Topic: HIV/AIDS
Country: Israel
Delegate Name: Molly Bowling
School: Williamston High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Israel position papers GLIMUN 2018 committees
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. HIV eventually leads to AIDS and there are currently 37 million people struggling through their daily lives with this disease. This number can only increase due to the fact that there is no cure for this disease. People living with HIV/AIDS are faced with daily conflicts such as discrimination from peers, fears of getting tested and finding proper treatment. Social issues increase the risk of HIV infection making it difficult to tackle the global HIV epidemic. Some groups of individuals are presented with stigma and discrimination which prevents them from seeking help from HIV services. The stigma prevents proper and safe treatment from reaching those who need it the most. Homosexuality is illegal in 73 countries so many men that are homosexual are faced with high levels of homophobia and can not access HIV services. Israel has great interest in resolving this issue because the HIV rate in Israel has increased moderately during the last 30 years and in 2010 reported 5.6 cases/100,000 population. The health ministry said that since 1981, when AIDS first appeared, there has been 9,190 new cases in the country thus far. The Israeli rate is lower than most Western European and North American countries. However, there are large gaps between different sub-populations in Israel. Young people under the age of 18 years might face barriers in HIV testing. Privacy issues is also an issue for ultra-Orthodox, Palestinians, transgender people, drug users and sex workers as it is noted by the respondent that these groups feel unsafe in testing centers.This year the ministry campaign focused on the social networking world and its impact on decisions about safe sex. Israel believes that implementing this on a global scale will be very useful and will help spread awareness for nations worldwide. Furthermore, Israel would like to create a proper resolution that makes healthcare and treatment more affordable and easier to obtain, make people more aware of causes and prevention of HIV/AIDS to prevent the number of cases from increasing. And also make the daily lives for individuals that are dealing with this horrible and life altering disease easier and more comfortable. One solution that Israel would like to propose is adding to the advertisement and making people more of the preventative measures they can take to help protect themselves and others. This would help make more people understand the disease better and to keep less people from contracting the disease when they could have prevented it in the first place. Another solution we would like to add to a resolution is making prostitution illegal. Many prostitutes do not take preventative measures and do not take sanitary measures. By making it illegal it would hopefully cut down on the number of prostitutes and therefore the cut down on the spread of disease. Another solution that we feel would help take preventative measures against this disease is making HIV testing free and more private for all ages. This would encourage more people to get tested if they knew that there information was not going to be shared and they did not have to worry about finding a way to pay. Hopefully we can find a way to implement all of these possible solutions to a resolution and get one step closer to eradicating this horrible epidemic.
