Today, December 1st, is World AIDS Day. The theme this year is "Getting to Zero: Zero New Infections, Zero AIDS-Related Deaths, and Zero Stigma and Discrimination." Not a bad hook, I think, and not a bad set of goals, either. And, for the first time in a long time, goals that look acheivable. But, as those of you who know me know, I have a few quibbles on what we need to focus on if we're going to acheive them.

While "Getting to Zero" is the theme of this year's World AIDS Day, the Getting to Zero strategy was released a year ago, to set the agenda for UNAIDS over the next 5 years. It was full of great language about human rights, marginalised communities, and the need to focus on transformative social change. I'm therefore a little disappointed to see the new World AIDS Day report reduce their prevention strategies to more treatment, condom promotion, and "behaviour change communication."

Here's the thing. Comprehensive sexuality education is SO MUCH MORE than "behaviour change communication." Comprehensive sexuality education, as an HIV prevention strategy, is about enabling young people to become agents of transformative social change around their own sexual health and rights. It might be about learning how to use and negotiate condoms, but it's also about learning how to understand and explore your own body, negotiate the terms of your sexual, romantic, and friendly relationships, communicate with your friends, family and community about what you need and want, learning how to treat yourself and everyone around you with respect, empathy, and love. It's about gender equality and human rights. It's about sexual pleasure and sexual power. It's about empowering young people to enter the world on their own terms and change it to suit their needs.

So this World AIDS Day I'd like to challenge UNAIDS: where's all that in your Getting to Zero strategy? Where are the other Zeros? Maybe next year, when we're Getting to Zero, we could also get to zero young people without the access they need to sexual health information and services, sexual rights, and sexual and gender equality.

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