best practices of a participatory democracy.
Represent their electorate: Parliamentarians should engage with and reflect the concerns of all their electorate, including marginalised and vulnerable groups. Parliamentarians can engage with key stakeholders within communities – key populations, health care workers, parents, traditional leaders and religious SRHR, HIV AND AIDS Governance Manual and religious leaders, to increase awareness to about HIV prevention and human rights barriers to access.
Work with the media: Parliamentarians can work with the media to raise awareness and to encourage responsible reporting on prevention. They can encourage the media to write stories that provide accurate and reliable information about HIV transmission and HIV prevention interventions.
Next we discuss Treatment
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