On July 31st and August 1st, Health and Education ministers from most countries in the region came together in Mexico City at the invitation of the Mexican government.  The meeting was designed to bring together the two sectors most responsible for sex education - health and education - to create a declaration that specifically highlights and creates government commitments to supporting comprehensive sex education as a foundation for stemming the tide of HIV/AIDS in the region. 

No meeting such as this has ever occurred in the region (or any other region) before.  The seeds for such a meeting were sown several years ago when civil society organizations in Mexico worked with the government entities responsible for addressing HIV/AIDS to create a national campaign to support sex education as HIV prevention.  SIECUS reported on this work in our publication A Shared Border, A Common Agenda. 

The success of this effort highlighted the role that comprehensive sex education plays as a foundation for HIV prevention.  And, when additional interventions are laid on top of this foundation, for example, in those communities with increased risk, we establish a greater overarching strategy that helps get us out of the pin-prick prevention that is essentially disaster aversion.  In Mexico, it is taking hold and working well. 

The recent meeting of the Ministers was an opportunity for Mexico to engage the rest of the region in a dialogue to replicate and build upon the work in the country.  The summit consisted of two meetings - one technical and one more official that involved the Ministers themselves.  Neither meeting was not without controversy.  Several countries sought to highlight and stress the need for abstinence in the declaration.  Other countries reacted strongly and pushed back, not the least of which was Brazil.  It is no coincidence that Brazil is one of the countries that has entirely rejected U.S. government assistance to combat HIV/AIDS in their own country and they did so with a clear indication that the promotion of abstinence and marriage was inconsistent with Brazils' own values and regard for human rights standards in the context of public health.  

In fact, one of the most startling things from this technical meeting was the utter rebuke of using the word abstinence precisely because of the Bush administration's politicization of that concept.  While everyone obviously supports abstinence as a good option for young people, many can no longer embrace the term because of the nonsense and destruction its dogged promotion has done to global HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.  What a sad legacy and lesson on overreach for the Bush Administration's war on evidence-based prevention. 

But the resulting declaration speaks not just to the rebuke of the U.S. government's influence on these issues in the region, it sets out a new, bold, and proactive strategy to support comprehensive sex education.  In particular, the document, agreed to by all governments in the region, includes the following commitments:

• Comprehensive sexuality education will have a broad perspective that is based on human rights and respects the values of a democratic, pluralistic society where families and communities thrive. And, it will include ethical, biological, emotional, social, cultural, and gender aspects as well as topics related to the diversity of sexual orientations and identities, within the legal framework of each country, to promote respect for differences, reject any form of discrimination, and promote among youth responsible and informed decision-making regarding their sexual debut.
• Evaluate our current educational programs during 2009 and 2010 to identify to what extent comprehensive sexuality education is incorporated in the curriculum at all educational levels and modalities and to what degree it is implemented in schools under the jurisdiction of the Ministries of Education.
• Review, update and reinforce the training of educational personnel, from teaching colleges to in-service training for existing teachers. By the year 2015, all teacher-training programs, under the jurisdiction of the Ministries of Education, for both formal and non-formal education will include the new comprehensive sexuality education curricula.
• Ensure that health services are youth friendly and delivered with full respect for human dignity. And, within each countries' legal framework, that they take into account the specific needs and demands of sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and young people, considering the diversity of sexual orientation and identity, and establishing suitable referral procedures within the health sector.
• Ensure that health services provide effective access to: counseling and testing for HIV and STI; comprehensive clinical care for STI; condoms and education in their correct and consistent use; counseling about reproductive decisions, including for people with HIV; and counseling and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, for everyone, especially for adolescents and young people.  
• Designate and/or mobilize resources in each of our countries for the rigorous impact evaluation of five or more strategies for comprehensive sexuality education, sexual health promotion, or HIV/STI prevention in adolescents and young people by the year 2015.

Much work remains, of course.  But the Mexico City Declaration on Sex Education in Latin America and the Caribbean is a monumental step forward in securing the future of sex education in the region. For example, a tandem effort is underway in which we are both involved with the Pan American Health Organization to develop its own targets and commitments that will help assist countries in fulfilling their commitments in the Mexico City Declaration.  This is but one example of supportive efforts in other sectors than can help ensure success and that must be part of the larger regional effort going forward.

For the U.S., we look forward to a new administration that can join this regional effort and make similar commitments for its own citizens.  Interestingly, the U.S. government did provide comments to the original draft of the Mexico City Declaration.  While not made public, it reportedly removed every instance of the term "sex education" from the declaration on sex education.  It suggests just how deeply isolated and arrogant current American thinking is on HIV prevention and shows that much of the world has had more than enough and is fighting back.  Thankfully.

Listen to William Smith on the San Francisco AIDS Foundation podcast, discussing the new commitments by Latin American and Caribbean governments on sex education as HIV prevention. 

Read all of RH Reality Check's International AIDS Conference coverage here!