Latin American and Caribbean Youth Statement

LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN YOUTH STATEMENT

When I was nine years old, countries from around the world gathered in Cairo, to discuss population and development policies. At that time, we had to think about passing math class or finishing school.

While states recognized that young people had the right to sex education, we learnt (because that is what we were taught), that sex was a sin.

While the largest conference on population considered that youth participation was indispensable, in all processes that affect our lives, many of us had to decide between pants or a skirt.

While adults, men and women, decided that young people should have access to sexual and reproductive health services, many of us did not know that a condom could save our lives.

Today, youth from 26 countries from Latin America, the Caribbean and others, are gathered here to support the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, adopted in Cairo.

We demand that governments reaffirm their commitment to the Program of Action, which changed the world’s views on issues of population and development.

We are representatives of young people of the region, we are actively involved in organizations that promote and defend youth rights and diversity. We have come here to unite and say in a loud, clear, voice, that our needs and concerns must not only be heard, but also included.

Today there are more young people living and Latin America and the Caribbean than at any other moment in history. As youth, we face challenges for the preservation of our health and the full exercise of our sexual and reproductive rights. Most youth begin their sexual life without information, sexual education, and without access to sexual and reproductive health services.

Therefore, it is urgent that we take actions to lower the high rates of, teenage pregnancies, sexual violence, and unsafe abortion conditions. We must also work together to help fight the fact that youth are the segment of society in which the rate of infection of HIV is growing the quickest.

Our sexual and reproductive health and rights are inalienable. Nonetheless, as a priority issue, we urge you to fully implement the commitments made in the Cairo Platform of Action, related to the following themes:

-The right to sexual education and crucial information about our sexual and reproductive health and rights. Sexual education must include all the issues that youth have identified as priorities. Education and information must be secular, scientific, non-judgmental, youth friendly and sensitive to the diversity in our lives. It cannot be based solely on biological facts our driven by ideals, but must be founded in our realities.[1]

-Youth participation and diversity in all process that affect our lives. We must be included in the consultative phase of the development of policies and programs, and, above all, in the decision-making process, implementation and evaluation. We are capable, fully conscious of our physical, social and emotional needs. The decisions about our present and futures must be made with our full participation.[2]

-Finally, access to integral services that effectively address our sexual and reproductive health priorities. These services must guarantee our confidentiality, privacy and fully respect our autonomy in decision-making.

Let’s not let ten more years go by. The world proposed in Cairo can only be achieved if we guarantee our sexual and reproductive rights.

We are as important as the air we breathe and the water on which we survive! Without us, the world would die… In other words youth are a vital part of this society.

We demand that the governments present today do not make us wait ten more years, do not wait for us to be sitting in your seats to make the right decisions. Reaffirm and advance Cairo, today!