Meet the goals set by UNAIDS to strengthen the response to HIV worldwide, which seek that 95% of people know their diagnosis, that 95% of people diagnosed receive antiretroviral treatment, and that 95% of those people receiving treatment achieve an undetectable viral load, are part of the AID FOR AIDS Colombia agenda focused on the crisis Venezuelan migrantpopulation in which the practice of survival sex.
“We are working with a population that, due to the urgency of their circumstances, is unaware of their rights, does not have support, and the aid that exists does not know how to find it,” says Jaime Valencia, director of AID FOR AIDS Colombia.
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“We want to empower these communities; educate them so that they themselves tell us what they want to do and what they want to change in favor of their rights” says Valencia.
This is how, in its commitment to empower communities at risk of HIV and the population in general, AFA Colombia has managed to get valuable allies from International cooperation What are they conscious of the importance of working with this population such as: IOM, USAID, Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States (CDC), PACT, GIZ (German Society for International Cooperation), UNHCR, ICAP and UNAIDS.
“The increase in establishments such as webcam venues that join places such as squares, parks, streets and thoroughfares, where survival sex is practiced without any access to preventive measures against HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. adds Valencia.
To respond to this problem, AID FOR AIDS Colombia has been implementing actions and programs that seek to make visible and defend the rights of Venezuelan women and LGBTIQ+ refugees and people from Venezuela who have had sex for survival in Colombia, as well as promote comprehensive prevention through access to treatment, advocacy, education and training to improve their quality of life and reduce stigma and discrimination
Since 2018, close to 3,000 Venezuelan migrants with HIV providing them with medical care specialized services, delivery of free treatment and performance of laboratory tests. It has also provided them with psychosocial services such as delivery of milk formulas to babies born to migrant mothers with HIV for one year, markets and economic contributions. In addition, AID FOR AIDS Colombia has been aware of the economic crisis that has caused many Colombians with HIV to stop paying their medical services for lack of work and has supplied them with their medicines.
Today, AFA has offices andn Bogotá, Medellín, Cúcuta, Maicao and Barranquilla, cities in which they work with a network of IPS through which they not only deliver retroviral drugs, but have also carried out close to 10,000 tests for HIV, Syphilis, and other STIs.
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Similarly, close to 120 Venezuelan women and LGBTIQ+ refugees and population from Venezuela who have had sex for survival have been trained in workshops on human rights and public advocacy, a program that aims to train leaders within the community of Venezuelan migrants who act as replicating and change agents by empowering themselves within the civic Space, executing actions in favor of the rights of their peers and involving them in them.
On the other hand, in cities like Bogotá and Soledad, fairs are held with more than 15 partner institutions offering health care services, HIV/Syphilis screening, orientation in access to the SS, access to justice and legal orientation, psychosocial attention, access to public and private employment exchanges, and validation of titles by the MEN.
