HIV/AIDS

Born and raised in Fort McMurray, Alberta in northwest Canada, the last thing Tinna Ezekiel ever wanted to do was to live in the same isolated city all her life. She tells me this while we sit at the Wood Buffalo HIV & AIDS Society booth in the global village. Wood Buffalo is the name of Fort Mac's health region and the name of the ASO. Their art-based booth is a place where anybody can come to paint on canvas to express how they feel about HIV/AIDS. It is an innovate example of how, in the conservative city of Ft. Mac, the Wood Buffalo agency has been able to get into the schools to talk about HIV/AIDS.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor early in the day as people start setting up their booths in the global village, Ezekiel tells me how, by the age of 8, she was already a ferocious reader. It was at this time that she came across an article about AIDS in Africa. The article, she recalls, was full of drama and no explanation. It left her feeling a sense of hopelessness and confusion. By the time the moment came in her Grade 10 social studies class when AIDS in Africa was being discussed, she had had enough of not knowing what was going on. She had an idea but needed to confirm it. In a verbal head to head with her teacher in front of the whole class she heard him say what she needed to hear from an adult; the AIDS pandemic in Africa was exasperated by racism.  read more »

When members of Brigada Callejera, a sex workers' and transgender rights organization in Mexico City, came to the first of the AIDS2008 activist meetings last Saturday morning, they explained the human rights issues that sex workers here face. Not only are sex workers forced to take STD and HIV tests - and carry a card saying they are HIV negative - a new policy requires them to pay for these tests themselves. This repression is in addition to the fact that sex work is still illegal here, and the police are more likely to arrest workers if they carry condoms.

The group, whose members include Elvira Madrid, Krisna, and Elma Delea, also held a lively protest for access to HIV meds in Mexico yesterday. I believe that Krisna said in the activist meeting on Saturday that antiretrovirals cost 7,500 pesos per month (about $750) here in Mexico, but I need to fact-check that. She did say that indigenous people have almost no access to prevention or treatment services.  read more »

Women of the world unite for their rights! The past few days have demonstrated the power and visibility of women at the International AIDS Conference, with hundreds of women and girls’ rights activists leading the charge by marching to the Zocalo (the historic city square) to the beat of “all rights for all women.” Women, men, transgender persons, sex workers, lesbians, adolescents, and gender equality advocates are demanding the fundamental human rights of women and young women: the right to live and make decisions without fear of violence, coercion, stigmatization or discrimination; the right to a free, healthy and safe sex life; the right to dignified work; the right to comprehensive information and services regarding prevention and sex education; the right to life-saving treatment… With women comprising 60% of adults living with HIV and AIDS in many regions of the world, women’s lives hang in balance in the absence of these rights.  read more »

In the Frontier Province of Pakistan there is a tradition of marriage between prepubescent boys and older men, says Shivananda Khan who works in the region as the Executive Director of the Naz Foundation International. According to him, a boy marriage is arranged between the two families and lasts only until the boy reaches puberty. After the marriage is over, it is then the older man's responsibility to find the younger man a wife.

In 2005, one such boy marriage was wrongly reported by western media outlets, including the BBC, as "Pakistan first Gay Marriage." Khan, also a steering committee member for the Global Forum on MSM and HIV, says the construct of boy marriage is very different than gay marriage, something that members of the western media would not understand without proper investigating. As a result of the media attention, both the boy and the families were victims of family and shamed in their region.

It is assumptions and confusion like what happened in Pakistan that makes MSM and LGBT rights work in the global south difficult."Language and incorrect terminology", says Khan "can wreak havoc in local communities. Certain words are like red flags to a bull for many local governments and leaders around the world." Terms like gay and LGBT are western centric says Khan and tend only to resonate with middle and upper middle class people in low and middle income countries.  read more »

 An alliance of housing activists took over the space just outside the media center Tuesday at 1pm with a model encampment to dramatize the international crisis of homelessness. Demanding that policymakers recognize that housing needs to be an integral part of any response to the AIDS pandemic, they chanted, "Housing is a human right!" and "Que Queremos? Vivienda Digna!" (What do we want? Housing with dignity!)  read more »

The following was originally posted on PHR's Blog AIDS. It's not over, about the Iranian HIV/AIDS Docs I posted about recently here.  

