As we think through how best to stem the tide of HIV infections around the globe, we now have very strong research documenting that a comprehensive approach to sex education can be a successful and foundational element to our work.
A comprehensive approach to sex education (one that includes more than just abstinence and marriage promotion) has been shown to delay sexual activity, not increase the number of sexual partners, and to improve the utiliza-tion of condoms and contraception when sex does occur. It is win, win, win and it needs to be embraced and scaled up in every corner of the globe.
Yet, the political and ideological obstacles to embracing comprehensive sex education as a foundation to living healthier, HIV-free lives persist and even thrive in some countries. Clearly, in the United States, the prioritization of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs by the current Administration drags on despite federally sponsored studies reporting that the programs do not work. Perpetuation of these programs is a deliberate and dogged violation of basic standards of decency and human rights. That this same non-sense persists in our global HIV assistance via the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is even more shameful. The world wants and deserves better.
On August 1st, just prior to the IAC, health and education ministers from every country in the Latin American and Caribbean region agreed to an unprecedented declaration on sex educa-tion. The Mexico City Declaration commits these nations to a multi-sectoral approach to scale up comprehensive sex education based on both public health and human rights frame-works. We must recognize and thank our Mexican hosts for their leadership in this area.
Two years ago, Mexico launched its own na-tional campaign to promote sex education as a foundation for HIV prevention. It has taken hold and it is working.
Comprehensive sex education works. As the United States lags behind and does a disservice by its ongoing devotion to failed approaches like abstinence-until-marriage, the HIV/AIDS health community to our south has leaped over us by allowing their own policies to be guided by the evidence.