Join the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice and Human Rights Advocates Program at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University for, “Challenges to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) for Youth and Adolescents.” The discussion will take a look at challenges related to law and to the access for sexual and reproductive health services as well as the Age of Consent as a legal and policy barrier to Adolescent and Young people’s sexual and reproductive health rights.

Ekanaem Itoro Effong
Youth Leader,West & Central Africa
UNAIDS
Adovcacy Working Group Lead
The Pact

As a Programs Officer in Advocacy and Policy Influencing at Education as a Vaccine, Ekanem has
managed and implemented advocacy and high-impact and evidence-based programs around
sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV/AIDS preventions, and malaria and TB interventions.
He has influenced policies and laws that facilitate and sustain social change in the areas of health,
protection, and education geared towards achieving the SDGs. He developed a scorecard to
monitor the implementation of the SDGs across 11 states of Nigeria, which young people rely on as
evidence for their advocacy. Previously, he worked for the National Agency for the Control of AIDS
on the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in HIV patients in Nigeria. He was
involved in the collection of data on key selected parameters on HIV and TB from selected facilities
across the country; the findings showed huge disparities in access to prompt diagnosis of
treatment for HIV and TB. Currently, he is the UNAIDS Youth Leader for West and Central Africa
and the Global Advocacy working group assistant lead for The PACT, a coalition of youth-led and
youth serving organizations working within the sexual and reproductive health and HIV movement.
Ekanem holds a bachelor of science in biochemistry from the University of Calabar (Nigeria). He
earned certificates in Leadership and Management in Global Health and Project Management in
Global Health from the University of Washington. He attended a short course on Improving the
Health of Women, Children, and Adolescents: From Evidence to Action at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Ruben Avila Reyna
Mexico Country Coordinator
International Youth Alliance for Family Planning
MEXICO

Ruben is the Mexico Country Coordinator for the International Youth Alliance for Family Planning
(IYAFP), a global network of youth committed to family planning and sexual and reproductive health
and rights (SRHR). IYAFP was founded in 2013 at the International Conference on Family Planning in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Ruben works to open spaces for youth and adolescents in Mexico to discuss SRHR and to advocate for
changes to the laws and policies that affect their sexual and reproductive life, especially for young
women and LGBTQI youth. Ruben and his colleagues are aligning IYAFP-Mexico’s objectives to
international agendas like Agenda 2030, ICPD25 (International Conference on Population and
Development), and Beijing+25 (Beijing Platform for Action) to identify specific points and actions for the
Government of Mexico to take.
Ruben’s advocacy portfolio has also included the co-founding Universitarios por la Equidad y una
Sociedad Integra e Incluyente (UNESII), a student group working on prevention of discrimination and
bullying against LGBTIQ youth, and Sin Control Parental, a Spanish-language platform developing
educational digital content related to SRHR for youth and adolescents. He has advocate for SRHR for
young women and LGBTIQ youth as a speaker in local, regional, and international spaces; collaborated
as a regional focal point to WHO on adolescent SRHR in Latin America and the Caribbean; created and
led a program to train youth counsellors on SRHR in Mexico; and participated as young leader for the
SheDecides global movement.
Ruben earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo
León. With a scholarship from the Institut de Drets Humans de Catalunya and the Ayuntamiento de
Barcelona, Ruben participated in a short course entitled Human Rights in the Face of Extremism and
Discrimination in 2018.

Register:
https://fordham.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuduGpqDksGNO36AZK4h7QBq5zVlQOTLdq