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Betsy Apple Speaking Out: Taylor Conviction Good for Women—And A Cautionary Tale for Mugabe

Thu, 03 May 2012 13:29:00 -0400

By Betsy Apple

Charles Taylor’s conviction last week for aiding and abetting mass rape and other international crimes in Liberia represents a significant step forward for women. In an international court sitting in Sierra Leone, four judges unanimously found that Taylor, then-President of Liberia, supported the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and other fighters who waged civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, resulting in tens of thousands of rapes, deaths, and dismemberments, among other crimes.

Taylor’s fate could well befall another president, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, which would advance the struggle to end the rape of women even further.

As the first former head of state to be convicted by an international court since the post-World War II Nuremburg trials, Charles Taylor’s conviction helps to lift the cloak of impunity that so often enshrouds and protects the perpetrators of mass rape. He was found guilty of aiding and abetting—in other words, assisting, supporting and encouraging—rather than directly ordering or planning the rapes. While the judgment has been described as a major disappointment for the prosecution (which had hoped to show that Taylor either controlled the armed fighters or was part of a “joint criminal enterprise” in which he participated in a common plan to rape, murder, torture, and pillage), survivors and activists have much to celebrate.

The judges in the Taylor case sent a clear signal that no one—not even a head of state—is exempt from responsibility for his role in supporting mass atrocities. While Taylor’s sentence, which will be handed down on May 30, may be less than it would be had he been convicted of “command and control” responsibility for the armed forces that raped, murdered, amputated limbs, and pillaged, he will still lose his freedom and spend time in jail, which is a clear defeat for his defense team. This conviction demonstrates that those who are instrumental in making rape happen can be held culpable, even if they are not in charge of, or serving as one of, the actual rapists.

At least one more head of state, Robert Mugabe, would do well to sit up and take notice.

The mass rape and other sexual violence that occurred during Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections was perpetrated by Mugabe’s party members and supporters of ZANU-PF against women associated with the political opposition; of that, there is no doubt. The evidence AIDS-Free World gathered indicates clearly that ZANU-PF supporters identified women to rape based on their political affiliation. (The perpetrators told women that that is why they were being raped during nearly every attack.) This widespread rape of women because of their political beliefs, activities, or affiliation was a brutal and effective tactic intended to undermine the political opposition and keep Mugabe in power. It worked.

Like Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe had a close relationship with many of the commanders who either raped or ordered their men to rape. And like Charles Taylor, Mugabe has funded his regime and maintained his power through the profits from blood diamonds. No international body—the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a commission of inquiry, a Human Rights Council special rapporteur—has undertaken a comprehensive investigation or sought to prosecute the mass political rape in Zimbabwe in 2008, to their shame. Because of this failure, we don’t know exactly what theory would prevail in a case against Mugabe: would it be joint criminal enterprise? Command responsibility?

We do know, however, that, again like Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe bears responsibility for supporting, encouraging, fomenting the violence against women from the political opposition—in short, aiding and abetting. The Taylor case has established a standard against which the behavior of other aiders and abettors can be measured. And Robert Mugabe measures up.

To AIDS-Free World, the crime of mass rape represents three things: It is a violent way to perpetuate discrimination against women by causing them brutal physical, emotional, and other harm; it is a strategy to destroy entire communities by targeting the women whose perpetual labor and care, in reality, undergirds them; and it is a horrific method of spreading HIV from rapist to victim. Widespread rape in conflict (such as that occurring during Sierra Leone’s civil war) is discussed endlessly by the “international community,” but is far too rarely addressed with concrete action.

Taylor’s conviction for aiding and abetting sexual crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sierra Leone is that concrete action we need to end impunity for rape, in Sierra Leone and, hopefully, in Zimbabwe. This judgment is a signpost to men who would foment rape: Don’t do it, or you may end up like Charles Taylor—in jail. For Robert Mugabe, the Taylor conviction is a sign of things to come.

Betsy Apple Speaking Out: AIDS-Free World’s Strategy to Challenge Impunity and Stop More Election-Related Rape in Zimbabwe

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:00:00 -0400

By Betsy Apple

AIDS-Free World has been working since 2008 to document and address the widespread rape in Zimbabwe that accompanied elections during that year. The testimony we gathered from rape survivors, described in our 2009 report Electing to Rape: Sexual Terror in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, demonstrated that the mass rape, perpetrated by Mugabe’s supporters and ZANU-PF party members, rose to the level of crimes against humanity. Now that Zimbabwe is on the verge of new elections, our task is dual: to challenge the blanket impunity for past political rape, and to pressure Zimbabwe’s neighbors and the international community to act proactively to prevent the next round of sexual crimes against humanity.

The Southern African Litigation Center (SALC) and the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) recently argued a case before the North Gauteng High Court, demanding that the South African National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) undertake an investigation into widespread torture in Zimbabwe that occurred around the 2008 elections. SALC and ZEF had documented ZANU-PF’s use of torture as a tool to quell political dissent and asked the NPA to investigate and potentially prosecute perpetrators under the South African ICC law. This law is a domestic translation of the Rome Statute, the international treaty that gave rise to the International Criminal Court, which South Africa ratified. After the NPA refused to investigate the torture in Zimbabwe, SALC/ZEF brought an action in court to compel them to do so. The judgment in the High Court case is pending and may come down at any time.

The SALC/ZEF case is not only important in South Africa and Zimbabwe; it is also critical to the international justice community as a whole. If South Africa takes seriously its obligations under its ICC law, it can serve as a global leader to other countries that have the wherewithal to investigate and prosecute crimes occurring in countries that lack that capacity.

AIDS-Free World has consulted with SALC about how we may effectively support that case as well as how best to submit a request to the NPA to investigate and possibly prosecute mass rape. SALC agreed it would be helpful for AIDS-Free World to intervene as a friend of the court in the current SALC/ZEF case, but we wanted to do so in a way that didn't disrupt the proceedings at the High Court. (AIDS-Free World's evidence of widespread rape would reinforce SALC's claims that Mugabe used mass torture by demonstrating a generalized context in which crimes against humanity were occurring). Consequently, AIDS-Free World plans to intervene at the next stage of the SALC/ZEF case, if and when the High Court decision is appealed. (An appeal to the Supreme Court may happen no matter how the High Court rules: If the judgment is in favor of SALC, the NPA may appeal, and if the judgment supports the NPA, SALC may do so.) AIDS-Free World will intervene as a friend of the court at the Supreme Court stage of the proceedings, if and when that occurs.

In the meantime, AIDS-Free World is planning to submit a request to the NPA to investigate mass election-related rape in Zimbabwe in 2008. While it is likely that the NPA will not act on such a dossier until the current case is resolved through the courts, we want to be in the queue. As well, our submission will serve as the basis for further advocacy about the need to end impunity for past rape, and the need to take preventative action around the next elections.

AIDS-Free World is deeply concerned that the violence in Zimbabwe in anticipation of the next elections has already started. Preventative international action will be necessary, based on Mugabe's long history of deploying rape as a strategy to keep power. Ending impunity for the past election's violence is one way to prevent future political rape. It is clear that the many women who were raped in the past cannot access justice in Zimbabwe, which makes South Africa’s role absolutely crucial. Given that South Africa is the only country in southern Africa with the means and capacity to prosecute international crimes occurring outside its borders, combined with the fact that many Zimbabwean perpetrators travel to South Africa, it is imperative for South Africa to implement its ICC law and to delay justice no longer.

The best scenario to prevent more political rape would include action by the African troika charged with supporting Zimbabwe’s Global Political Agreement (South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia) to demand that the Zimbabwean government permit regional and international election observers to enter before the elections occur. However, given that the troika has failed to address impunity for past crimes thus far (although they still have the opportunity to do so), AIDS-Free World believes the broader international community must converge. The African Union should take measures to pressure Zimbabwe to allow transparency and international engagement in the elections. Absent that, the UN Security Council should put Zimbabwe on its agenda. Ideally, the Security Council would work with the AU to develop an election-monitoring plan that would prevent an all-but-inevitable next round of rape and torture and other crimes against humanity.

GlobalPost: US Reveals Nearly $1.5 Billion in Unspent AIDS Money

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:20:00 -0400

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has set extraordinarily high goals in its fight against AIDS around the world. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said late last year that an “AIDS-free generation” is possible. And President Obama promised last December that the number of US-supported AIDS patients on treatment would rise to 6 million by the end of next year, up from the current 4 million.

So why did the administration submit a fiscal year 2013 budget that called for a $550 million reduction — an 11 percent cut — in its global AIDS program?

GlobalPost put that question to the Obama administration several weeks ago and US officials responded, saying that the government didn’t need more money because there has been nearly $1.5 billion stuck in the pipeline for 18 months or more.

In an interview with GlobalPost, Ambassador Eric Goosby, global AIDS coordinator, explained that $1.46 billion designated to fight AIDS hasn’t been used because of inefficient bureaucracies; major reductions in the cost of AIDS treatment; delays due to long negotiations on realigning programs with recipient country priorities; and a slowdown in a few countries because the AIDS problem was much smaller than originally estimated.

“What we’re doing is defining what money is available, and what’s left are our resources that we will put back into AIDS-free generation type activities — things that will not require continued year funding, could be a one-time funding effort,” Goosby said.

Prompted by the GlobalPost inquiry, Goosby’s office said this week it will immediately start a consultation period with Congress, its partners across the US government and AIDS advocates to address a key question: What should they do with $1.46 billion?

While this could create an unexpected windfall for some programs, it also means that several countries that have not spent the funds will lose tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. The key loser appears to be Kenya, which has had a half-billion dollars — roughly one-third the total amount in the pipeline — that has been accumulating in the US Treasury unspent for more than 18 months after Congress appropriated the money.

In the eight years of US funding of AIDS globally, Congress has appropriated $37.9 billion, amounting to the largest government program ever to fight a single disease, an initiative started by President George W. Bush known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. It has won wide bipartisan support from the start because of its success in saving millions of lives of Africans with AIDS and helped shore up dysfunctional health systems in some of the poorest parts of the world.

But from the start it has been a challenge to spend the money in many countries because many places could not absorb it quickly enough.

