About the "Now More Than Ever" campaign

The Human Rights and HIV/AIDS: Now More Than Ever joint statement was originally drafted for the XVI International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2006) by 25 leading HIV/AIDS and human rights organizations, under the leadership of the Law and Health Initiative of the Open Society Institute’s Public Health Program.  It has since been endorsed by over 650 HIV/AIDS organizations worldwide, as well as by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

Now More Than Ever represents the hope of AIDS activists everywhere to place human rights at the center of the global AIDS response.  It presents ten simple reasons why protecting human rights is essential to public health, particularly for a disease such as HIV that affects the most marginalized in society: women and girls, children, people who use drugs, sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender persons, prisoners, people needing palliative care, and others whose voices are rarely heard in the debate over how to allocate resources for health.

The Now More Than Ever campaign has grown through three successive International AIDS Conferences: from Toronto (AIDS 2006), where the joint statement was first published; to Mexico City (AIDS 2008), where activists organized the first-ever Human Rights Networking Zone and march and rally for human rights at an International AIDS Conference; to Vienna (AIDS 2010), where thousands will gather on July 20, 2010 for a historic march and rally for human rights.

Now More Than Ever has been translated into nearly a dozen languages.  In 2008, it received a gold award in the Council on Foundations’ Wilmer Shields Rich Awards for Excellence in Communications.