At a recent global meet, a session cut through
the usual conference optimism with a stark warning:
the global AIDS response is being hit by a coordinated
anti-rights and anti-gender backlash at the precise moment
when funding is collapsing.
Gender justice,
bodily autonomy and the leadership of key populations are
not optional add-ons. They are the
foundation on which any credible path to ending
AIDS rests. With only 54 months left to the 2030 targets,
that foundation is cracking.
Fragile progress meets
organised resistance
The numbers do look impressive
on paper. Since 2010 the world has cut new HIV infections by
more than 40% and AIDS-related deaths by 57%. Last year 32
million people were on treatment – a scale once
unimaginable. Yet in 2025 alone 1.2 million people were
diagnosed with HIV and someone still dies of an HIV-related
cause every minute. The hardest remaining work depends
entirely on reaching those most at risk. None of
those who got diagnosed with HIV should have got infected in
the first place given the science, evidence and combination
prevention tools we have. Likewise, no one should have died
of AIDS.
But we cannot end AIDS
unless we recognise the simultaneous assault. Deep
cuts in HIV programmes’ financing worldwide coincide with an
organised, well-funded political campaign that seeks to
rollback the very rights that make an effective response
possible. These are not separate crises. They compound each
other. Money is being withdrawn just as political attacks
make community-led services harder to deliver and people
harder to reach.
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Numan Afifi of the APCOM Foundation
in Thailand put it plainly: “This is not an abstract mood.
It is a strategy.” The tactics are concrete. First come
‘family values’ bills (like the draft charter on family,
sovereignty and values) and anti-propaganda laws that
re-criminalise same-sex relations, sex work and gender
expression. Protections that were advancing are being pushed
back, said Afifi, who was among the speakers of SHE &
Rights session at the 26th International AIDS Conference
(AIDS 2026) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, organised by Global
Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI), CNS and
partners.
Numan Afifi added that the regressive Geneva
Consensus Declaration and the proposed draft African Charter
on Family, Sovereignty and Values are being used to water
down global health and human rights norms, redefining
‘family’ and ‘gender’ in ways that erase the people the HIV
response must serve.
Defunding and disinformation
starve community organisations while framing LGBTQ+ people
and the idea of gender itself as dangerous ‘foreign
ideology.’
The goal is consistent across regions: to
dismantle the rights environment that allows key populations
to access testing, treatment and prevention without
fear.
Why rights are non-negotiable for ending
AIDS
Criminalisation and stigma do not make key
populations disappear. They push them away from services.
Globally the risk of acquiring HIV is 80 times higher among
gay men and other men who have sex with men, 17 times higher
among transgender people, 34 times higher among people who
inject drugs, and 17 times higher among sex workers. UNAIDS
is clear: this risk is driven by marginalisation,
discrimination and criminalisation — not by identity, said
Numan Afifi.
He reflected that a young gay man who
fears arrest will not walk into a clinic. A transgender
woman turned away once may never return. Every law that
treats communities as criminal becomes a barrier to the
tests, medicines and prevention tools that end the epidemic.
When budgets are cut, they are cut first from the
community-led services that reach these groups, widening the
gap further. In the Asia-Pacific region, PrEP — one of the
most powerful prevention tools — still reaches only about
2.5 percent of people who need it, even as Fiji, the
Philippines and Papua New Guinea report sharp alarming
increases in HIV infections.
“When we defend
the rights of the most marginalised, we defend the health of
everyone,” Afifi said. “Rights are not a luxury
of the response. They are the foundation.” APCOM’s
demands are concrete: decriminalise same-sex relations, sex
work and drug use; protect the rights of transgender and
gender-diverse people; fund community-led organisations with
sustained, predictable financing that reaches grassroots
level; and reject instruments such as the regressive Geneva
Consensus Declaration and the regressive draft African
Charter.
Youth and communities forced to start from
scratch
The human cost is felt most sharply by the
next generation. Fairoze Diedricks of Y+ Global (Global
Network of Young People living with HIV) described the
emotional weight of watching hard-won gains unravel. “So
much of this anti-rights movement is undoing work that has
been done over so many generations… The young people that
I work with now have to kind of start almost from scratch
and to rebirth on things and progress that we thought we
have already made.”
