Preventing HIV Infection
Preventing HIV in Young People
- Why Focus on Young People?
- What Have We Learned So Far?
- What Should Be Our Guiding Principles?
- What Can UNFPA Do to Prevent the Next Young Person From Becoming HIV Infected?
- Notes and References
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What Have We Learned So Far?
UNFPA has worked closely with UN Agencies, national governments, civil society, youth and youth serving organisations and other partners to meet the diverse challenges and needs of young people and to actively promote and protect their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Valuable lessons gathered from collective past experience of successful programmes for young people include:
- Young people are a heterogeneous group with diverse vulnerabilities, needs, realities and preferences. Recognizing that no single strategy or message can have the desired effect on every young person, evidence shows that the best HIV preventive responses are comprehensive and multidimensional. For example, comprehensive gendersensitive sexual and reproductive health education programmes that convey a range of options including abstinence, delayed onset of sexual activity and correct and consistent use of condoms, have been proven to be effective in preventing STI/HIV infections and unintended pregnancy among young people.
- Responsible and safer sexual behaviour can be learned and is most positively impacted prior to the onset of sexual activity. This is fundamental to HIV prevention as a significant proportion of young people are not sexually active and when they are, many times their sexual activities are infrequent.
- Evidence suggests that open, frank discussion of sex and sexual health at an early age does not promote promiscuity, but in fact delays the onset of sexual activity and encourages the adoption of responsible and safer sexual practices such as monogamous relationships and/or the consistent and correct use of condoms.
- Young people whose environment includes positive relationships with adults at home and in the broader community including with teachers and peers who have prosocial attitudes and behaviours, are less likely to initiate the use of substances and to start sexual activity without having acquired the necessary information, knowledge and skills to protect themselves.
- Young people in difficult circumstances – those who feel disempowered, are in situations of poverty, despair, or displaced due to conflict and war; those who have no real family support including orphans and street children; those young people “on the move” such as young conscripts and migrant workers; and those who are exposed to sexual abuse and exploitation including child sex workers — are more likely to engage, many times unwillingly, in sexual activities that put them at increased risk of acquiring HIV and other STIs.
- A multitude of factors hinder young people’s access to youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health counseling and services including socio-cultural issues, operational barriers, insensitive and judgmental service providers, threatening settings/environments, issues of privacy and confidentiality, inability to afford services, restrictive or ambiguous service policies and inappropriate and unacceptable service options.