 

The most moving aspect of AIDS 2008 so far for me has been meeting so many of Kamiar and Arash Alaei’s friends and colleagues—all of whom have stories and kind words about the two physicians detained in Iran and are hoping to see the brothers again soon. Today, one of their colleagues, Dr. Adeeba Kamarulzaman, gave an important plenary speech about her work on harm reduction—and in front of thousands of conference participants, made an impassioned plea to the Iranian Government to free Arash and Kamiar. To sustained applause, we walked in front of the plenary carrying signs with photos of the brothers and the URL for the petition to the government of Iran, IranFreeTheDocs.org. We passed out thousands of buttons and stickers, which are now all over the conference.  read more »

My colleagues at PHR have been busy in the press room at the AIDS Conference this year.  On Monday, they released “The Right to Health and Health Workforce Planning: A Guide for Government Officials, NGOs, Health Workers and Development Partners.”   According to the press release, the guide already has its fans.

I  find this document impressive, accessible, and groundbreaking. When one reads the document one can’t but be amazed by the intense and intensive, broad and detailed consultations that have gone into this unique publication. It should be a pocket book to every health professional, a bible to every Minister of Health, a guiding star for every health and human rights expert and novice.

—Maxwell V. Madzikanga, Senior HIV/AIDS Researcher to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health  read more »

Today, I realized something. Well, maybe not realized something so much as had something reaffirmed. Bad guys are afraid of activists. We make them uncomfortable. We make them own up for failed policies. It’s no wonder that, over the past few days, many bad guys have refused to show up to sessions. They know we’re waiting to put them on the spot.

It started with Abbott. In 2004, activists targeted Abbott for high drug prices and a refusal to allow generic production of Kaletra. We targeted their booth, and by the time we were done, they knew how we felt about them. Then, in 2006, Abbott paid for space at the AIDS Conference, but never built a booth. This year, they didn’t even bother to rent space! Abbott, which makes the blockbuster AIDS drug Kaletra, isn’t in the Exhibition Hall pushing their fancy pens and free coffee on passersby this year. My guess – they’re afraid of the activists.  read more »

Kormix, a hip-hop group of youth from Cambodia, performed today at the opening ceremony of the Global Village. Their rhymes in English and Khmer talk about the rough conditions of street life, like drug use and the vulnerability to HIV. In a workshop before the event, Andrew Hunter of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers explained that the teens in Kormix are themselves affected by a UNAIDS policy that the network is protesting. The policy labels them as "street youth at risk for trafficking."

The Network has an excellent overview of how this policy hurts sex workers and youth. Also check out Darby Hickey's previous post about sex workers rights in Cambodia. She speaks also about the new Cambodian law that is hurting sex workers and HIV prevention.  read more »

Young people want female condoms.  They are seeking information and better access to them.  They are demanding the only effective and currently available method to prevent HIV that young women and women can initiate themselves.

This groundswell of interest in female condoms surfaced at the Mexico YouthForce Pre-Conference, particularly during a workshop I co-facilitated around expanding prevention options for women and girls.  To my elation, virtually all of the 40 workshop participants had heard of female condoms, and more than half had seen or touched one.  For female condom advocates, this is a rare and exciting encounter.

But the sobering refrain throughout the pre-conference was that while many youth are passionate about female-initiated prevention options, including the female condom—they remain largely inaccessible in a wide range of countries, even for young women and men who go out of their way to find them.

One young woman from Mexico visited ten stores in her local community before she was able to find one that sold female condoms.  Yet another Mexican woman passed me a hand-written note during my presentation, stating that her peer education organization is interested in obtaining female condoms but doesn’t know to whom or where to turn, or how to pay for them.  read more »