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The Right to Know Initiative
Each day over 6,000 adolescents are infected with HIV daily. Many have
no access to accurate information, life skills or even health services.
UNICEF and its partners are striving to ensure that young people know
their rights and proclaim their right to know the facts on HIV
and AIDS.
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What Young People don't know can kill them.
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Q: Name
one way to protect yourself from HIV.
A: In
Mozambique, where HIV prevalence is as high as 13%,74% of
girls between the ages of 15 and 19 were unable to name
a single way to protect themselves from the infection.
Q: Can
a healthy looking person have the AIDS virus ?
A: In
15 of 34 countries surveyed , 50% or more of girls aged
15 to 19 did not know that someone who looks healthy can
be infected with HIV and transmit to others.
Q: How
is AIDS transmitted ?
A: In
Cambodia, approximately one half of urban young people surveyed,aged11
to 20, thought HIV could be transmittted by coughing ,sneezing
and mosquitoes.
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Information, education, and communication programmes to prevent the
spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections are often
not available to young people. Health services often do not cater to
unaccompanied minors or are restricted to married adults. When health
services are available, many factors discourage young people from using
them. These factors include a lack of privacy and confidentiality, insensitive
staff, threatening environments, and an inability to afford services.
Young people have the right to knowledge and skills that reduce their
vulnerability and enable protection against the epidemic. To reduce
the impact of HIV/AIDS, continuing efforts to educate young people and
strengthen their lifeskills are essential. Because the number of HIV
infections is increasing most rapidly among 15 to 24 year-olds, interventions
are needed for this age group.
Enabling young people to protect themselves is the first steps in
controlling the epidemic. This is where the Right to Know Initative
strives to make a difference. Young people themselves are the drive
behind the Right to Know Initiative. The Right to Know
(RTK) provides young people the skills and information that enable them
to actively formulate, plan their own HIV/AIDS programmes, and prevention
messages, allowing RTK to differ from other initiatives. The young people
also build new skills that enable to them to share their knowledge with
their peers.
At recent RTK events in Jamaica, Former Republic of Yugoslavia, Ghana,
and Zambia, young people worked as partners and learned to use new tools
to draw their community to the initiative. Using multi-media technology,
they captured the views of their peers and various community. Their
participation has allowed them to develop their communication, research
and other technical skills in the process, and send the positive messages
of their right to know to their peers.
10 Fundamental facts that young people have
the right to know
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AIDS is an incurable but preventable disease. HIV, the virus
that causes AIDS, spreads through unprotected sex (intercourse
without a condom), transfusions of unscreened blood, contaminated
needles and syringes (most often those used for injecting drugs),
and from an infected woman to her child during pregnancy, childbirth
or breastfeeding.
 Information
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All people, including children, are at risk for HIV/AIDS. Everyone
needs information and education about the disease and access to
condoms to reduce this risk.
Information
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Anyone who suspects that he or she might be infected with HIV
should contact a health worker or an HIV/AIDS centre to receive
confidential counselling and testing.
Information
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The risk of getting HIV through sex can be reduced if people
don't have sex, if they reduce the number of sex partners, if
uninfected partners have sex only with each other, or if people
have safer sex – sex without penetration or while using a condom.
Correct and consistent use of condoms can save lives by preventing
the spread of HIV.
Information
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Girls are especially vulnerable to HIV infection and need support
to protect themselves and be protected against unwanted and unsafe
sex.
Information
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Parents and teachers can help young people protect themselves
from HIV/AIDS by talking with them about how to avoid getting
and spreading the disease, including the correct and consistent
use of male or female condoms.
Information
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HIV infection can be passed from a mother to her child during
pregnancy or childbirth or through breastfeeding. Pregnant women
or new mothers who are infected with HIV, or suspect that they
are infected, should consult a qualified health worker to seek
testing and counselling.
Information
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HIV can be spread by unsterilized needles or syringes, most often
those used for injecting drugs. Used razor blades, knives or tools
that cut or pierce the skin also carry some risk of spreading
HIV.
Information
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People who have a sexually transmitted infection (STI) are at
greater risk of getting HIV and of spreading HIV to others. People
with STIs should seek prompt treatment and avoid sexual intercourse
or practice safer sex (non-penetrative sex or sex using a condom).
Information
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Discriminating against people who are infected with HIV/AIDS
or anyone thought to be at risk of infection violates individual
human rights and endangers public health. Everyone infected with
and affected by HIV/AIDS deserves compassion and support.
Information
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