ICW and WGNRR Young Women’s Forum Statement

May 4, 2015

More than Our Status! Our Bodies! Our Sexual & Reproductive Health and Rights!

May 1, 2015 Abuja, Nigeria

United, 22 young women HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights activists came together for the Young Women’s Strategy Meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, April 28 – 29, 2015. During this strategic session the women from Nigeria, India, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Russia, Jamaica, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Vietnam spent time strategizing how to strengthen a joint response to address the stigma for women living with HIV in accessing sexual and reproductive health services.

Together they decided to form a global campaign under the slogan More than Our Status! Our Bodies! Our Sexual & Reproductive Health and Rights! with the hashtag #DoYouSeeHIV. “We need to work together for each other! We will be stronger and there is so much that we can learn. Jointly we cannot stand for any young woman to not have access to quality sexual and reproductive health services, including women living with HIV,” said Ugochi Egwuatu from the Generation Initiative for Women and Youth, Nigeria “We were horrified listening to the cases of health care violations such as forced and coerced sterilization of women living with HIV.” said Dinh Nga representing the Center for Creative Initiatives in Health an Population in Vietnam.

The Young Women’s Strategy Meeting is part of a 1 –year project by the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) and the Women’s Global Network on Reproductive Rights (WGNRR) funded by Oxfam Novib and Stop AIDS Now!. The regional ICW West Africa team has been taking the lead to develop a regional coalition that recently participated in an advocacy training and undertook a comprehensive peer driven research project to document health care violations experienced by women living with HIV in Nigeria.

From now until World AIDS Day, December 1, 2015, the project will support the amazing work that the networks of women activists are doing in Nigeria and around the world. “As a young woman living with HIV, it was so nice to be in the room. I felt empowered and like we could take on the world,” said L’Orangelis Thomas ICW’s Chapter for Young Women, Adolescents and Girls member from Puerto Rico.

If you’d like to find out more about the collaboration and what advocacy activities the coalition will be leading, please contact:

Jessica Whitbread

ICW Community Relations and Mobilization Manager

Communityrelations@iamicw.org