From Nairobi’s 2007 Call to Action on HIV to Creating a Safe Space in 2011
By Hendrica Okondo, World YWCA Programme Manager for SRHR, HIV and AIDS
In 2007 I learned that Nekesa,[1] a young friend, died from child birth complications because no nurse would help her. She was born HIV positive, orphaned young and shuttled from relative to relative, most of whom were poor and struggling with their own children, Nekesa was frequently ill and access to services in rural Kenya was a challenge. She found the easy way out - getting married at 15 to a former classmate. At first life was good, but her husband died when she was two months pregnant. My friend moved to the city, with no resources. She became a domestic worker, lived in slums, and came frequently to the youth group I mentored at the church. I lost touch with her and only heard she had died a year later when her aunt told me that she had named her daughter after me. I was profoundly touched and am happy to report that my namesake is thriving and started kindergarten. I wish her mother had lived long enough to attend the World YWCA Council in Nairobi, perhaps her life would have been different.
In 2007, the World YWCA Council brought together over 2,000 delegates from 130 countries. It included the International Women’s Summit, the first global meeting on women‘s leadership on HIV and AIDS, where a forum co-facilitated by the World YWCA and the International Community of Women Living with HIV, was exclusively for women openly living with HIV. It provided the women with a safe space to share their lived experience and articulate their right to define solutions for addressing their vulnerabilities and enhance their potential to live fulfilled lives. Dr Musimbi Kanyoro, then General Secretary of the World YWCA, called it “a cry for social justice and accountability, a clarion call to all women as a group and as individuals infected or affected by HIV to take leadership for changing the situation of women and girls living with HIV.” Dr Peter Piot, former Executive Director for UNAIDS, called it “a defining moment for addressing the feminisation of HIV.”
The International Women’s Summit‘s highlight was the launch of the Nairobi 2007 Call to Action, which notes that women make up 46% of those living with HIV, and the proportion of women infected with HIV is increasing in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the region most affected by AIDS, 61% of all adults and three out of four young people living with the virus are female. The Call to Action affirms the human rights of women and girls and recognises that the realisation of these rights is critical to an effective response to the global AIDS pandemic and the future of our world. The World YWCA movement responded to the call by setting up a Facebook page [2] to reach out to young women and developed a website rich in resources on SRHR and HIV, and other priority objectives of the movement. The Power to Change Fund, consisting of funds from development partners and the movement, provided grants to Member Associations worldwide to develop programmes to mobilise faith communities to listen to positive young women, by providing peer counselling on SRHR and HIV issues, and referral to providers for HIV prevention treatment and care. The World YWCA has also built the capacity of young women infected and affected by HIV to advocate for their rights at the global level. In 2008, a World YWCA delegation, including several young women, participated in the International AIDS conference in Mexico City, where one of the key messages was the importance of upholding human rights to reduce the vulnerability of women and girls. They shared the Nairobi Call to Action with the delegates and influenced the outcome documents.
In 2009 and 2010, the World YWCA convened various Regional Training Institutes which included a Young Women Leadership Dialogue - a safe space for young women to share their experience on SRHR and HIV. Participants realised that young women, wherever they come from, and especially when they are HIV positive, face similar challenges when claiming their SRHR. The training helped them question their assumptions and socio-cultural gender norms which increased their vulnerabilities. It also enabled them to be aware of, and form partnerships with, other faith based organisations and develop relevant tools for mobilising young women using an intergenerational leadership module.
The World YWCAs participation in the Vienna AIDS 2010 Conference included 10 young women from all regions, strategically involved in lobbying for safe spaces for young women to access relevant SRHR and HIV services. The young women highlighted their concern about the violence, judgment and exclusion positive young women face when exercising their SRHR. At a satellite session [3] on comprehensive approaches for SRHR in relation to HIV and violence against women, they defined safe spaces in the context of physical, social, cultural, religious, economic, political and biological factors. Acknowledging that this is a complex dialogue requiring a common understanding among youth, women, men and policy makers, they recommended a conversation at a global level informed by lived experiences of young women like Nekesa.
I believe the World YWCA International Women’s Summit and World Council has, besides acknowledging the wonderful work of the young women who implemented the Nairobi Call to Action, consolidated these conversations by providing a space for young women, both from the movement and other networks, to articulate their solutions and definitions of a safe space to key partners. It is hoped that these partners will fulfil the promises made in Vienna and the recent youth summit in Mali [4] of creating a safe space and providing adequate resources for supporting young women’s leadership for a sustainable HIV response that address SRHR, HIV and violence against women.
Extracted from June 2011 Common Concern, Issue 146
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[1] Not her real name
[2] www.worldywca.org/YWCA-News/World-YWCA-and-Member-Associations-News/Call-to-Action
[3] www.worldywca.org/YWCA-News/World-YWCA-and-Member-Associations-News/Wanted-Comprehensive-Solutions
[4] www.worldywca.org/Member-Associations/Regions/Africa/World-YWCA-Attends-the-International-HIV-Youth-Summit
