The National AIDS Council Secretariat have released five sets of posters and banners with safety messages for advocacy and awareness during the National General Elections 2022.
The IEC posters were produced in partnership with the PNG Electoral Commission, under the theme; ‘My Country, My Right to Vote for a Healthy Nation’. The key messages around five main areas were:
1. Voting freely and fairly for a health nation,
2. Protection against STI, HIV and COVID-19,
3. Standing up and Speaking out against Stigma and Discrimination,
4. Standing up against all forms of Violence and Abuse,
5. Respecting the rights of others and promoting equal participation.
Director of NACS, Tony Lupiwa said there is a global and country target to meet in terms of HIV, as a party to the global target that was made in New York that we end HIV by 2030.
“What we are doing today is part of it to prevent the transmission of HIV and STIs in PNG so we are able to meet the target by 2030. We also have our government’s 2050 vision and the goal of that vision is by 2050 every Papua New Guinean must be healthy, they must be well educated and they must be able to sustain themselves,” Mr Lupiwa said.
He said if we are not able to control HIV and STIs in this country, GBV and unwanted pregnancies then we are not able to meet that target which our late Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare’s government laid down in their vision.
“If you go back to the history of HIV prevention in this country, we should be having more than 10 percent prevalence in PNG by now. Because, we worked very hard to carry out critical awareness, spearheaded by the National AIDS Council and Department of Health, HIV prevalence did not go up and reach the 10 percent,” he added.
The result of critical awareness then was the drop of the prevalence rate from 2.5 percent in 2002 down to 0.65 percent in 2012-13.
However without that awareness after that, it started to rise again and is now up to 0.9 percent. Thus, these posters are very important.
Acting Director, Information Awareness, Alice Guguna, said that the posters were compiled by PNGEC and NACS together and they are also working together with Caritas PNG on similar messages and materials under the theme; ‘My Country, My Right to Vote for a Healthy Nation’.