NON-NEGOTIABLES TO ACHIEVING GENDER EQUITY & SRHR FOR ALL An intersectional panel discussion featuring self-identifying women leaders of networks of women living with HIV and key populations to discuss how to achieve gender equality in practice. The session will center on and build on ICW's non-negotiables list and create a platform for an important discussion of why mainstreaming gender equity and equality throughout the HIV response is essential to achieving the last mile. The panel speakers will bring to light the ways in which misogyny and sexism impact the HIV response and explore the intersectionality of multiple identities and the layered challenges of increased surveillance, vulnerability and risk for women in key populations and importantly the ways in which a focus on gender equality and equity can support more effective supports for all self- identifying women. Featuring: Olena Stryzhak, Positive Women Ukraine, ICW Global Chair Rita Wahab, MENA Rosa Regional Coordinator, Lebanon Morolake Odetoyinbo, Positive Action for Treatment Access/St. Lawrence University, Nigeria/US Sara Feegan, ICW Asia Pacific, Australia Mariana Iacono, ICW Argentina Coordinator Keren Dunaway, ICW Gender Equity Officer, Honduras Happy Assan, TAPUD, Tanzania

In preparation for May 28th , the International Day of Action for Women’s Health, ICW in partnership with Global Network of People living with HIV (GNP+) will have a virtual mini EMTCT training to launch their new EMTCT Validation Engagement Toolkit.

This is the final in a three part #GenderMatters series to introduce and demystify CEDAW for women and girls living with HIV. Video #3 features Olena Stryzak as well as a very helpful series recap, and is hosted by Sarah Thapa Magar and Saidy Brown.

This is the second in a three part #GenderMatters series to introduce and demystify CEDAW for women and girls living with HIV. Video #2 features Eugenia Lopez Uribe, and is hosted by Sarah Thapa Magar and Saidy Brown.

This is the first in a three part #GenderMatters series to introduce and demystify CEDAW for women and girls living with HIV. Video 1 features Ishita Dutta, and is hosted by Sarah Thapa Magar and Saidy Brown.

This video was originally created for ICW's AIDS 2020 booth to slow the power and diversity of our membership. Together we are ICW.

For World Mental Health Day the Beyond LIVING partnership, a global advocacy platform between GNP+, ICW, and Y+ Global, worked with our Life Force to highlight the impacts of mental health on people living with HIV around the world. Through this video we want to stress the importance of universal mental health access for all and its importance especially for our community.

"Through our campaign #GenderMatters we want to highlight how gender inequality and patriarchy underscores our health outcomes and intensifies the diverse issues women living with HIV experience in relation to our other intersecting identities." 

Supporting mental health and emotional well-being is one of the most overlooked aspects of treatment, care and support within the HIV response. HIV diagnosis can cause trauma, anxiety and depression, or exacerbate existing anxiety and mood swings and mental health disorders. Anxiety and self-stigma around job and housing security, self-esteem, status disclosure and building healthy romantic relationships, including fear and anxiety due to HIV criminalization, can affect the mental health, self-esteem and emotional well-being of people living with HIV. Even within HIV activism and the workplace, we replicate traumas and social inequalities perpetuating cycles of oppression, trauma and stress on those within our community. In this session, women living with HIV will share their lives work through research and advocacy in the realms of mental health and resilience in the context of gender -based violence, HIV criminalization, health care violations, sex worker, poverty and inter-movement aggression. Lillian Mworeko, Uganda, Mental Health and SRHR Olena Stryzhak, Ukraine, Gender Based Violence + HIV Sara Thara Maga, Nepal, Young Women and Mental Health Vanessa Johnson, USA, Macro and Micro Aggression and Movement Trauma - Lateral Violence Chair: Morolake Odetoyinbo, Nigeria/US