In Honor of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day: Young Black Women Need HIV Prevention
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For the first time in more than a decade, the nation’s teen pregnancy rate rose by 3%. This means that an astonishing 7% of teen girls became pregnant in 2006. Congress and the President have taken an important step toward addressing this issue by investing $100 million for fiscal year 2010 toward teen pregnancy programming, and the president has just proposed increasing this amount by 19 million dollars for the next fiscal year. But Congress should broaden the scope of this funding to address the twin epidemics of sexually transmitted infections and HIV as well. Young African-American women and girls especially need comprehensive sexuality education that includes HIV and STI prevention.
“If teenage girls are getting pregnant, they are vulnerable to HIV and STIs,” said HIV Law Project’s Executive Director, Tracy Welsh; “It is myopic and irresponsible to educate around pregnancy prevention without also talking about the very real threats of HIV and STIs which are wreaking havoc among young Black women.” In fact, 88% of the females aged 13-19, diagnosed with HIV/AIDS from 2004 to 2007, were infected through heterosexual sexual contact.1
“This national blind spot is hurting our young people, and it is disproportionately harming African-American young women,” said Alison Yager, Project Manager at the HIV Law Project’s Center for Women & HIV Advocacy. In 2006, the incidence rate of new HIV infections among African-American women was 14.7 times that of white women.2 Similarly, while 20% of white teen-aged girls have a sexually transmitted infection, nearly 50% of African-American teen-aged girls have an STI.3
Congress and the Obama Administration have wisely abandoned failed abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Now, in honor of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day we must take this opportunity to fund comprehensive, evidence-based sexuality education. Doing any less is a threat to the health of our young people, and most especially African-American young women and girls.
HIV Law Project believes that all people deserve the same rights, including the right to live with dignity and respect, the right to be treated as equal members of society, and the right to have their basic human needs fulfilled. These fundamental rights are elusive for many people living with HIV/AIDS. Through innovative legal services and advocacy programs, HIV Law Project fights for the rights of the most underserved people living with HIV/AIDS. HIV Law Project’s Center for Women & HIV Advocacy is fighting for comprehensive sexuality education for students in New York and throughout the country.
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “HIV/AIDS Surveillance in Adolescents and Young Adults (through 2007)”
2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Health Disparities in HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and TB”
3. Kaiser Family Foundation, “Sexual Health of Adolescents and Young Adults in the United States”, September 2008.
