Petition calls for Michael Gove to add HIV to compulsory sex education topics
A petition has been started calling on the Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove to ensure that young people are educated on HIV.
The petition, started by a BeyondPositive columnist PositiveLuke, calls on Michael Gove to ensure that HIV and AIDS are included as topics for sex education classes in high schools in the UK.
He says he believes infection rates in under 25s would fall, and stigma would decline, if
The letter included with the Change.org petition to Michael Gove is included below.
To:
Michael Gove MP, Conservative Party
Add the Topic of HIV/AIDS to Sex Education Classes in the UK.The vast majority of young people today have little or no common knowledge about one of the biggest killers the human race has endured: HIV. The virus is now a completely treatable and well-managed chronic illness with life-expentacy near that of the general population, However; with the concerning increasing infection rates among young people in the UK, it is now an unfortunate fact that the under 25’s have very little, or no knowledge on how the disease is transmitted, treated and coped with. Something needs to change about this outdated stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS. [I myself strongly believe that if I (Nineteen years of age) had learnt about HIV during my secondary education, I might have avoided being infected with HIV myself at just eighteen years old.]
If this vital knowledge were to be given to secondary school students about HIV and AIDS, I am certain that infection rates would fall within this demographic and the outdated stigma surrounding the condition would decline; as a result, we, as both a society and a human race, would be just that more closer to winning the long fight against one of the most infamous causes of death and social seclusion ever witnessed by mankind.
Education can beat HIV. We want change.