Of the $37.9 billion authorized to fight AIDS, $28.9 billion was spent by March 2012, leaving $9 billion in the pipeline, according to figures provided by the US Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator. And of that $9 billion, roughly $7.6 billion is earmarked for programs or is within the acceptable range of 12 to 18 months worth of money in reserve for overseas development programs, State Department officials said.

But the $1.46 billion has been sitting too long — US officials called it a “bad pipeline” — and the officials said in several interviews over the past few weeks that they now will start a process of removing the unspent funds from country ledgers. Senior officials said this week that they have drawn up internal broad guidelines on how they would spend the money and now will move toward identifying specific programs to fund.

To put this in perspective, $1.46 billion is roughly three times the annual amount the US government spent on AIDS globally a decade ago.

Goosby said his office has been aware of a growing pipeline of unspent money for the last two years, and he ordered investigations into why the money was building up in certain countries, notably Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tanzania. His office has not spoken publicly about the backlog until now in part because of internal concerns that Congress could cut future budgets because such a large amount was being delayed in the pipeline.

State Department officials told GlobalPost, though, that many foreign assistance programs build up a pipeline of 12 to 18 months of funding. The difference with the PEPFAR backlog is its sheer size; then again, PEPFAR accounts for roughly 20 percent of the US foreign assistance budget.

In the PEPFAR pipeline, some country backlogs are substantial. Kenya alone has roughly one-third the entire amount, with $502 million in unspent funds. Tanzania ($149 million), Ethiopia ($138 million), Mozambique ($130 million) and Zambia ($91 million) are next on the list, which names 22 countries and two regions. Other significant amounts: Uganda ($57 million); Namibia ($57 million); Haiti, ($44 million); Malawi ($35 million); Lesotho ($28 million); Dominican Republic ($26 million); and Swaziland ($21 million).

Kenya has had trouble spending the money because of inefficiencies in its two ministries of health, which were set up as part of a negotiated settlement following post-election violence in 2008, according to several US officials in Washington and Nairobi. Ethiopia’s AIDS prevalence rate, which was estimated at 7.3 percent in 2001, before PEPFAR, was at 1.5 percent in 2011, because of highly inaccurate statistical modeling that inflated the figure for years.

Goosby acknowledged the large amount of unspent money was the major reason why the administration asked for a reduction in funds for the next fiscal year. He said his office asked for what it would need to meet goals under US-supported programs, and because of the cut it also saw an opportunity to seek a 57 percent increase for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to $1.65 billion next year.

Some activists said at the time of the budget announcement in February that the administration “raided” its own AIDS program to put money in the Global Fund. But Goosby said that was an inaccurate analysis.

Several AIDS activists interviewed said they were surprised to hear about the pipeline. Stephen Lewis, a former United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and now co-founder and co-director of AIDS-Free World, an international advocacy organization, said he was disappointed that the US administration hadn’t been more forthright about the unspent money a long time ago.

“I don’t understand how $1.5 billion accumulates, and suddenly you are in a panic to disburse it,” he said. “I’m glad there is money available for critical purposes, but I would have thought this could be planned for in an orderly way.”

US officials counter that they will spend the money only after consultations and that it is better to put the money where it can be used now rather than letting it sit.

“We see a large need out there, and we have very ambitious goals,” said Tom Walsh, a PEPFAR spokesman. “We will make sure that we are spending the money we have effectively.”

Read the GlobalPost article here.

The Washington Post: “Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It”

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 13:56:00 -0400

Just a few months ago, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a leading firebrand of the global AIDS movement, Stephen Lewis, said at a conference that the money given to Africa by the U.S. global AIDS initiative called PEPFAR and by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria amounted to “partial reparations” to the continent. Africa, he noted, was giving the world thousands of health-care workers whom it had educated, saving the West billions of dollars annually.

In his remarkable speech, Lewis, co-director of AIDS-Free World, said the payback was for multiple reasons: “From slavery to today’s extractive industries of minerals and oil, Africa is financing the world. The modern world’s economy was built on Africa’s human and natural resources, and it depends on them to this day. . . . We owe Africa what we give to Africa. And a hell of a lot more to boot.”

As Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin suggest in their new book, “Tinderbox,”there may be another reason that the West should do more to fight the AIDS epidemic: Colonialists’ aggressive trade practices may have opened new travel routes in central Africa that helped spread a disease from a dense forest to the world beyond.

Timberg, a Washington Post journalist, and Halperin, an epidemiologist and medical anthropologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, write that researchers found a strain of the SIV virus among chimpanzees in the bush of the Congo River basin.The virus, which closely resembles a strain of the HIV-1 group M, the deadliest AIDS strain, traveled from chimps to humans through a cut or wound. Genetic testing has traced the origins to the Kinshasa area, most likely arriving there in the blood of a worker in the bush-meat trade. That worker spread the virus to others through sex.

“Colonialists had had the effect of transforming the region into a tinderbox capable of creating the AIDS epidemic,” the authors write. “Then it fanned the flames.”

The theory outlined in “Tinderbox” could support the case for Africa reparations, or at least for more generous giving to fight AIDS. And indeed, the fight against AIDS is particularly vulnerable now: Several European donors have cut their funding for the Global Fund in part because of the economic crisis, and the Global Fund has canceled new giving until 2014. (The Obama administration has pledged to increase its Global Fund donation to $4 billion over three years; activists are arguing for $6 billion.)

Timberg and Halperin devote just the first sixth of the book to their exploration of the roots of the epidemic. The remainder is AIDS 101, focusing in particular on the past two decades. Readers unfamiliar with the epidemic will find it valuable. For those who know something about AIDS, the discoveries are few here — with perhaps one exception.

That concerns the role of Halperin, who met Timberg in 2005 when Halperin worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development in the tiny African kingdom of Swaziland. Timberg, who refers to himself in the first person and to Halperin in the third person (slightly awkward, given that they are both authors of the book), writes that Halperin often “veered quickly into the realm of the impolite.”

Halperin “insisted that the two most important factors in understanding and reducing the spread of AIDS through African societies were sexual behavior and male circumcision.” Other experts saw numerous other reasons for the spread of AIDS, and Halperin “made a career of telling people that most of what they think they know about HIV is wrong.”

Reporter, meet source, and source, meet an audience of your dreams: Washington power brokers. Reporters who cover global health need many Halperins to translate the science and lift a curtain on the messy politics of aid. Timberg writes that he and Halperin were an “odd couple,” but I think not. They needed each other, and “Tinderbox” does a good job of highlighting Halperin’s important role in fighting the epidemic.

Halperin was one of a handful of researchers who forcefully argued for an expansion of male circumcision where it was not common. Male circumcision is a powerful preventive because it removes a part of the foreskin of the penis that can be easily infected by the virus.

U.S.-funded clinical trials supported their position in 2007, leading to PEPFAR’s increased funding of male circumcision over the past four years. It has been an uneven effort: The U.S. government helped pay for the circumcision of 1 million African males from 2008 through 2011 , and President Obama has called for a goal of circumcising 4.7 million African men by the end of 2013.

Lewis and Halperin probably see the goal as laudable, but the time taken to reach it is lamentable. “Tinderbox” will help readers understand why the two men feel so strongly about this, and why the period ahead is so critical in fighting the epidemic. Millions of lives depend on the effort.

Betsy Apple Speaking Out: The Controversy Continues in North Gauteng High Court

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:57:00 -0400

By Betsy Apple

Photo: Christine Jesseman

More protests demanding action
by South African prosecutors.

The hearing in which the Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC) and the Zimbabwean Exiles Forum (ZEF) seek to compel South Africa’s prosecutors to investigate and possibly bring to trial high-level supporters of Robert Mugabe accused of torture continued on Wednesday, and so did the controversy. As described earlier, SALC and ZEF submitted a dossier to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), asking them to look into the torture allegations; the NPA refused, and SALC and ZEF went to court. The outcome of this case—which will determine whether South African prosecutors can and should investigate crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe—affects women from Zimbabwe who survived mass rape and seek justice.

Fissures in the NPA widened during the hearing as the state prosecutor, Chris Macadam, and the head of the unit in charge of investigating international crimes, Anton Ackermann, traded accusations. Ackermann claimed he had been silenced and lied to as he sought to pressure the police into investigating the allegations of torture contained in the dossier compiled by SALC and ZEF. Macadam, in turn, argued that Ackermann initially agreed with the decision not to investigate torture, but ended up “colluding” with SALC after extensively discussing the case with them.

Counsel for the South African police (the entity responsible for conducting the actual investigation into torture) argued that the police lacked jurisdiction in this case. SALC and ZEF counsel disagreed, claiming not only that the police lawfully could have investigated, but also that their failure to do so was for political (rather than legal) reasons. The police lawyer seemed to support this assertion, arguing that if the police had investigated, it would sour political relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe. To his credit, the High Court judge asked the critical question in response: Are "diplomatic concerns more important than human concerns?"

That Ackermann, a respondent in the case, filed an affidavit supporting the SALC/ZEF position demonstrates his integrity and independence, but may not bode well for his career at the NPA. The NPA claimed they were still considering the implications of his affidavit.

The High Court judge is contemplating his ruling on the case. Once he issues a judgment, we should know whether the NPA failed to undertake its responsibilities under the South African ICC law, and whether the door is open for other survivors of mass crimes, including mass rape, to seek justice in South Africa.

Disability and HIV Leadership Forum, July 21, 2012

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:40:00 -0400

AIDS-Free World is pleased to announce the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum, a full-day advocacy training on July 21, 2012, immediately preceding “AIDS 2012,” the XIXth International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC. Presented in collaboration with Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI) and Gallaudet University, the Forum will bring together young activists and leaders under 30 from the around the world to learn from seasoned advocates in the fields of HIV, disability rights, and human rights. Disabled youth with experience in the field of HIV as well as those recently introduced to AIDS activism were selected for their leadership skills. The one-day training will help them to advance disability rights at home, stay connected with young advocates from other countries, and help to bridge the disability rights and AIDS movements.

