Travels with Juliet

By Amy Coen

Last month, I had the honor of traveling to London with one of the strongest young women I've ever met. Her name is Juliet Awuor, a Kenyan woman who contracted HIV and became pregnant after having sex for the first time. Neither she nor her boyfriend knew how to use a condom, so he took it off and fate ran its course.

Juliet is featured in PAI's new documentary, Abstaining from Reality: U.S. Restrictions on HIV Prevention. We can be proud that the U.S. is a global leader in funding HIV/AIDS treatment, but it is failing to appropriately fund effective prevention strategies for this pandemic. This documentary demonstrates that U.S. funded abstinence-only prevention programs are putting people the world over—especially young women—at greater risk of contracting HIV. If Juliet and her boyfriend had known how to use a condom, she—and many other young women—might have been able to prevent infection.

As Wendy Turnbull, PAI's Senior Policy Research Analyst and lead researcher of Abstaining from Reality, told me during the trip, "The U.S. approach to abstinence-only fails to recognize the reality of girls' and women's lives. The policy offers them little in the way of real-world tools and information they can use to protect themselves." Behind the staggering statistics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are scores of stories like Juliet's. We urge the government to replace abstinence-only programs with responsible, comprehensive programs that provide people with the education and supplies they need to protect themselves. PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) is at its best when it funds country-driven programs that truly prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, and at its worst when it attempts to export our nation's culture wars.

Juliet's story is tragic, but it is her disarming laugh and upbeat spirit that stay with me after our time together. At the age of 24, she's had to deal with the death of her child, a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and the stigma of being HIV positive. So many people in her situation would give up and, at first, Juliet nearly did. After years of hiding out and pretending that she wasn't infected, she decided to go public with her HIV status. She decided to save her life—to live her life to the fullest, despite all she has been through.

The hundreds of people who saw the documentary in Europe last month were shocked into silence by Juliet's story. And they were brought to tears by her optimism and hope. She is one of many strong, amazing women living with HIV without letting it hold her back from realizing her dreams.

"I just had the best week of my life. After London, I now believe in possibilities."
-- Juliet Awuor, featured in PAI's documentary, Abstaining from Reality