Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer Buenos Aires, Argentina*

Background

Founded in 1987, Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer (FEIM) is a foundation for the study of and research on women. It focuses on reproductive health and sexual health rights for women and youth. In started its work on HIV/AIDS in 1990. Given that most people at the time thought that HIV/AIDS was a disease affecting only gay men and males who have sex with males (MSM), the foundation nonetheless set forth a goal of reaching out to and educating women and young people.

Advocacy Environment

Argentina is a Catholic and socially conservative country-two facts that leave made it difficult to address issues of sexuality. In 1982, the first cases of HIV in Argentina appeared among MSM; in 1987, the first cases of HIV in women were reported. Women recognized that the convergence of Catholicism, conservatism, and an adverse impact on women and HIV prevention. More specifically, women realized that, under these circumstances, an HIV-positive woman would immediately be branded a sex worker, thereby stigmatizing all women and inhibiting awareness-raising and prevention efforts. Women came together to address these issues.

At the same time, women in Argentina had been involved in initiating a feminist movement. The movement had succeeded in placing on the social agenda issues relating to (1) sexual and reproductive health and rights and (2) women and development, although the issues failed to capture sufficient public attention. Over the years, women in the medical field and the judiciary had been advocating to bring about changes in the laws and practices that were harmful or unfair to women. Two of issues of particular interest were divorce and reproductive health and rights, which, in view of the influence of the Catholic Church, were major issues for women.

In 1987, Dr. Mabel Bianco, the founder of FEIM, was working in government and took advantage of her position to organize a national meeting of women; the agenda included a slot for HIV/AIDS. Meeting participants recognized and agreed that it was time to create a nongovernmental organization to address the issues of reproductive health and sexual rights. Thus, out of years of work on the women’s movement and with many longstanding relationships in health and the judiciary, the founders of FEIM were able to form an organization dedicated to women’s reproductive and sexual rights.

Despite its conservative history, Argentina has developed health and human rights systems that permit the nation to address and advocate for social issues. Argentina’s acknowledgment of health and human rights provided a basis for addressing HIV/AIDS from a human rights perspective. Given that the nation's citizenry was well informed regarding human rights, the founders of FEIM recognized that if they were to address issues of reproductive health and sexual rights, they would need to bring together more people than just medical doctors and women; they would need to mobilize all of Argentinean society. To do so, they had to find a common denominator that would bring together all sectors of society; that common denominator was HIV/AIDS, as it touched upon so many rights. With HIV/AIDS as the lead issue, FEIM's founders would be able to mobilize a cross-section of society and move beyond the limitations of their previous advocacy efforts.

Advocacy Focus and Strategy

The church and a conservative society have presented enormous challenges for women advocates. FEIM's strategies have worked to address these challenges.

Using the Media to Build Support

FEIM developed a relationship with the media to mobilize support for its advocacy issues. First, it educated the media on major issues and then used the power of the media as an educator. One of FEIM's earliest advocacy efforts was a day of radio programming in Patagonia, an area of Argentina with five rimes as many men as women owing to a significant military presence and the dominance of oil production. Not surprisingly, large numbers of sex workers also reside in Patagonia.

Because FEIM had been working with journalists for a number of years, it had already developed good relationships with the radio station, making possible the day of fully sponsored HIV programming. The programming plan called for HIV/AIDS education during the day via interviews with teachers and doctors and then interviews with sex workers during the evening in order to teach women about HIV prevention.

The sex workers informed female listeners that the latter were at higher risk for HIV than the sex workers. Unlike sex workers, they were not in a position to negotiate for safer sex. An unlikely alliance evolved as many women called the radio station to talk with the sex workers, thanking them for their safe sex messages. FEIM realized that the women whose profession put them most at risk could be the best resource for educating women who thought that marriage safeguarded them from HIV transmission. Since then, radio programs have focused on stories of HIV-positive women. As a result, regular media reporting on how HIV/AIDS affects women has contributed to a more informed constituency and supportive policy environment.

Creating a Body of Youth Advocates and Developing a Network

In 1993, FEIM initiated its advocacy work for youth issues. As it started its outreach, an immediate challenge was identifying a group of youth advocates who fully understood issues related to their health and sexuality. The lack of understanding of these issues became clear at one of FEIM's national health days in 1994. During the event, FEIM hosted a creative arts competition for young people to express what they wanted to know about adolescent pregnancy. It became clear that young people had romantic and conservative views on teen pregnancy. It also became clear that young people needed to learn about their health in the context of sexual roles and inequalities. Therefore, FEIM decided to train peer educators in order to reach out to young people who could become advocates. One of the tasks of the peer educator effort was to expand the peer education curriculum to include discussions of reproductive and sexual health and rights, thereby laying a foundation for advocacy efforts. FEIM continued to build the capacity of youth through its peer educator program over the next five years.

In 1999, based on the network of informed youth established through its peer education program, FEIM was able to establish a network of adolescents specifically dedicated to advocating for sexual and reproductive rights. The adolescent network has since grown to include 16 groups nationwide; it relies on material developed by and for youth on reproductive and sexual health issues.

Carefully Framing Messages Contributes to Policy Success

As they engaged in advocacy, the youth network faced the challenge of gaining support for issues of sexual and reproductive rights—issues that could quickly raise moral concern and controversy in Argentina's conservative policy environment. To advocate for its issues, the youth network thus learned how to choose and frame advocacy issues in ways that could win policymaker support. The youth advocates decided to focus their advocacy efforts on contraception and condom use rather than abortion. In addition, the network turned to public health statistics on teen pregnancy, teen maternal mortality, and rape to educate policymakers and the church about the realities of young people. Reliance on government statistics as an educational tool provided a neutral platform for discussing issues related to youth health and sexuality and thus permitted the policy dialogue to move beyond conservative moral concerns.

Over the past few years, the youth network has lobbied Parliament for a law that would mandate sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents. As one of the health services now provided in about half of Argentina's states per current law, HIV testing is available to young people without parental consent—and in the face of fierce opposition from the Catholic Church and conservatives.

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1. How did FEIM reshape the policy dialogue to focus people's attention on its issue rather than on another issue? How might you apply this to your own advocacy work 

2. What different communication approaches did PEIM use to build support among the different groups it reached—women, youth, policymakers? What are some creative approaches that might be best suited to your various audiences?

3. FEIM found that HIV/AIDS helped to unify different groups in efforts to promote women's rights. In your context, do you think that HIV/AIDS can bring together different groups to promote women's rights? Which groups? What opportunities and what challenges would you anticipate?

4. What has been the role of the media in the context of your advocacy work? What aspects of FEIM's work with the media could relate to your advocacy work?

     * Published in "moments in Time HIV/AIDS Advocay Stories", July 2003, Policy, Washington, DC.