Closet Case: How Intolerance Fuels Africa’s AIDS Crisis
New research has challenged the long-standing belief that HIV and AIDS in Africa primarily affect heterosexuals. A study published on the website of the British medical journal Lancet found that men who have sex with other men are up to 10 times more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to be infected with the virus — which suggests that the fight against AIDS on the continent may be undermined by widespread homophobia.
Researchers from Oxford University, the Population Council of Ghana and the Kenya Medical Research Institute reviewed AIDS studies conducted over the past few years and concluded that male-male sex was a major blind spot in AIDS research and policy in Africa. Men having sex with other men is far more common in Africa than is socially acknowledged, owing to widespread hostility toward homosexuality, and the phenomenon there is underreported in research and largely ignored in public-health responses to the pandemic. The researchers compiled statistics from a small but growing number of studies conducted in various African countries in recent years that included estimates of HIV prevalence among men who have sex with other men. (See pictures from Africa’s AIDS crisis.)
See Closet Case: How Intolerance Fuels Africa’s AIDS Crisis
TIME
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/closet-case-h…
Aids: Role of Gay Men in Spreading Virus Is Ignored in Africa, Study Finds
The role of gay sex in the transmission of the virus that causes AIDS in Africa has been long ignored, say the authors of a new study in the medical journal Lancet.
While most transmission of the virus in Africa is heterosexual, 19 recent studies of African men who have sex with men show that they have “considerably higher” infection rates than other adult men in their respective countries, said the authors, who were from Oxford University and research institutions in Ghana and Kenya.
These men also have less access to prevention and care; most African countries have allocated no money to gay men, and homosexual sex is illegal in 31 African countries, in four of which men risk the death penalty.
See Aids: Role of Gay Men in Spreading Virus Is Ignored in Africa, Study Finds
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/07/aids-role-of-…
Alicia Keys asks `Idol’ fans to text for HIV
(Los Angeles) Alicia Keys wants $5 from every “American Idol” fan.
The Grammy-winning singer appeared on the hit Fox show Wednesday to urge viewers to support the Text ALIVE Challenge, which aims to bring medicine and medical care to children and families with HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.
Keys asked fans to …
Tags: aids, Aids Africa, Aids In Africa, Alicia Keys, American Idol, Fans, Fox, Grammy, hiv, Hiv Aids In Africa, India, Medical Care, MedicinePope: Condoms not the answer to fighting AIDS
Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday that the distribution of condoms is not the answer in the fight against AIDS in Africa.
Benedict has never before spoken explicitly on condom use although he has stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is in the forefront of the battle against AIDS. The Vatican encourages …
Tags: aids, Aids Africa, Aids In Africa, Benedict Xvi, Condom Use, Condoms, Forefront, Pope Benedict, Pope Benedict Xvi, Roman Catholic Church, VaticanSENEGAL: Jailing of gay activists sets back AIDS fight
The men, who were involved in providing HIV prevention, care and treatment services to Senegal’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, have been sentenced to eight years in prison.
Homosexuality is punishable by up to five years in prison, according to the Senegalese penal code. In this case, the judge added three years for criminal conspiracy.
In a statement released last week, the International AIDS Society, which promotes new HIV research and best practice and is the custodian of the International AIDS Conference, and the Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA), which works to slow the spread of HIV, said criminalising and discriminating against any group of individuals only served to fuel the HIV epidemic by denying services and relevant prevention messages.
“The arrest of these men, based purely on their sexual orientation represents a major setback for the Senegalese response to HIV, which is widely viewed as a model in Africa,” said Joanna Mangueira, President of the SAA.
Cheikh Niang, professor of anthropology at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, and author of studies on AIDS and sexuality in the country, agreed that jailing the activists was “counterproductive”.
“The severity of the sentence has created an atmosphere of panic amongst the associations that are working on HIV prevention and treatment with men who have sex with men (MSM),” he told IRIN/PlusNews.
Michel Bourelly of AIDES, an international organisation working with men who have sex with men in Senegal, said gay activists had gone into hiding or fled the country since the judgement. “Everything has stopped. The associations that provide HIV/AIDS services for homosexuals and MSM are too scared to work.”
Contradictions
According to Bourelly, the men were arrested while attending a meeting on HIV prevention. Brochures, condoms and model penises were confiscated as pornographic material.
“The condoms that were considered pornographic material during the trial were provided by the Senegalese government,” he pointed out.
A young gay member of an HIV/AIDS organisation serving MSM in Senegal, who did not want to be named, confirmed that intolerance of homosexuality had risen.
