Bangkok, Thailand, 5th of March, 2021 – To mark Zero Discrimination Day, UNAIDS AP launched a regional social media campaign that showcases the voices of people, communities and networks around the impact of inequalities and stigma and discrimination in Asia and the Pacific.

On Zero Discrimination Day this year, UNAIDS highlighted the urgent need to take action to end the inequalities surrounding income, sex, age, health status, occupation, disability, sexual orientation, drug use, gender identity, race, class, ethnicity and religion that continue to persist around the world. Inequality is growing for more than 70% of the global population, exacerbating the risk of division and hampering economic and social development. And COVID-19 is hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest—even as new vaccines against COVID-19 are becoming available, there is great inequality in accessing them.

In Asia and the Pacific, stigma and discrimination is found in every area of social life, from inside families and communities to educational, health-care and workplace settings and within the justice system. HIV-related stigma and discrimination are persistent barriers to addressing the HIV epidemic, restricting access to prevention, testing and treatment services for those most at risk.

As part of the social media campaign, ahead of Zero Discrimination Day, UNAIDS AP disseminated a Call to Action  inviting CSOs and other partners to send us a quote reflecting on the theme #EndInequalities and a photo of their organisation or selfie. With this material, a set of postcards has been created and disseminated in a series of batches across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The public was also encouraged to share their thoughts on ending inequalities and stigma and discrimination.

Through the support from regional networks including the Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN), Youth LEAD, Y-PEER APC and Youth Voices Count, and UNAIDS colleagues from the field that reached out to their constituencies and partners at the country level, UNAIDS AP received more than 40 submissions from people and organizations across the region. We thank all the partners who joined the call and united their voices to raise awareness about inequalities.

On Zero Discrimination Day, UNAIDS AP social media platforms experienced a surge in impressions and engagement. For example, only on Twitter, posts related to the campaign reached almost 45,000 impressions in three days.

Confronting inequalities and ending stigma and discrimination is critical to ending AIDS. The world is off-track from delivering on the shared commitment to end AIDS by 2030 not because of a lack of knowledge, capability or means to beat AIDS, but because of structural inequalities that obstruct proven solutions in HIV prevention and treatment. Ending inequality requires transformative change. This is why in Asia and the Pacific, we aim at creating a regional movement that focuses on unity and our shared goal of ending inequalities, the things that connect us, not divide us.

The campaign will continue over the year with new activations around International Women’s Day, IDAHOT and International Youth Day. We would like to encourage our partners and followers to continue to submit their thoughts and opinions around the impact of inequalities and how to tackle them using the hashtag #EndInequalitiesAP and tagging @UNAIDS_AP.

Social media postcards