Africa’s first conference on sexual health and rights ended on Saturday with delegates emphasising that sexual rights should extend to all people living on the continent, including gay communities and adolescents.
”When we talk sexual rights we have to include all rights — this includes the rights of people who don’t have the same lifestyle as the mainstream, as well as those of adolescents who have the right to know about sex,” said conference president Ezio Baraldi.
”We need to implement the decisions that we had made here to give people the tools they need specifically when it relates to the bedroom,” Baraldi told delegates at the conference’s closing session.
He later said: ”Children are very vulnerable and we are not doing a good job. They have a right to be informed about sex. It’s a crime not to do so and parents who don’t equip their children should be charged.”
Some 300 delegates from countries as far afield as Nigeria made various recommendations including the call on governments to recognise sexual health and rights and to formally adopt the United Nations World Health Organisation’s declaration on the issue.
The conference opened on Thursday with a massive call ”to break the silence” on a slew of problems on the continent including the alarming HIV/Aids rate, sexual abuse, gender inequality and gay rights.
South of the Sahara, around 26,6-million people were infected with HIV at the end of last year, out of an estimated global tally of 40-million, according to the latest UN estimates. Around 2,3- million Africans died from Aids during 2003, and at least three million more Africans became infected. According to the WHO, more than 100-million women in Africa are victims of female genital mutilation.
Baraldi said many African countries still did not recognise gay rights at all and even in a country like South Africa, which has the issue entrenched in its constitution, discrimination still existed.
He said the conference also gave delegates the opportunity to establish networks between non-governmental organisations, the medical profession and health care professionals, who will meet again in two years’ time to review the challenges. – Sapa-AFP