Phase II

We’re now halfway through the conference. The NGO forum of youth delegates finally finished their negotiations over the recommendations to be presented to the Government forum at 11:30pm last night. Whilst it was touch and go for some of yesterday evening about how strong the recommendations were going to be, the negotiations were a success and the final recommendations do include language around safe abortion, LGBT rights, comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and the right to comprehensive health services for young people living with HIV.

This morning, the recommendations were presented to the Government Forum by 10 of the NGO delegates (one of which was our very own Katie Chau). The Forum is made up of the 100+ government delegations whose job it is to finalise the high-level World Youth Conference Declaration by Friday.

In the Global Interactive forum, the themes for today were Education, Sustainable Development and Culture. A UNESCO organised session on comprehensive sexuality education and we were concerned there would be a lot of disruption in the session. Whilst a lot of people turned up who were against teaching school children about sex, they listened respectfully to the presentations and there was a lively debate afterwards. Progress!!

The other key event for today was a march for youth rights. Many of the groups were arguing for sexual rights (like IPPF!), LGBT rights and the right to a safe abortion. The organisers were very worried about security during the march and had received guarantees from the police that we would be protected. This was the case and about 200 people marched through the streets of Leon. However – due to the sensitive nature of the topics we were shouting about in this conservative town – the march had not been widely promoted and therefore there was hardly anyone watching, apart from the local media (which included at least two Mexican TV crews and a number of newspaper reporters/photographers!).

Unfortunately, I cannot currently post any pictures from the march. Whilst I took loads, I used the IPPF-WHR camera which I gave back. I’ll try and post the photo’s tomorrow if I can download them...