The 10th International Congress on AIDS In Asia and the Pacific (10th ICAAP) recently held in Busan, South Korea, clearly brought out the need to engage the key affected young population of the Asia and Pacific region in ownership and leadership of HIV responses. It would not be possible to achieve the three zeros - Zero new HIV infections, Zero discrimination and Zero AIDS related deaths - without meaningful participation of the young community.

Across the Asia-Pacific region an estimated half a million young people, aged 15-24 years, are living with HIV. A significant number of all new infections are among young key populations, such as sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender people and injecting drug users, who are at higher risk of HIV infection. Stigma, discrimination, homophobia and criminalisation of same sex behaviour prevent young people from accessing care and treatment. But the greatest obstacle is the existence of punitive laws that prevent access to HIV treatment and care services.

The transferring of skills and knowledge from one generation of leaders to the next, which would be a two-way learning and sharing experience, is the need of the hour.

Keeping this in mind, The Asia-Pacific Interagency Task Team on Young Key Affected Populations launched a New Generation (New Gen) Asia initiative at 10th ICAAP, to engage young people from or working with young key affected populations as leaders and active participants and empower them through a multi-faceted capacity-development programme.

According to Vince Crisostomo from Coalition Of Asia Pacific Regional Networks on HIV/AIDS (Seven Sisters), Thailand, "there is a lack of focus on building the capacity of young key affected populations in the Asia Pacific region, where the trend of the disease is becoming younger. In 2009, an estimated 41% of the new infections were among the young. Can we stop this from increasing? It is becoming very important to train the next generation of young leaders."

Gerard Ompad, youth leader from Philippines, lamented, "It is unfortunate that 90% of the resources are allocated for young people who are at low risk or no risk of HIV, leaving the young affected population with a meagre 10%. The result is that only one out of 20 young MSMs living with HIV in this region have access to HIV related care. 68% to 74% of sex workers in some Asian countries are below 25 years of age, and so are 25% of the injecting drug users. But where are the clean needles and syringes for them? Where is the oral opioid therapy and Hepatitis C treatment for them?"

See the original news story on citizen-news.org.