Young people consistently say they
need spaces where they can be themselves. Those spaces are
shrinking. Respectful dialogue, support to challenge
misinformation, and the confidence to advocate in hostile
environments are all under pressure. Diedricks rejected the
caricature that ‘family values’ exclude queer people.
Lesbian mothers, she noted, are often among the most
protective, values-driven parents. Queer young people carry
faith, community and moral frameworks; they are not
“lesbian” or “gay” for a living. They simply need
the same access to healthcare, rights and
belonging.
Despite the pressure, young people continue
to organise, educate peers and support one another. The role
of allies, Diedricks stressed, is not to speak for them but
to ensure they have real space, resources and influence in
decision-making – not merely token
consultation.
Domestic pushbacks and the COVID
turning point
Sangeet Kayastha of YPEER Asia Pacific
Center, who has worked on HIV, gender rights and sexual and
reproductive health and rights since 2006, reminded the
session that the rollback did not begin with recent US
funding cuts. “When COVID happened, many countries found a
way how they can push back the rights they have already
given and they also cut the services that were already
available.”
Pre-COVID progress – decriminalisation of
same-sex relations in several countries, growing recognition
of same-sex marriage, expanding domestic funding – has
stalled or reversed. Domestic funding cuts for communities
have been severe. The impact reaches beyond formal
organisations to individuals, young people seeking
information, and advocacy efforts. Violence against LGBTQI
communities has spiked. One country’s regressive turn
influences others in the region.
In Bhutan, Dechen of
Disability 2030 noted hard-won gains: same-sex activity was
decriminalised in 2021, health centres across districts
began providing check-ups, self-testing kits and PrEP
(Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) for HIV prevention. Those
programmes are now at high risk as international funding
dries up. Continuity depends on whether the government
integrates them into national plans and allocates domestic
resources. Youth advocates continue working to keep
politicians informed and to dismantle remaining human rights
and gender barriers.
Gender equality remains the
strongest prevention strategy
As the host of SHE
& Rights, I would like to remind our readers that a 2026
study across 47 countries has found steep reductions in
community-led services – including 82 percent cuts to
services for sex workers and 72 percent to services for
survivors of gender-based violence. It is shameful that the
draft African Charter on family, sovereignty and values
urges governments to withdraw from progressive agreements
including the legally binding Maputo Protocol of 2003, which
has been central to advancing gender equality and
reproductive rights across Africa.
Gender
equality is one of the strongest HIV prevention
strategies. We cannot end AIDS without gender
equality, bodily autonomy and the leadership of women in all
their diversity.
Writing on the wall is
crystal clear: Progress against HIV has always
depended on rights. When those rights are attacked, the
epidemic gains ground. Defending community-led responses,
rejecting regressive international instruments and
delivering on rights-based international instruments,
restoring funding that reaches the people most affected, and
centring young people and key populations in decision-making
are not side issues. They are the only practical path left
to ending AIDS. Rights are not a distraction from the
response. They are the response.
Shobha Shukla –
CNS (Citizen News Service)
Shobha Shukla is a
feminist, health and development justice advocate, and an
award-winning founding Managing Editor and Executive
Director of CNS (Citizen News Service). She serves as
Chairperson of Global AMR Media Alliance (GAMA), Host and
Coordinator of SHE & Rights (Sexual Health with Equity
& Rights), President of Asia Pacific Media Alliance for
Health, Gender and Development Justice (APCAT Media), and
founder leader of DJOP (Development Justice for Older
Persons) initiative. She was also the Lead Discussant for
SDG-3 at United Nations inter-governmental High Level
Political Forum 2025. GAMA , led by her, received the AMR
One Health Emerging Leaders and Outstanding Talents Award at
UN High Level Ministerial Conference on AMR 2024. Follow her
on X @shobha1shukla or read her writings here www.bit.ly/ShobhaShukla
