0 commentsYouth finally freed: HIV travel ban lifted in the USA!
I was reading through the posts on Global Forum 40′s website (my CAP, as I’m sure you all know), which to be fair I haven’t done so in a fair while, now that the site is being run by our communications team at GF40.
I stumbled across one post I would like to share with you, as I feel it’s an important issue to discuss, but also marks a new day in a new future.
Written by one of GF40′s participants Michel Gelly from France.
Travel broadens the mind, and for the first time since the USA’s 22-year ban against foreigners infected with HIV began, every mind will now be able to be broadened as the travel ban is lifted. While a few countries still use HIV status as a condition of who crosses their borders, this is good news for young HIV positive people across the globe that can now freely travel almost everywhere.
Few people choose to get infected by HIV, to see one’s rights infringed for something that was not their fault, maybe the core definition of unfair
discrimination. America’s policy, implemented at a time when little was known about the transmission of the virus, was once one of the most infamous human rights violation, related to HIV/AIDS. Although the actual impact of the travel and immigration ban proved to be low, on actually slowing the progression of the epidemic. It has now been almost a quarter of a century of the US Congress obstructing, what I consider to be a right all young people should have.
Finally the time has come, that young people around the world with HIV, will be able to enjoy what everyone else has done so for the last twenty years or more. As we know, youth is seen as the most convenient time to travel, what with gap years, scholarships, student exchanges taken place. Which has limited those with HIV as to where they go in the world, making travelling that little less enjoyable, plus not being able to join friends in countries that previously held these blockades.
But now every young person, will be fully able to enjoy an opportunity, which was and has been formerly reserved only for those with a specific health status. I was able to study for a semester in America, it was an extraordinary opportunity to experience the renowned American academic system, plus above all, to be able to discover a new culture. Just thinking that I could have been prohibited from this opportunity because of my health status – screams injustice. The ban was an unfair obstacle for deserving HIV positive non-American students. From now on, I am glad America’s outstanding academic system and work market is available for everyone a real plus for youth, especially at the pivotal time of re-designing educational and career plans.
The Obama administration’s measure, symbolises the end of one of the most unfair and discriminative measures in the world, yet the fight is not over. Several countries, most notably Russia, still have such laws. But we together as today’s youth can only hope that someday, the world will finally give equal and fair right of law to people living with HIV, it’s only just a little step away.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts and views on the travel ban and this post! 