The Forum will take place on the Washington, DC, campus of Gallaudet University, known as the world's premier higher education institution serving deaf and hard-of-hearing people. The leadership trainees — young people with a range of disabilities and innumerable abilities — will learn practical “how-to’s” of advocacy from some of the world’s leading voices in the disability and HIV movements. Following the Forum, participants will have a chance to apply their new advocacy, communication, and networking skills as delegates to AIDS 2012.

Each young leader’s participation at the Forum and AIDS 2012 has been underwritten by one of over 20 sponsors.* A Working Group of disability and AIDS experts is guiding the Forum agenda, which will draw on prominent advocates attending AIDS 2012 to encourage, inspire, and share their own experiences with the next generation of leaders.

For additional information or to become a sponsoring organization, please contact:
Maja Hipkin: TEL: +1 (905) 393‐5483; mlh@aidsfreeworld.org

* Sponsors as of 29 March: African Union of the Blind, African Women’s Development Fund, Christian Blind Mission, CORDAID, Elton John AIDS Foundation, Global Fund for Women, Human Rights Watch, Leonard Cheshire Disability, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Open Society Institute, Stephen Lewis Foundation, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UN Women, VSO International, World Health Organization, World Vision Canada, and sponsors who prefer to remain anonymous.

AIDS-Free World advocates for more urgent and effective global responses to HIV and AIDS. Since our founding in 2007, we have worked toward greater inclusion of people with disabilities in the worldwide AIDS movement. The Disability and HIV Leadership Forum is the next critical step in building a youth movement and ensuring that people with disabilities can become fully involved and instrumental in the global response to AIDS. To read more about the Forum, and about our work at past International AIDS Conferences, please visit www.aidsfreeworld.org/Our-Issues/Disability/Q-A-Disability-and-HIV-Leadership-Forum.aspx.

Q&A: Disability and HIV Leadership Forum

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:24:00 -0400

On July 21, 2012, AIDS-Free World, in collaboration with Disabled Peoples' International and Gallaudet University, is pleased to present the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum, a full-day advocacy training immediately preceding “AIDS 2012,” the XIXth International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC. The Forum will bring together young activists and leaders under 30 from around the world to learn from seasoned advocates in the fields of HIV, disability rights, and human rights. More information on the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum can be found here.

Introduction and Vision
Veteran disability rights activists share a deep concern: when they look over their shoulders to the next generation, they don’t see the droves of young people they had hoped would be ready by now to assume leadership of the disability rights movement as the current leadership ages. They don’t see many young activists at all who are fully equipped to lead the struggle for inclusion of people with disabilities in the global AIDS movement. What they do see are young activists who have boundless potential, but who’ve been given few opportunities to develop the advocacy skills that can transform raw energy, ideas and passion into successful strategies for social change. They see both a serious need and an excellent opportunity to help the next generation ready themselves to lead the global disability rights movement.

A Disability and HIV Leadership Forum of young people with disabilities from around the world will meet that need. It will, for the first time ever, connect the current and future leaders of the disability and the AIDS movements. It will use the time immediately preceding the upcoming International AIDS Conference to prepare young people with disabilities to take part in AIDS 2012 — and not as passive observers, but as a formidable presence, ready to test new advocacy skills and begin building their generation’s disability rights movement.

AIDS-Free World is an international organization that advocates, often at the highest levels, for more urgent and effective global responses to the AIDS pandemic. Organizing a pre-AIDS 2012 Disability and HIV Leadership Forum is a challenge that we feel especially qualified and eager to take up. Since our start in 2007, we have worked toward the greater inclusion of people with disabilities in the worldwide AIDS movement — and we have always devoted special attention to the biannual International AIDS Conference. In conjunction with Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI), we gathered leaders of the disability rights movement from several continents and put on the first-ever “town hall” on disabilities at the 2008 conference in Mexico City; at the next conference, in 2010 in Vienna, we reconvened to see how much had changed in the interim with a panel we called “Two Years Later.”

In anticipation of the 2012 conference, AIDS-Free World outlined what we saw as an inspired vision for an official “pre-conference forum” — an idea that was first proposed to us by our colleague, international disability rights activist Steve Estey, who has worked with us on the last two International AIDS Conferences. The vision of a forum that will give young people the tools to break down barriers to inclusion in the fight against AIDS, and the skills to lead and sustain the disability rights movement, is very clear. The remaining barrier is among the highest. Breakthroughs are always expensive, and so the challenge for us is to find organizations that recognize the value of investing in the young people who, if supported, will lead us into the future.

The global AIDS movement has yet to join the rest of the world in fully recognizing the human rights of people with disabilities. The XIXth International AIDS Conference in July 2012 will bring tens of thousands of AIDS advocates, researchers, medical professionals, government officials, activists, corporations, policy-makers and political leaders to Washington, DC. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, AIDS-Free World is developing a Disability and HIV Leadership Forum that will take place immediately prior to the AIDS conference. The Disability and HIV Leadership Forum will bring together young activists from around the world to discuss the intersections of disability, human rights and HIV, to develop advocacy skills for advancing their disability rights work, and to connect with other advocates.

Q&A
What will the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum achieve?
The Forum will support the training of young people as the movement’s future leaders, and it will ensure that, in place of tokenism, the meaningful presence and involvement of people with disabilities in the world’s foremost AIDS conference signals that the “human rights approach” of the global AIDS movement truly applies to all.

The Forum will remove some of the barriers that stand between the next generation and their full leadership capacities. It will expose them to the seasoned pros, who have invaluable advocacy lessons and skills to impart, and give them the modern skills needed to build and maintain networks in a globalized world. Young disability rights advocates who’ve been active in their own cities or countries will be given the opportunity to attend AIDS 2012, to connect with one another and to learn how to bring new people into their movement. They’ll hear from experienced global advocates about the skills and tactics that can cause closed doors to open, enlist experts, grab the attention of authority figures, persuade decision-makers, interest journalists, keep elected officials on their toes, and help stave off despair at those inevitable points when it will all seem fruitless.

What concrete skills will be taught at the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum?
Participants will have an opportunity to discuss issues related to disability and HIV with one another, and they will have an exceptional chance to hear from a range of global leaders, addressing issues such as HIV, disability rights, LGBT rights, women’s rights and international human rights. Participants will also learn and develop concrete advocacy skills that will help them to advance their work for disability rights. Sessions may include topics such as:
• Media and communications: how to draft a press release, host a press conference and write an Op-Ed
• Public speaking
• Becoming effective activists: how to make demands that will be heard by the topmost decision-makers
• Technology: how to use social networking and media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and The Hub to build a global movement, stay connected and conduct advocacy campaigns
• Accessing and utilizing the United Nations system: how to work with the United Nations at a country, regional and international level, and how to advance disability rights within the UN Secretariat, UNAIDS, UN Women and other UN Agencies
• Funding and disability rights: how to influence multilateral funding structures such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and ensure that people with disabilities are included in funding allocations
• Utilizing regional and international human rights systems
• Lobbying governments to ratify the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities
• Lobbying governments to improve legal rights and protections for people with disabilities, including laws that protect disabled workers, or provide equal access to education, health facilities and public buildings
• Lobbying governments to abolish discriminatory laws against people with disabilities and ensure that anti-discrimination laws include people with disabilities
• Recruiting, enlisting and engaging pro bono lawyers so they become disability rights advocates and work to improve national laws on disability and HIV
• Advocating for disability rights amongst HIV/AIDS service organizations: how to ensure HIV organizations are complying with human rights standards and providing access to HIV prevention, treatment and care for people with disabilities
• Partnering with women’s rights organizations to examine issues affecting women with disabilities
• Partnering with LGBT organizations and groups of people living with HIV to examine issues affecting people with disabilities in these communities

Who will participate in the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum?
Approximately 30 global activists under the age of 30 who demonstrate leadership potential will be selected to attend the conference from all over the world. The group will include a combination of disability rights activists who have not yet become engaged in AIDS work, as well as people with disabilities who are AIDS experts.

Who will present at the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum?
The conference will draw upon the expertise of leaders in fields such as disability rights, the AIDS movement, international human rights law, women’s rights, global health, communications and technology. AIDS-Free World will invite speakers and trainers from amongst the thousands of HIV activists already traveling to Washington for the International AIDS Conference, as well as prominent disability rights activists and academics from around the world.

When will it take place?
The Disability and HIV Leadership Forum will be held on the day immediately prior to the start of the International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC, and participants will then go on to attend the AIDS conference. The event will bring together a group of activists who might not otherwise attend an international AIDS conference – because of the prohibitive expense, or because they were not informed about or included in the AIDS conference, or because they did not feel that their issues would be addressed, or because of concerns about accessibility at the AIDS conference venues.

How will the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum link and contribute to the 2012 International AIDS Conference?
An initial goal of the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum is to increase the active engagement of people with disabilities in the 2012 International AIDS Conference. The 30 young activists will participate in the AIDS conference – as official delegates, as informed advocates, as youth leaders, as savvy organizers, as volunteers, as key panelists – where their presence, enhanced by their newly acquired advocacy and networking skills will help to end the silence from the global AIDS community on disability issues.

In addition, the International AIDS Society will be asked to consider registering the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum as an AIDS 2012 official pre-conference – a distinction so far conferred on just two pre-conference gatherings. This recognition will help garner publicity and awareness about the Disability and HIV Leadership Forum amongst delegates, speakers and media attending the AIDS 2012 Conference.

Finally, in the months leading up to the AIDS conference, AIDS-Free World will continue to discuss, with the conference planners, ways to more fully incorporate disability issues into the conference agenda. This includes adding sessions on disability and HIV and ensuring that people with disabilities are included as speakers in sessions on a whole range of other topics. It will also include accessibility issues – ensuring that this conference is designed in such a way that everyone can participate, and that conference organizers include, for example, CART technology, Braille materials, sign language interpretation, wheelchair access, and registration fee waivers for personal assistants. Our advocacy on these issues during the past two International AIDS Conferences in Mexico City and Vienna has resulted in some improvements, but the International AIDS Society agrees that much remains to be done. The 2012 International AIDS Conference – to be held in the United States, a country recognized globally for its leadership on disability issues – represents an opportunity of historic proportion.