“Physical violence is more common now. Before we had groups which helped us – they gave us the courage to meet. We would do work on prevention, but now it’s too dangerous,” he said.
The jailed men were detained just two weeks after Senegal hosted the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), where speakers emphasised the importance of addressing the needs of sexual minorities in African AIDS programming. Over 50 gay activists attended.
In an interview with IRIN/PlusNews in November 2008, Souleymane Mboup, President of ICASA, said MSM were a reality in Africa that could not be ignored.
“This is a question that we cannot run away from if we want to advance [the fight against HIV],” he said. “Many countries, including Senegal, must open their eyes and learn. We must think about which strategies to adopt.”
In 2007 the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria granted Senegal US$32 million to strengthen its HIV/AIDS response. Part of the grant was earmarked for targeting “vulnerable groups”, including MSM, with prevention campaigns, condoms and MSM-friendly clinics over the next five years.
“Senegal has been given considerable sums of money to address the needs of MSM in its national AIDS programme,” said Bourelly. “But now they are jailing the people they are supposed to be targeting.”
No one from the National AIDS Committee, one of the two principal recipients of the Global Fund grant, was available for comment. Abdoulaye Wade, director of the AIDS division at the Ministry of Health, told IRIN/PlusNews that the government continued to provide HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services for MSM, but did not elaborate on what those services were.
Regressive
Joel Nana, advocacy director at the South African office of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), said Senegal had been praised for its progressive and inclusive HIV/AIDS programmes in the past.
“Senegal was the first country in Africa to address MSM in HIV programming, so this [judgment] is really a step backwards,” he told IRIN/PlusNews.
While Senegal has maintained a low HIV prevalence of about one percent in the general population, official data and studies conducted at Cheikh Anta Diop University suggest that about 21.5 percent of MSM were HIV positive in 2005. The studies also found that over 80 percent of MSM had female as well as male partners.
“It is a considerable error to think that this is just a homosexual problem,” said Bourelly. “Most MSM have had, or continue to have, sex with women, so the impact of effectively shutting down MSM programmes will be considerable on the general population.”
Human rights groups and AIDS organisations are calling for the immediate release of the nine imprisoned men, and for a change in Senegal’s penal code. Niang agreed that it was time to debate the merits of the law.
“There is no point in saying that men who have sex with men do not exist in our societies,” he said. “It exists and it is an ancient phenomenon. By ignoring its existence we will not respond appropriately [to the HIV epidemic].”
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/senegal-jaili…
Fighting AIDS in Africa may be Bush’s legacy
(Cape Town, South Africa) In her AIDS-scarred South African township, Sweetness Mzolisa leads a chorus of praise for George W. Bush that echoes to the deserts of Namibia, the hills of Rwanda and the villages of Ethiopia.
Like countless Africans, Mzolisa looks forward to Barack Obama becoming America’s first black president …
Tags: Africa Aids, Africa South, Africans, aids, Aids Africa, Aids In Africa, barack obama, Cape Town South Africa, Deserts, Echoes, First Black President, George Bush, George W Bush, Legacy, Namibia, Rwanda, South African Township, SweetnessAfrican taboos surrounding gays hamper access to HIV/AIDS programs AFP
n a continent where 38 out of 53 countries have criminalised consensual gay sex, African gays and lesbians have trouble getting access to HIV/AIDS programs, activists warned.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender activists took centre stage Thursday at the 15th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA), the first ICASA to give such attention to the specific problems of sexual minorities.
“Homophobia fuels the spread of AIDS. In Africa main stream HIV/AIDS and human rights organisations do not want to address the issue mainly because homosexuality is still illegal in most countries,” Joel Nana, program associate Southern and West Africa for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), said.
In fact just identifying people as gay or lesbian is very sensitive in Africa and NGO’s at ICASA prefer to speak of men who have sex with men (MSM) or women who have sex with women (WSW) to avoid stigmatisation.
“In Africa there are many men here who have sex with men but are married and do not identify as gay,” Boris Dittrich, the Human Rights Watch advocacy director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender program told AFP.
“There is research that shows that vulnerable groups like men who have sex with men, sex workers and intravenous drug users are not being reached because their behaviour is criminalized,” he said.
Nana cited research that showed that in Africa men who have sex with men are nine times more vulnerable to contracting HIV that the general population.
Still the associations all stress that just their being here at the conference is a sign that there is progress, albeit slow.
See African taboos surrounding gays hamper access to HIV/AIDS programs AFP
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/african-taboo…
