The Sexual Rights Campaign, launched in the year 2000 and spearheaded by the Women'€™s Health Project in Johannesburg, is now in the final stages of being finalised into a complete Sexual Rights Charter. The run-up to the authorisation of the Charter took the form of workshops and stake-holder forums across the country, the last of which was held in Cape Town in November last year, to educate men, women and the youth about sexual rights, how to ensure and attain them.

The Medicines Control Council has given Boehringer-Ingelheim, manufacturers of Nevirapine, a further six months to submit data to avoid the de-registration of the drug as a single prevention in the transmission of HIV from mother to child.

In last week's "Living with AIDS", Bongiwe spoke about her struggle to disclose her HIV status to her parents. A fear of rejection keeps her silent. This week we explore how parents'€™ attitudes affect their children.

Bonga is a 27 year-old young woman from Motherwell, Port Elizabeth. She has been living with HIV for the last four years after being gang-raped by four men in Johannesburg where she came looking for a job. Since then, Bonga has wanted to tell her parents about her infection, but her fear of rejection has stopped her.

The responsibility to implement life skills classes falls on teachers, even if they don'€™t have capacity do so. Although teachers agree that there'€™s a need for this education, those who are not specialised guidance teachers often feel ill-equipped to implement it. This is where community support groups have a role to play. In this audio report, teachers and youth clinic counsellors talk about the challenges they face.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, teenage girls are five times more likely to be infected by HIV/AIDS than boys, according to UNAIDS figures. In South Africa, one third of all babies are born to mothers under 19 years of age.
The South African Schools Act guarantees the right to education for all children up to the age of seven to eighteen. This includes girls who become pregnant whilst still at school.

In South Africa, research shows that the brunt of the AIDS epidemic is falling on young people under the age of 35.

The Cabinet statement announcing the go-ahead for an antiretroviral roll-out plan on Friday August 8th came during a fortnight which saw health workers, researchers and activists despair and then rejoice as debate around treatment for HIV/AIDS once again grabbed media headlines.

The Medicines Control Council (MCC) is threatening to de-register Nevirapine unless further studies and appropriate documentation can show its efficacy in the prevention of mother to child transmisssion of HIV. Glenda Grey of the Peri-natal HIV Research Unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital argues that enough evidence has already been presented.

Days before South Africa signed its outstanding agreement with the Global Fund to release money to projects in KwaZulu-Natal, a senior advisor in the Fund, Vinand Nantulya, explained that further delays would jeopardise the funds.