Where will it be held?
The Leadership Forum will take place in Washington, DC. Gallaudet University, a leading university for Deaf and hard of hearing students with a global reputation for its role in the disability rights movement, has agreed to host the one-day event on their campus.

Is this a good investment?
As with most initial contributions to “movement-building,” the benefits of this investment will grow both rapidly and exponentially. The Disability and HIV Leadership Forum will equip young global leaders with advocacy tools to strengthen and expand their disability rights work. Before even returning home, the leaders will immediately apply their skills and seek to impact and influence the global AIDS community assembled for the conference. And finally, the participants will return to their countries, spanning across the globe, where they will share their skills with their home organizations and networks. By AIDS 2014, the world should see the emergence of a strong, vocal, active and effective movement to address disability and HIV.

Coca-Cola: A Waiting Game

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:59:00 -0400

On April 25, 2011, at a music festival in Montego Bay, a Jamaican Dancehall performer who calls himself Sizzla sang “Boom Bye-Bye,” a homophobic anthem that calls for the murder of gays and lesbians. Online clips show a large and enthusiastic crowd cheering Sizzla as he stomped and shouted his hateful lyrics angrily in front of a stage-sized Coca-Cola banner, the company that paid for his performance.

One week later, AIDS-Free World Legal Advisor Maurice Tomlinson wrote to Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent, calling on him to denounce Sizzla’s sentiments; condemn all forms of homophobia; and stop sponsoring murder music. Kent never replied. In his place, Coca-Cola Chief Diversity Officer Steve Bucherati supplied a short list of Coke’s equal rights credentials.

Following weeks of inaction, Tomlinson then called on Coca-Cola to purchase a full-page ad in Jamaica’s four major newspapers denouncing Sizzla; to implement a clause in all future contracts guaranteeing an end to Coke’s endorsement of homophobic musicians; and to sponsor a tolerance-themed concert in Jamaica.

Not until June 21, in a phone call with Tomlinson, did Mr. Bucherati acknowledge that Coke had made an error. Bucherati admitted that there was a lack of pre-event due diligence, and that in fact, the company’s performer contracts do not contain clauses prohibiting homophobic language and actions. He said the company had written a short apology as a letter to the editor of The Western Mirror, but it was never published; in spite of that, Coke hadn’t paid to place the letter. While not responding to Tomlinson’s demands, he did report that Coca-Cola was undergoing a review of its global music sponsorship policy, and that upon its completion, the company would publish an article in the Jamaican press apologizing for the Sizzla incident and detailing how the new policy would prevent such incidents from ever happening again. When pressed, Bucherati revealed that since only two of Coca-Cola’s staff (an estimated 139,600 employees) were working on the policy review, he wasn’t sure when it would be completed. He would keep Tomlinson apprised.

Absent any update, AIDS-Free World Co-Directors Stephen Lewis and Paula Donovan wrote to Bucherati on October 6, pressing Coca-Cola to “take immediate, unmistakable, and unfaltering action to repair the harm wrought by its material support for murder musicians, such as Sizzla, immediately.” A week later, having received no reply, the Co-Directors sent a copy of their demands directly to CEO Kent and posted the letter on the organization’s web site. Immediately after, a Jamaican newspaper and a number of blogs reported details of AIDS-Free World’s demands and Coca-Cola’s lack of response.

The letter elicited no response from the head of Coca-Cola, but four days after the letter was sent to him, Mr. Bucherati replied. He claimed that letters and emails sent to him by AIDS-Free World in August and September had gotten lost, and therefore he had provided no updates on the global policy review. Two days later, a brief note from a Franchise Operations Director was published free of charge as a letter to the editor in The Gleaner. In it, the local Coke affiliate apologized for the April event and mentioned efforts to “ensure that events we sponsor are not used as platforms for espousing hatred and discrimination.”

That same day, the Co-Directors wrote again to CEO Kent, declaring that a letter to the editor from a middle-management franchise operator in The Gleaner was egregiously late and woefully inadequate, and that Kent’s absence from months of dialogue was insulting. It seemed to be a clear indication that Coca-Cola was willing to traffic in murder music, from the Board Room down.

No reply. Later that same month, the Co-Directors gave Kent an ultimatum: respond by November 4, or they would enlist the aid of allies in civil society. Their demands: place a full-page ad in every major Jamaican newspaper apologizing for what occurred and admitting wrongdoing; complete the global policy review; send a formal letter of apology; and produce a gay rights-themed concert in Washington. DC at the time of the XIX International AIDS Conference.

On November 25, seven months after the incident and six months after AIDS-Free World’s initial request for a public apology, Coca-Cola spent a portion of their $2.9 billion advertising budget on three less-than-a-quarter page open letters in the Jamaican press. The letters did not appear on letterhead, contained no logo, and were from Bucherati, not Kent.

Without any meaningful response to their demands, and swiftly approaching the year anniversary of the event, the Co-Directors and two allies spoke with Coca-Cola’s Head of Entertainment and Sports Marketing Emmanuel Seuge to formally request sponsorship of a planned gay rights/AIDS-themed concert honoring Elton John. After he was informed that Coke had yet to adequately respond to the Sizzla debacle, Mr. Seuge said he would research the request. Days later, Seuge replied that despite the importance of the cause, the window of planning was too small to build a marketing infrastructure around the event that would guarantee a profitable return. The Company was overstretched; this was especially true because of Coca-Cola’s lead sponsorship of the upcoming Summer Olympics.

Meanwhile, Bucherati emailed the Co-Directors to say that even though the global policy review had been finalized, it required “re-crafting.” He hoped that a second round of revisions would be completed by April. He said nothing as to when the new policy would be implemented.

The appropriate course of action is now clear. The company bid for the world’s attention by seeking to sponsor the Summer Olympic Games. It claims to believe — and to want the world to know — that it unequivocally supports the equal human rights of gay men and women. Mr. Kent has endless opportunities to convey that message during the Olympics. Will Coca-Cola use a portion of its airtime to assert and to demonstrate its claim, that Coca-Cola’s commitment to the equal human rights of all LGBT men and women is real?

Betsy Apple Speaking Out: Why a South African Legal Case Matters to Women in Zimbabwe

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:31:00 -0400

By Betsy Apple

Photo: Christine Jesseman

Protesters outside North Gauteng High Court.

The unexpected, dramatic postponement of a hearing scheduled for March 26 in the North Gauteng High Court in South Africa has implications for women in Zimbabwe who were brutally raped by President Robert Mugabe’s supporters during the 2008 elections there.

The Southern African Litigation Centre (SALC) and the Zimbabwean Exiles Forum (ZEF), asked South African prosecutors in 2008 to investigate torture in Zimbabwe around the 2008 elections. The alleged perpetrators were high-level members of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, and the victims were part of the political opposition. SALC and ZEF claimed that the torture was so serious that it rose to the level of crimes against humanity, and therefore within the power of the South African National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to investigate and potentially bring to trial. The South African law commonly known as the ICC Law (after the International Criminal Court, which South Africa supports) was enacted precisely for this purpose: to give South Africa the ability to address the worst crimes, even if they were committed elsewhere, so long as the perpetrators set foot in South Africa.

The NPA first stonewalled, then ultimately refused to investigate these crimes. SALC and ZEF, convinced that the refusal was for illegitimate reasons, brought a legal challenge seeking to compel the NPA to uphold its responsibilities under the ICC law. After many delays (largely engineered by the NPA), the hearing was scheduled for March 26 in High Court. Days before the hearing, the head of the NPA appointed new counsel and terminated the prior State Advocate. At the same time, the head of the unit within the NPA responsible for investigating international crimes filed an affidavit in court swearing that he had wanted to investigate, but had been lied to and manipulated by his colleagues at the NPA, resulting in the NPA’s refusal to do its job.

Why does this matter to women who survived politically motivated rape during Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections? Because they, too, like their compatriots who suffered torture, are seeking justice for the crimes they endured, and because accountability for such crimes isn’t possible in today’s Zimbabwe. AIDS-Free World is working to prepare a similar request to the South African NPA, asking it to investigate and potentially prosecute the sexual crimes against humanity in the 2008 elections. If the High Court finds that the NPA failed to carry out its responsibilities under the ICC law to investigate and prosecute torture, the women who suffered widespread rape can take one step closer to justice.

The hearing is rescheduled for March 28. Demonstrations outside the Court on March 26 illustrate the importance of this case for those who seek justice for crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: When Hate Masquerades as Logic

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:30:00 -0400

By Maurice Tomlinson

A historic UN session took place in Geneva in early March this year. It was convened to discuss an equally historic report by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights regarding violence against homosexuals.

Some persons (including me) deemed this report to be long overdue. It is a matter of historical record that several thousand homosexuals were incarcerated in concentration camps during World War II by the Nazis (who introduced the infamous Pink Triangle as a badge of shame) and many perished; yet it was not until 2002 that Germany officially apologized for its wartime treatment of LGBT. Even after the founding of the UN, which rose phoenix-like from the ashes of WWII, and the numerous human rights instruments it birthed, homosexuals continue to be mercilessly persecuted around the world: 76 countries still criminalize homosexuality, seven of which allow for the death penalty as punishment.

This latest UN session demonstrated just how divided the globe remains on the issue of basic human rights for homosexuals, such as their right to life and freedom from torture. The presentation of this report, sponsored by South Africa, was boycotted by the Organization of Islamic Countries and most of the African Union. The reason given was that condemning homophobic attacks would be seen as legitimizing same-sex relations (!).

A similarly flawed logic manifested during the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly in 2008. On that occasion, the Brazilian delegation introduced the first ever resolution on “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.” The normal trajectory of such resolutions is that they are first introduced and agreed to at the OAS Permanent Council in Washington before being brought to the itinerant OAS General Assembly (GA) for rubber-stamping. This resolution failed to garner sufficient support at the Permanent Council, but the brave Brazilians bypassed normal OAS procedures and brought it to the OAS GA anyway. This was a rare act of political courage within the highly politicized OAS system and demonstrated the Brazilian government’s commitment to LGBT rights.

