A Thank You to Congresswoman Barbara Lee
By Nickie, August 12, 2008
Posted on RH Reality Check
Nickie is a member of the International Youth Leadership Council . She writes from the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, Mexico.
A Thank You to Congresswoman Barbara Lee
As I was looking thorough the massive International AIDS Conference booklet, full of sessions taking place at the conference and trying to decide which session I wanted to attend, I saw that Congresswoman Barbara Lee was one of the speakers at the session about travel restrictions on people living with HIV. Barbara Lee is well known for being an activist in the sexual and reproductive rights movement--more specifically an advocate for sexual and reproductive rights of young people in the United States and abroad.
During her speech, Rep. Lee talked about how Congress removed the travel restriction for people with living with HIV; however, the Department of Health and Human Services has yet to lift its restriction. Hopefully, the ban will be lifted completely before the end of President Bush's term. When I posed a question during the session as to what we, young people, should demand of our next president, Congresswoman Lee, without any hesitation, came up with a very comprehensive list of demands that included: the repeal of the global gag rule, integration of family planning services and comprehensive sexual education into PEPFAR, removal of the prostitution pledge, and finding an effective way to address gender violence. She also did not forget the domestic policy reforms that included defunding abstinence-only programs, authorization of the REAL Act, support for clean needle exchange programs, and the creation of a domestic PEPFAR. In other words, she listed everything I, as an advocate for the sexual and reproductive health of young people, have been working towards for almost three years now.
It's comforting to have a policy maker speak out and advocate on behalf of vulnerable youth. After having been disappointed by President Clinton's failure to mention young people in his keynote speech and Ban Ki-moon's failure to make a commitment to youth during his visit to the Youth Pavilion, I was comforted to know that youth are not alone as long as we have policy makers such as Congresswoman Barbara Lee on our side. So, I want to take this opportunity to thank her, once again, for doing such amazing work with policy in Congress and for not being afraid to speak out on issues concerning the sexual and reproductive health of young people.
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