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| This ISHTAR wellness center in Nairobi works to ensure that gay men have access to non-discriminatory HIV and sexual health services. Credit: Corrie Wingate for the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. |
This blog was originally published by The Huffington Post on May 8, 2015.
Dominique, 26, realized he was gay in his early adolescence
and now sells sex to other men to survive and to support his relatives in Kisii,
in western Kenya. He goes regularly to a drop-in center outside Nairobi run by
the Kenya AIDS NGO Consortium
(KANCO) where he gets a holistic package of HIV and sexual and
reproductive health services. As a
result, he is HIV-negative.
Dominique is a good example of why we need to support people
most vulnerable to HIV. Yet the language currently proposed in the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) falls short of prioritizing the most
marginalized and vulnerable groups (the SDGs are the new development goals
replacing the Millennium Development goals which expire later this year).
Goal 3 of the SDGs is to “ensure healthy lives and promote
well-being for all ages.” Target 3.8 under this goal commits to Universal
Health Coverage (UHC). Unfortunately, the UHC target and indicators do not meet
the specific needs of the most marginalized, stigmatized and underserved people
in the world — like men who have sex with men (who are 19 times more likely to
contract HIV than the general population) and transgender women (who are up to
49 times more likely to acquire HIV than all adults of reproductive age).