Yet for all its high-sounding title, the resolution did no more than tamely condemn violence against LGBT within the Americas. Even so, to their eternal shame, the Guyanese delegation was persuaded by the 15-nation CARICOM block to oppose the resolution ostensibly because of “domestic legal realities” (no doubt referring to the fact that 11 of the group retain colonial-era laws criminalizing homosexual relations). In what can only be described as a supreme act of diplomatic maneuvering, the Brazilian ambassador inquired if any Caribbean country really had laws on their books that would allow for violence against any group of individuals, including gays. In the face of this masterful piece of rhetoric, the CARICOM block collapsed and the resolution was adopted. A similarly themed resolution has been concluded in Washington every year since then and duly brought to the OAS GA for unanimous adoption.

The tragic parallels between the recent UN debate on homophobic violence and the OAS resolution in 2008 are stark. Even more tragic is that the countries that stand the most to gain from addressing homophobic violence and its impact on HIV are the ones least inclined to address the issue.

Africa and the Caribbean have the highest HIV prevalence rates. Multiple UNAIDS reports confirm that the epidemic in these regions is both generalized and concentrated, with men who have sex with men recording rates as high as 42% in some parts of Kenya and 32% in Jamaica. The high rate of multiple sexual partners—38.9% amongst sexually active respondents in one UN study in Africa—combined with the fact that many MSM also have sex with women as a cover for their sexuality (nearly 4/5 of those surveyed in Senegal) leads to the conclusion that there must be an increased focus on reaching MSM if we are ever to eradicate HIV and AIDS throughout Africa and the Caribbean. Yet research presented by Professor Chris Beyrer of Johns Hopkins University highlights that efforts aimed at reaching MSM with HIV eradication interventions are severely hampered in homophobic and hostile environments. A very palpable example was the 17 deaths that occurred as a result of prison riots when Jamaica tried unsuccessfully to introduce condoms in penal institutions in 1997.

Thankfully, the OAS resolution passed and the work to reach Caribbean MSM with life-saving HIV prevention, treatment, care and support interventions has been increasing. Sadly, the countries in the OIC and the AU who stand to benefit the most from the recent UN Human Rights Council debate were absent.

As a sad footnote, many of these same boycotting countries attended a Vatican-supported side-event, ironically entitled “Towards Preserving the Universality of Human Rights,” the central focus of which was to deny recognition of the human rights of homosexuals. Hate for gays has the power to unite even former religious crusading foes, I guess.

It was the Vatican that steadfastly resisted endorsing condoms as a means of HIV prevention. Now they are seeking to deny human rights for homosexuals in order to preserve human rights. This misguided logic led me once to opine that inviting the Vatican to a HIV conference was as perverse as inviting Nazis to a Holocaust memorial.

Countdown to Tolerance: The Fear of a Gay Invasion

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:40:00 -0400

By Maurice Tomlinson

In response to a largely sensationalized media report of tragic instances of some girls in one all-girls high school being sexually assaulted by their seniors, there now appears to be a concerted effort to whip up fear among Jamaicans that gays are “taking over.” The Children’s Advocate has even weighed into the debate stating that homosexuality is now “pervasive” in the society. Self-righteous and misguided school principals, such as Esther Tyson, who “outed” gay students to their parents, have also made incendiary statements about an apparent upsurge in homosexuality.

There is, of course, absolutely no evidence to support these wild allegations. The fact that Jamaicans are now having a long overdue debate about recognizing the human rights of homosexuals should not be misinterpreted to mean that the number of gays on the island has suddenly shot up!

The fact is no study on the number of gays has ever been done in Jamaica (this would be nigh impossible to accomplish in this homophobic culture), and although the new UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS to the Caribbean, Dr. Edward Greene, has stated that at least 20% of the population of some Caribbean countries are gays, he failed to cite his sources. The most cited study on the percentage of homosexuals in society was conducted in 1948, when the noted researcher in human sexuality Alfred Kinsey estimated that about 10% of the US population is gay.

The recent spate of anti-gay fear mongering in Jamaica is directly attributable to the agitations of the island’s Lawyers Christian Fellowship. The most vocal spokesperson for this group, Shirley Richards, stated on a popular religious station’s talk-show (hosted by the equally virulently anti-gay pastor Clinton Chisholm) that the LCF would be seeking to have Parliament criminalize lesbian relations and to prevent the promised conscience vote on the anti-sodomy law. Their strategy appears to be working.

Government Member of Parliament Damion Crawford, who also happens to be Jamaica’s first dreadlocked parliamentarian, recently declared that the conscience vote is not likely to happen, as parliamentarians fear the political consequences. A recent poll shows that 61% of Jamaicans (down from 82% last year) would have a negative opinion of the Jamaican government should it repeal the law.

An inflammatory article, “The Legacy of Lesbos,” authored by self-proclaimed Catholic conservative Anthony Gomes, was published in the March 21, 2012, edition of the right-wing rag the Jamaica Observer. In this piece of wandering innuendos, Gomes tried to link the situation of alleged lesbian attacks mentioned above with opening the door for same-sex marriage (!). He claims such unions will “destabilize communities and the nation as a whole.” Again, his fallacious arguments are not borne out in any of the 11 countries or eight US states that have legalized same-sex marriage. The fact is that homophobic cultures such as Jamaica’s put incredible pressure on gay men to maintain “normal” heterosexual relationships; this opens doorways between epidemics of HIV among men who have sex with men (in Jamaica MSM currently have an HIV prevalence rate of about 32%) and the general population (the country’s adult HIV prevalence rate is currently about 1.6%). Lesbians in homophobic societies are also forced to maintain heterosexual relationships and those who don’t are sometimes subjected to “corrective rape” which increases their HIV risk.

Those are the facts. We are all entitled to our own beliefs, but we are not allowed our own set of facts. In the meantime, Jamaicans must accept that gays exist in the country and they have rights. Denying those rights increases the level of societal violence and endangers public health.

SW Radio Africa: Stephen Lewis on Disapora Diaries

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The following interviewed with Stephen Lewis was aired on the Diaspora Diaries program on SW Radio Africa on March 13, 2012. Listen to the complete interview here.

Alex Bell: Welcome to Diaspora Diaries on SW Radio Africa, Zimbabwe’s independent voice. I’m Alex Bell and on tonight’s show I’ll be talking to the co-director of the international advocacy group AIDS-Free World, who has called the UN out over its silence on Zimbabwe.

Stephen Lewis, who’s work with the UN has spanned more than two decades has called on the international body to end its silence on the campaign of political rape used by Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF. Speaking on International Women’s Day last week at the UN Human Rights’ Council, Mr Lewis questioned what hold Mugabe has over the UN that Zimbabwe was left off a ‘name and shame’ list of serious sexual violence during elections in different countries.

In December 2009 AIDS-Free World released a shocking report detailing the systematic and widespread attack on MDC members and supporters in the 2008 election period in Zimbabwe. The group said their report contains enough evidence to warrant the prosecution of Mugabe and other top ZANU PF officials for their complicity in the attacks saying they are guilty of crimes against humanity. Their report titled “Electing to rape: Sexual terror in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe” detailed the testimonies of 70 survivors of the rape campaign. This is just one account from one of these women:

“My husband was truly active in his MDC party. He was a youth co-coordinator for MDC. So sometimes he had some grudges with ZANU PF youth leaders and other people who were involved in politics. The first attack it was on my wedding day, when we were having afterwards a party at home. There comes some other two guys and my husband was busy braaing with other guys, then they come, and wanted to beat my husband. Then saying ‘we told you about this MDC thing and you think you are very clever’. So that’s when my brothers and other people come and they attacked the guys, they beat them and they tell them ‘we are ZANU PF guys and they sent us to come and beat this one’. Then the second attack. He was attacked by the time he was coming from his work, he used to teach at a local school in Mabelreign. So they started beating him along the way from school and they told him ‘we are ZANU PF guys and we are after you, we will win you this one day, you should stop that MDC thing’. It was a strong knock and I knew that something wrong is going to happen, or even my husband just know that something was just going to happen, something and we didn’t open the door, they break the door, then they enter the house.

The three other men they hold my husband and the other two, they raped me one by one and I had no alternative just because they tie a cloth on my mouth so that I couldn’t shout and they raped me. Then they told me I will never ever see my husband again. I think my husband is dead. I started crying, shouting for help, then the other teachers they came to my house and I told them the whole story. Then they took me to their house up to the next morning, then we went to report to the Chief. Then from there, they didn’t do anything.

After the rapes I started having some colds, fever until I was tested and I was positive. Most of my time I am thinking of what happened to me, as a result I’ve got something in my hand that I won’t forget that event because I’ve got a result, I’ve got a baby. So each time I just look at the baby I just think of what happened to me and I don’t even know what I will tell the baby when she grows up. I suppose she’ll want to know who is the father and I don’t even know up till now what to tell her. There are so many people who are tortured and raped and most of the people they are scared to tell where they are still living in Zimbabwe, just like myself, if I was staying in Zimbabwe, I wasn’t going to tell this thing.”

Well that was one of the Zimbabwean women who was a survivor of the brutal rape campaign launched by Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF in the 2008 election period. Now the women, whose identities are being kept strictly confidential for security reasons, spoke to AIDS-Free World of extreme acts of brutality; some women were forced to watch the rape of their daughters and the brutal murder of their husbands and other family members before or after they themselves were raped, often by groups of men. Several other women were held as ‘sex slaves’ at ZANU PF base camps for up to two weeks. All the perpetrators of the attacks identified themselves to their victims as ZANU PF members. We have another testimony from another survivor of this brutal attack

“They just came and then they started beating me because they beat me first. They said ‘you people you want to sell our country to whites, you want to’, they are just talking strong like that. And then I was raped, they left me at home and then I was raped. Why they raped me because we support MDC because we need a change in Zimbabwe; we are tired of suffering; we are suffering in Zimbabwe, we are tired. All I want is for them to be arrested and then they must face the judges but all we want is justice because even to go to the police or what, they can’t do anything because they can’t arrest them because they are the same you know?”

