After Janna was so awesome to blog for us from the XVII International AIDS Conference (IAC) this week, the conference comes to a close today, but not without some things to take back with us.
International Planned Parenthood, Young Positives, the UNFPA and the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS collaborated together to release a new guide in an effort to improve HIV prevention among girls and young women.
The guide, "Make It Matter," focuses not only on increasing reproductive and sexual health services for girls and women, but addresses other problems that contribute to millions of women who have HIV every year like socioeconomic status and child marriage. Download the report here.
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I must have broke the website. I can't see any pages after page #4. I didn't know my post on the wage gap was that good, lol.
I think it is really great there is attention going to this area of AIDS/ HIV prevention. However, it does worry me that one of the resolutions is "end child marriage". I do not support or condone child marriage. I think that is violates some very important human rights and is a systematic opression, exploitation and violence against women. However, there are many socities around the world who have historically practiced this or still do for widely varrying reasons. There are social, cultural, economic and political reasons for why the practice continues, each specific to the particular social context in which it occurs.
When legal bans are simply enforced or the UN or the Western countries simply denouce the practice, it does not change the everyday realities which create and sustain the practice. I think there needs to be more research into the specifics of this issue and more of a botton-up approach needs to be taken where women, men and children resisting the practice from within their own socities are supported. It would also help to see how the socialization into the acceptance of child marriage happens.