There’s much work to be done if Trinidad and Tobago is to truly make advancements toward ending the HIV/AIDS Epidemic by 2030.
The message from Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, Gender and Child Affairs (GCA), Ayanna Webster-Roy, at a Sensitisation Session on Stigma and Discrimination Strategy on Monday.
Each year, on December 1st, the world commemorates World AIDS Day. People around the world unite to show support for people living with HIV and to remember those who have died from AIDS-related illnesses.
Minister Webster-Roy shared several testimonies of stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV/AIDS.
“Because of people’s attitude and mindsets, she had to leave her community, come into my community to see how I could advocate to get her into a school outside of where she living because everybody going to the schools and telling the teachers and them, ‘ah doh want she enroll she child here, because my child coming here, and if she child fall down and get a cut, my child sick.’ We have work to do Trinidad and Tobago. We have plenty work to do.”
The Minister is also concerned about changing sexual behaviours, particularly in young people in the 15 to 24 age group.
“When my daughters talk to me they say ‘Mummy, count yourself real lucky eh, because what the friends out there, it eh easy, they steamy.’ That’s what they tell me and they laugh. They say, ‘Mummy, young people outside steamy, you lucky.’ We have to start reaching our young people where they are.”
She’s calling for all hands on deck to spread the message to stop stigma and discrimination and move towards creating a culture of tolerance.
“We have to start interacting with everybody if we are to truly confront this issue and end AIDS by 2030. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not Government business. This is not civil society business. This is all ah we business, and I’m making a clarion call for each and everyone of us present here today to use our voices of influence for good.”
Minister Webster-Roy has given a target of January 2025 for the Launch of the National HIV and AIDS Policy of Trinidad and Tobago.
According to recent statistics, every 25 seconds, somebody, somewhere in the world is infected with HIV, while every minute somebody/somewhere in the world dies of an AIDS-related illness.