Well that was another of the survivors of the brutal ZANU PF-led attack on MDC supporters which included the unbelievably brutal and systematic rape of women in the 2008 election period. Now these testimonies have been contained in the report by AIDS-Free World — ‘Electing to rape: Sexual terror in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe’. You can read that full report if you go to our web site: www.swradioafrica.com

Now these details are severe and shocking but despite this, the attacks in Zimbabwe appear to have been ignored by the world’s supposedly highest peace authority, the UN, which has sparked anger from AIDS-Free World who are trying to launch a case on the contents of the report in South Africa. Now the group’s Mr. (Stephen) Lewis last week told the UN Human Rights Council that it was ‘unforgivable’ that Zimbabwe has been left off the UN ‘Name and Shame’ list which is seen as a document that will change the course of history for women. Well I’m very pleased to welcome Mr. Lewis as a guest on tonight’s show and I thank you very much for joining me on Diaspora Diaries. Well Mr. Lewis you had some strong words for the UN last week and it’s all related to the ‘Name and Shame’ list released in January. First of all for some context, what is this list?

Stephen Lewis: In December of 2010 the Security Council said to the Secretary General — “we’re passing a resolution which requires you to provide for us a report on situations of sexual violence in conflict and begin to name the names, not just of the countries where the sexual violence is occurring, but of the perpetrators, whether they be militia groups or even individual assailants.” And there was a lot of skepticism about whether the UN would go that far but then in January of this year the Secretary General released a report which surprised everyone because it did name country after country where conflict was taking place and itemized the episodes of sexual violence, including a great of detail about individual perpetrators and about whether or not the groups that were behind the raping. Because this was all about rape, whether the groups that were behind the raping were associated with governments or were independent rebel groups, they were variously defined.

And then as recently as a couple of weeks ago now at the end of February, the Security Council actually debated the report and gave the report its blessing and indicated that they wanted further detail in the future. Then AIDS-Free World, the organization with which I’m associated, began to read the report and I was completely taken aback by the fact that right in the centre of the report, what they did was to argue logically, that conflict has many definitions: It doesn’t just have to be violent militia, internal civil war, it can also be politically orchestrated conflict and rapes which occur in those circumstances should also be included in this report and the countries should be named and shamed – that’s what naming and shaming means.

And then they listed Kenya and Egypt and Syria and Guinea and notably missing was Zimbabwe and it’s just totally fascinating that president Mugabe, with a history of using rape against women who support the opposition party that somehow Zimbabwe was exempt. So I went to the Human Rights Council to make the case that if you’re going to extend the principle of naming and shaming countries engaged in sexual violence and rape who are using it within an election context, then you have to extend it to Zimbabwe.

AB: Now you’ve mentioned some of the countries that were listed, especially in this category of election violence. Are they comparable then to the situation that we’ve seen in Zimbabwe?

SL: Our own feeling is that Zimbabwe exceeds them all because the pattern of sexual violence didn’t begin in 2008, it began in 1980 when Mugabe was Prime Minister, and certainly in 1987 when he became President this has been a strategy of his political apparatus. So if you look at it over the years, the numbers of people, women in particular who have suffered physical violence, sexual violence and rape certainly hugely exceeds Kenya — there’s no comparison — and yet Kenya was named. And it also would exceed Guinea and Egypt and probably even Syria. Syria is devastating at the moment of course but cumulatively I think that president Mugabe leaves a much more malign legacy.

AB: What does this say then about the UN and its relationship with Robert Mugabe, because this seems like a startling oversight?

SL: It is a startling oversight, it takes one’s breath away and I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. It could be that people still hark back to the days when Robert Mugabe was a freedom fighter and one of the front-line states opposing apartheid and nobody will deny that the roles of the countries like Zimbabwe and Tanzania for opposition to South African apartheid. But those days are long gone and President Mugabe’s career has deteriorated into a malevolent authoritarianism and in fact some would call it a kind of berserk tenure, demonic in its behavior. And again on top of that, there is this caution to go after former Commonwealth countries, I don’t know what that’s all about. But mostly I think it’s South Africa. Mostly I think it’s the refusal of President Mbeki and President Zuma to move in on Zimbabwe. I think President Zuma has been showing signs that he’s losing patience and that now Mugabe is calling for another election in 2012 and he’s past his 86^th birthday, that Zuma may be feeling that it’s time to bring Zimbabwe to heel but it’s had a lot of protection from the other African countries, particularly southern Africa and for that there’s no excuse. There’s no excuse in the world for African countries to have put up with President Mugabe.

If I can just make the necessary point — one of the reasons I raised this — I shouldn’t say “I”, AIDS-Free World raised this at the Human Rights Council and with a group of diplomats afterwards, is because it’s undoubtedly continuing according to reports and the raping will be as ferocious as ever when the election is called later this year and somehow the international community has to be alerted to the importance of stopping it.

AB: Well this was my next question because the document, this “Name and Shame” document, it’s being lauded as something that could change the course of history for women in the world, so why is it so important then that Zimbabwe’s included and this is raised in the international circles?

SL: Precisely because this document, for the first time, has the sort of legitimacy, the imprimatur, the authenticity of the Security Council; it’s a document where the most powerful nations in the world gathered together are saying to the rest of the world – “this behaviour is intolerable and we are going to confront it and we’re going to name it and we’re going to shame it and we’re going to tell the world how your misbehaviour is so brutal and callous and compromising the lives of women wherever it’s applied. “We’ve got to bring an end to the raping, it’s as simple as that and if Zimbabwe were included, and that’s the power of the report, I think that organizations like AIDS-Free World, are now fully at liberty to argue that president Mugabe be named and shamed by the Security Council and the United Nations. Just because Zimbabwe doesn’t appear in the report on this occasion doesn’t mean that it will be exempt in future occasions. I think people didn’t realize that the political and election related part of the report should encompass Zimbabwe and now that we can make that case, I think it will be easier to go after the president of Zimbabwe.

AB: Were people shocked or surprised when you raised the argument about Zimbabwe being left off?

SL: Yes, yes because these were Human Rights Council people, they are familiar with the sort of the Human Rights doctrine and therefore they were familiar with the resolution, it’s called Resolution 1960 that was passed back in 2010, they were familiar with the report and it’s so interesting that it hadn’t really fully occurred to people that Zimbabwe should be included. I mean just think of it — my co-director of AIDS-Free World and I, we’ve spent a week in Nairobi after the post-election violence in Kenya which was pretty severe, we spoke to endless numbers of women’s organizations and women activists who chronicled for us the sexual violence that had occurred but nothing that happened in Kenya, nothing, approximates what went on in Zimbabwe in 2008 in terms of the raping of women and will go on again in 2012, you can be absolutely sure if there’s another election called this year unless the international community intervenes. Diplomats suddenly realized that the oversight of not including Zimbabwe should be corrected. Corrected in the way we talk about it now and including it in the future.

AB: Were we to look at the state of this report then and the facts that the contents are hopefully going to be used within international courts, does the leaving out of Zimbabwe in this list impact if it’s to have this heard before courts?

SL: Well what we intend to do is to launch a case now with the National Prosecuting Authority in South Africa which can employ what is called Universal Jurisdiction where you can indict and try people from outside your own country if they have committed crimes against humanity which we believe we proved unassailably in 2008 and we are able to do that now because there was another case involving torture in Zimbabwe which is being taken to the High Court in South Africa and it will be heard at the end of this month and now we feel we are in a position to launch our own court case through the National Prosecuting Authority. So I think that what we are really seeing here is the beginning of a campaign to bring Zimbabwe to account, the beginning of a campaign to overcome the culture of impunity which has allowed president Mugabe doing some of the worst things to women that have been done anywhere in the world, we’ll probably finally be able to confront president Mugabe, both in law and (inaudible)

AB: A final comment then; you’ve mentioned a couple of times already that if the international community does not intervene, 2012 and a possible election in 2012 could have the same results for the women of Zimbabwe.

SL: I think that’s true; I don’t think it could happen, I think indisputably it will happen. Mugabe is a crazed politician, I’m sorry to use adjectives which are incriminating but I think they are accurate. I think anyone who follows the behaviour of president Mugabe, the language he uses, the weapons he employs, will understand that his wish to hold on to power or to hold onto power long enough to transfer it to somebody else of his choosing, that wish is just insatiable. He’s determined and the ploy that has been used most effectively in the past is the raping of the women of the MDC, the raping of the women of the opposition so that ZANU PF, the war veterans and the youth corps become the rapists and there is not a single question in our mind that president Mugabe will use that again and that women will suffer horrifically again and that’s why we’re trying to stir the momentum through the next several months so that the world is alerted to the possible carnage that is coming if the raping is repeated.

Listen to the interview here

Read the SW Radio Africa transcript here

Stephen Lewis to Speak on International Women's Day Panel

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:28:00 -0500

On March 8, International Women's Day 2012, AIDS-Free World co-director Stephen Lewis will speak on a panel in Geneva on "Capitalizing on women's potential in times of crisis." The panel discussion, moderated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, will also feature Maryam al-Khawaja, Head of Foreign Relations for the Bahrain Center for Human Rights; Kumi Naidoo, International Executive Director of Greenpeace; and Kim Phúc Phan Thị, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

The event will be livestreamed beginning at 12 noon EST on the UN Webcast - Human Rights Council web site at http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/ (on channel 11 or 12).

The Times: Birth Control, HIV Link

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:20:00 -0500

Women using hormonal birth control, especially progesterone injections, are twice as likely to be infected with, or transmit, HIV, the results of a study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal show.

But a co-author of the study, Professor Helen Rees, of Wits University's Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, said that not all studies show a link between hormonal birth control and increased risk of HIV transmission.

The connection between the use of the hormone progesterone and HIV infection "is a grey area, and the world’s scientists are unsure of how to interpret it” she said.

“It is an outstanding question and nobody knows how to answer to it.”

The study followed 3790 couples where one partner was HIV positive.

The conclusion of the study was that women must be told "about potentially increased risk of HIV-1 acquisition and transmission with hormonal contraception, especially injectable methods", and about the importance of condoms.

In response, the World Health Organisation held a meeting in Geneva of 75 international experts who decided that the evidence was inconclusive.

In a recent press release, the organisation said "Women at high risk of HIV can safely use hormonal contraceptives".

Former Aids adviser to Unicef, and current co-director of AIDS-Free World Paula Donovan said that the press release was not true because the scientists had agreed that the data were inconclusive.

"The organisation has purposely kept women in the dark about the risk of injectable contraception," Donovan said. “Women have the right to make fully informed sexual and reproductive health decisions."

Rees, who attended the organisation's meeting, said a "room full of experts" agreed that the data were "troubling" and "inconclusive", and more research was needed.

She said doctors did not want to stop women using a contraceptive that worked where women were not easily able to access alternatives and more research might show it to be safe.

But Donovan said that the organisation is violating the rights of the 12million women using the contraceptive injection in sub-Saharan Africa by withholding the information.

"They knew about Depo-Provera (progesterone) users three fold rates of chlamydia and gonorrhoea, two of the sexually transmitted infections that place people at high risk of HIV," she said.

It is believed progesterone thins the vaginal wall, possibly making it more susceptible to infiltration by the HI virus, and suppresses the immune system.

Professor Rees, cautioned that experts don't know what effect of immune suppression has on HIV transmission.

Donovan said that every woman who receives an injection of hormonal contraceptive must also be given a three-month supply of male or female condoms and these should be paid for by the companies that profit from selling the progesterone injection.

The Department of Health's Eddie Mhlanga said its message remained: "Condoms must be used in conjunction with other birth control methods."

Pfizer, in there response to the article said "that it would be premature for non-definitive results to lead to changes in clinical practice. However, it is very important for physicians to strongly communicate to patients that hormonal contraceptives, including Depo-Provera, are not designed to protect against the transmission of disease. In this study, up to 30% of women engaged in unprotected sex despite the clear and immediate risk of HIV transmission. In cases where one partner is known to be HIV-positive, as was the case here, Pfizer believes that consistent and correct use of an effective barrier method must be considered absolutely mandatory."

Read the Times article here.

The Huffington Post: Planned Parenthood Whitewashing Life-and-Death Info on HIV Protection

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:24:00 -0500

How many factual errors can you make in a single press statement? Yesterday on the Huffington Post, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) heralded "another victory for women's health" following recent meetings at the World Health Organization (WHO). The world health body convened experts to discuss concerns about hormonal contraceptives and HIV, and to answer to the question: Do women who use hormonal contraceptives face higher risks of HIV acquisition and transmission? PPFA claims that the answer was "a resounding no." That's not true.

The real answer from WHO's experts was: WE DON'T KNOW. They could not draw conclusions from the available research: some studies found higher rates of HIV among women who use hormonal contraceptives, and others did not. Because the findings are inconclusive, and because global experts remain concerned — especially about injectable contraceptives, the most popular method used in sub-Saharan Africa — WHO strongly advises that women who use injectable contraceptives such as Depo Provera (the best-selling injectable by far) should also use condoms. (See the WHO Technical Statement.)

PPFA claims that the experts reviewed one study. Wrong. The experts reviewed all the best scientific research available. They found the data difficult to interpret, and declared that more research is essential.

PPFA claims that the WHO meeting focused on HIV-positive women's risks of transmitting the virus to their sex partners. Wrong again. Most of the data available, and most of the data reviewed at WHO's expert meeting, focused on women who are not HIV-positive, and on the question of whether injectable contraceptives put them at increased risk of acquiring HIV.

PPFA calls it a victory for women that WHO did not have enough data to change its rating of 1 on a scale that weighs data from 1 to 4, with 4 meaning "do not use this method." That simply means that at this point, WHO is equally uncertain about whether injectable hormonal contraceptives are entirely safe, or shouldn't be used. They issued a recommendation that stresses their uncertainty: "A WHO expert group reviewed all the available evidence and agreed that the data were not sufficiently conclusive to change current guidance. However, because of the inconclusive nature of the body of evidence on possible increased risk of HIV acquisition, women using progestogen-only injectable contraception should be strongly advised to also use condoms and other preventive measures."

PPFA's statement refers repeatedly to one study, but does not cite it or explain its findings. The Partners in Prevention study was conducted in Africa, and enrolled 3790 heterosexual HIV-discordant couples (meaning just one person in each couple was HIV-positive). At the end of the study, researchers found that there had been twice as many new HIV infections among women who had used injectable hormonal contraceptives as among those who hadn't, as well as twice as many new HIV infections among the male partners of injectable contraceptive users (Heffron R, et al, for the Partners in Prevention HSV/HIV Transmission Study Team. Lancet Infect Dis. 2012; 12: 19-26).

PPFA says that the study appeared in the Lancet this past November. In fact, it was October. PPFA says that "the findings contradicted the majority of previous research on the same topic," and PPFA refers to it as "this flawed study." Wrong again — very wrong. The findings added more data to the available body of evidence. These findings — and all findings on this topic to date — are derived from "observational data:" that is, while investigating other HIV-related issues, researchers observed that the hormonal contraceptive users in their study had higher rates of HIV acquisition and transmission. The researchers themselves note that such observational data has "limitations:" their study wasn't designed to answer questions about whether or not there is a causal link between using injectable hormonal contraceptives and higher risks of acquiring or transmitting HIV. Limitations are not flaws. The Partners in Prevention study's authors, as well as all the experts convened by WHO, agree that this data raises serious concerns, and that it is essential to carry out further research designed specifically to answer these questions.

AIDS-Free World understands the anxiety felt in the U.S. today, as the hard-won rights of women to choose and use safe, effective, affordable contraceptives are under attack by retrograde male political candidates. We share PPFA's fear. But sexual and reproductive rights are not advanced when the facts women need are withheld or misrepresented. Voluntary contraception is only voluntary when women understand the choices they have, and the risks as well as the benefits. Women's rights to informed consent are sacrosanct.

WHO made its own grave error by issuing a misleading press release after its expert meeting. The headlines declared that hormonal contraceptives can "safely" be used by women living with and at risk of HIV, but omitted the critical clarification — IF they also use a condom each and every time they have sex. When WHO was questioned about why their press release conflicted with the "Technical Statement" issued by their expert group (and only available on WHO's website), a spokesperson explained: "The press release was truly meant to be a very short statement that would lead people to read the Technical Statement. The Technical Statement received much more scrutiny from all those who participated. So really we should go with the Technical Statement."

AIDS-Free World is calling on WHO to retract the misleading press release it issued worldwide, and to replace it with the facts. We are also calling on WHO to make a recommendation that may actually save lives: When a woman receives a hormonal contraceptive injection to protect against pregnancy for three months, she must also be given a three-month supply of condoms. She must be clearly informed that unless she uses the condoms, she may be at increased risk of HIV.

We understand WHO's anxiety: What if women at high risk of HIV hear that experts are concerned about injectable hormones, and choose to stop using them until researchers have come to definitive conclusions? What if, as a result of that choice, many more women in countries with high rates of maternal mortality become pregnant? That may nor may not happen, but it is not WHO's choice to make. Both WHO and PPFA have an obligation to improve women's choices, and to inform women about their options. No global experts or family planning organizations have the right to censor the life-and-death information women need in order to weigh their own risks. Neither WHO nor PPFA has a right to make sexual and reproductive health decisions for women.

PPFA states that women need research, not restrictions. That much is true. But it, too, is only part of the story, and not the most important part. Women need information: complete, uncensored, and factually correct.

Read the Huffington Post article here.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: The Cultural War Against Homosexuals is Heating Up

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:45:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

I am loath to return to a topic more than once, but in this case I must make an exception. You see, the cultural war being waged against recognizing the human rights of homosexuals is heating up on the African continent, and the losers will inevitably be Africans themselves.

Since my last post on this subject, Uganda’s Minister of Ethics—ironically, acting unethically and illegally—broke up a private conference of LGBT activists just a week after the parliament saw the reintroduction of the bill that provides for the state-sanctioned murder of gays. After driving nearly 20 miles to personally trample on the constitutional rights of fellow Ugandans, the Minister admitted to the media that he had no legal right to deny the group their right to assemble. However, he justified his arbitrary abuse of power by claiming that Ugandans don’t want gays even associating in private. Adding insult to injury, in the very same week, Uganda’s President Museveni made the astonishing statement, during a BBC HARDtalk interview, that gays are “not persecuted or discriminated” against in his country. Such willful and transparent denialism by a world leader beggars belief.

Meanwhile in West Africa, a “kill the gays” bill similar to the one before the Uganda parliament was introduced into the Liberian Senate by Senator Jewel Howard Taylor, the former first lady whose ex-husband is currently on trial for his role in the savage atrocities committed during the Liberian Civil War. Apparently, Mrs. Taylor learned well the art of inflicting misery on innocent civilians from her ex-husband. It is remarkable that the President of this former US protectorate (and reputed US dual citizen), Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has been silent on this proposed bill, which would strengthen the already draconian laws against homosexuals in her country.

In the same week, a meeting of gays to discuss safer sex techniques was broken up by a mob led by Muslim imams in Mpato, Kenya. Kenyan news coverage of the event showed the group of homosexuals fleeing in chaos as the enraged rabble descended. Thankfully, no one was hurt in this latest violation of the human rights of Kenyan gays.

The supreme irony in these stories is that those responsible for these human rights violations actually believe their actions are in some way preserving African culture and, ostensibly, preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS. Such misguided logic is a function of centuries of western indoctrination in the art of divide-and-conquer which was used to keep Africa underdeveloped. Africans are once again being taught that resolving their differences (this time on the sensitive issue of sexual rights) should be done through the adoption of the most extreme measures, instead of relying on the spirit of tolerance for diversity which once saw advanced civilizations appearing on the continent while Europeans still lived in caves. Bankrupt African governments are also seeking to deflect attention from their poor performing economies by making scapegoats of gays.

Those who think trying to suppress homosexuality will somehow cause it to disappear must not have been paying attention during biology/bible class. Same-sex attraction is a fact of human sexuality. Pyramid paintings in Egypt show the first record of a homosexual couple in history, Khunmhotep and Niankhkhnum, who lived around 2400 BCE. Homosexuality is therefore clearly not un-African. Instead, it is homophobia that was imported into the continent, usually by western fundamentalist evangelical Christian missionaries. Trying to suppress same-sex attraction is futile; it can also be deadly. Male homosexuals are biologically more vulnerable to HIV, and unless they are allowed access to effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support interventions, they will become infected with this still incurable virus. Professor Chris Beyrer of Johns Hopkins University has produced research that demonstrates that the median access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support interventions is much lower in contexts that criminalize male same-sex intimacy. And if these men have to take female partners as a “cover” for their sexuality, the result is that the virus becomes entrenched in the general population.

Africa already has the highest HIV and AIDS burden. Efforts by those engaged in the cultural war against homosexuals on the continent are ensuring it stays that way.

AIDS-Free World Urges CEDAW Experts to Hold Government of Zimbabwe's Feet to the Fire

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:53:00 -0500

Zimbabwe is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), informally known as the women's rights treaty. It is legally obligated to prevent and address violence against women under this treaty. Zimbabwe reported on its progress in complying with CEDAW this week in Geneva. AIDS-Free World has asked the CEDAW treaty body experts (the "CEDAW Committee") to recommend that the Government of Zimbabwe take serious steps to investigate, prosecute, and redress the mass rape that ZANU-PF supporters perpetrated in 2008 as part of their campaign to win the election at all costs.

Short Recommendations to CEDAW Expert Committee relating to Zimbabwe’s Combined Second to Fifth Periodic Reports Drafted by AIDS-Free World, February 2012

Background
Before, during, and immediately after the March 29, 2008 harmonized elections in Zimbabwe and the subsequent presidential run-off on June 27 of that year, members of the political party in power, ZANU-PF, undertook an organized campaign of rape against women who were affiliated with the opposition party, the MDC. AIDS-Free World documented and reported on these crimes against humanity, which remain unaddressed to this day. Despite clear evidence that ZANU-PF supporters of President Robert Mugabe utilized rape as a tool both to quell women’s political participation and as part of a broader strategy to destroy community cohesion and illegitimately win the election, no body has sought to investigate or prosecute the widespread crimes. The official silence with respect to the widespread rape of women during Zimbabwe’s 2008 makes it imperative for the CEDAW Committee to address it. AIDS-Free World has been demanding, and will continue to call for an investigation into crimes against humanity perpetrated against women by the sitting President and his ZANU-PF party, despite the recognition that the Government of Zimbabwe will neither acknowledge the possibility that such crimes were committed nor investigate or pursue justice. This impunity casts a pall over Zimbabwe as a whole, but in particular renders impossible a next round of elections that will be free, fair, and safe for women. It also creates an environment of ongoing suffering, discrimination, and trauma for the women and their families who survived this widespread sexual violence.

AIDS-Free World, concerned that widespread rape in a country with a high HIV prevalence rate exacerbated an already raging pandemic, conducted research for almost one year to ascertain the scope and intensity of alleged politically motivated rape against women in Zimbabwe. More than three hundred hours of interviews with seventy women yielded reports of 380 rapes by 241 perpetrators. In every case, the perpetrators identified themselves, through their words and their clothing, as supporters of ZANU-PF, with members of its youth militia, agents of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) and people who identify as veterans of the liberation war and are now affiliated with ZANU-PF committing the crimes. Each woman targeted for rape was either an MDC member or closely related to MDC supporters. The victims ranged in age from five-year-old girls to older grandmothers. The women lived in both rural and urban areas, in every province of Zimbabwe, and while all the survivors experienced tremendous difficulties in obtaining medical care for their injuries, women from the rural areas were particularly disadvantaged.

Reports from Zimbabwe indicate that violence and intimidation by ZANU-PF supporters in anticipation of the next elections, as yet unscheduled, have intensified throughout 2011 to the present.¹ Zimbabwean women have already expressed concern that their participation in elections will, again, subject them to rape and other physical violence.² The effects of the 2008 campaign of rape are long-lasting: neither the women who were raped in the last election, nor family and community members who learned of those rapes, can participate freely and without fear in any future political contest involving ZANU-PF.

As President Mugabe has repeatedly expressed and demonstrated his willingness to maintain power at all costs, politically motivated rape around the next elections is all but inevitable.³ At the October 2011 Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review of Zimbabwe, the Government of Zimbabwe rebuffed all recommendations pertaining to investigating allegations of violations and combating impunity.⁴ Such disagreement with the recommendations of the Human Rights Council does not relieve the Government of Zimbabwe of its obligations under the CEDAW.

The Government of Zimbabwe’s second through fifth periodic report to the CEDAW Committee is silent on the issue of politically motivated rape and sexual violence associated with past elections. While the next round of elections has not yet been scheduled in Zimbabwe, President Mugabe has repeatedly called for them to occur as soon as possible. We urge the CEDAW Committee to recommend that the Government of National Unity of Zimbabwe take all necessary actions to address both the previous sexual crimes against humanity and prevent a future round of rape around the next elections.

I. Recommendations relating to redress for the widespread and systematic sexual violence that occurred around the 2008 harmonized and presidential elections.

(1) Publicly condemn, at the highest levels of government, politically motivated rape against the women of Zimbabwe. Make clear through public statements that zero tolerance for such crimes will be permitted.

(2) Invest an official entity — the office of the ombudsperson, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Human Rights, the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development — with the power to investigate the problem of rape against women in the context of past and future elections. As well, invite a delegation from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to enter the country and investigate in an unfettered and confidential manner rape occurring during the 2008 election period.

(3) Amend national law to provide for the investigation and prosecution of crimes of rape and sexual violence that rise to the level of international crimes; toward this end, the South African statute may be instructive. Such law should ensure that those convicted under such a statute are not eligible for amnesty.

(4) Create an independent Department of Public Prosecutions, separate from the Attorney General’s office, to investigate widespread rape occurring during the 2008 election period, and to conduct investigations ongoing for continued politically motivated violence. Invest the Department of Public Prosecutions with gender specialists who are expert at investigating and prosecuting crimes of sexual violence.

(5) Through the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development or some other entity, identify third-party intermediaries with the ability to conduct outreach to women in urban and rural communities regarding their experiences of politically motivated rape; such information should be obtained in a manner to protect the safety and confidentiality of respondents.

(6) Develop policies, a protocol, and an implementation process, through the Organ for National Healing or some other entity invested with power and funds, to investigate election-related rape from 2008 and award appropriate reparations to victims.

II. Recommendations relating to preventing future rape in the context of the next elections.

(1) Create the position of Women’s Desk in the ombudsman’s office, charged with monitoring election-related violence against women starting immediately.

(2) Pass new or amend existing legislation making rape during or related to elections a hate crime with enhanced sentences.

(3) Allow international election observers, in particular from African countries with respect election authorities (e.g. South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique) to enter the country immediately to observe current conditions for participation in elections; ensure that such observers have received specialized training in sexual violence associated with elections.

(4) Provide training to police forces, commencing immediately, on human rights and women’s rights, with an emphasis on preventing political rape against women.

(5) Invite peacekeepers from SADC, the African Union, and the United Nations to be deployed immediately until at least two months after the next elections, throughout the country, to prevent pre-election violence and post-election reprisals. Ensure that gender advisors are deployed as part of these peacekeeping operations.

Appendix

Zimbabwe’s obligations to address widespread politically motivated rape under international human rights and domestic law

Zimbabwe’s domestic legal obligations to address politically motivated rape are augmented by its commitments at the regional and international level. These commitments are intended to provide protection against and accountability for the kind of systematic rape that occurred in 2008.

The Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa, adopted by African Union Heads of State in July 2004, requires governments to launch campaigns against gender-based violence, strengthen laws to protect women, and end impunity for sexual crimes committed against women.

Zimbabwe has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), including the Protocol on the Rights of Women, obligating State parties to “adopt and implement appropriate measures to ensure the protection of every woman’s right to respect for her dignity and protection of women from all forms of violence, particularly sexual and verbal violence.” The Protocol specifically requires States to “punish the perpetrators of violence against women” as well as to establish programs to provide rehabilitation and reparations services to victims of such violence.

Zimbabwe is subject to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Declaration and Treaty, including the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, in which they committed to “ensure that perpetrators of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, rape, femicide, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation and all other forms of gender-based violence are tried by a court of competent jurisdiction.” Zimbabwe’s Parliament agreed to ratify the Protocol on October 21, 2009. Zimbabwe signed the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Declaration on Gender and Development of 1997, through which it promised to incorporate gender issues into its programme. Finally, Zimbabwe is a member of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which guides member states through its gender policy to carry out gender mainstreaming and women’s human rights.

As a party to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Zimbabwe is obligated to prevent gender-based violence, which constitutes discrimination.

Zimbabwe is also a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to life, the right to move freely, freedom from arbitrary detention, the right to participate in the government, the right to equality and non-discrimination, and a prohibition on torture, among others.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) protects children from discrimination on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions or beliefs of the child’s parents, legal guardians, or family members. Zimbabwe has ratified the CRC. Its failure to protect female children from sexual violence, as well as its unwillingness to investigate and prosecute those who commit sexual crimes against children, contravene its obligations under this treaty.

Zimbabwe ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which requires the government to take positive action to protect the right to health. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Physical and Mental Health articulated this action as “measures to protect vulnerable or marginalized groups, in particular women, children, adolescents, and older persons, in the light of gender-based expressions of violence.” Zimbabwe’s failure to prevent and punish gender-based crimes of violence constitutes a violation of the right to health.

Zimbabwe’s Constitution prohibits discrimination against women in its by section 23(2) (as amended by Constitutional Amendment 17 of 2005). While the Criminal Law Act, in chapter 9:23, prohibits rape (including marital rape) and sex trafficking, it does not recognize or criminalize widespread or systematic rape or rape as a crime against humanity. Consequently, mass rape can only be prosecuted on a case-by-case basis in Zimbabwean courts. Additionally, the principle of command responsibility, which permits the prosecution of high level or senior officials who order their subordinates to carry out rape, is not enshrined in Zimbabwe law, making it impossible to prosecute anyone other than that the direct perpetrators. The Draft National Gender-Based Violence Strategy of 2005 and its accompanying Action Plan make no mention of addressing widespread or systematic rape, such as occurred during the 2008 elections.

1 See, e.g., Human Rights Watch, World Report 2012: Zimbabwe, available at http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-zimbabwe-0; Terence Karimakwenda, “ZANU PF Violence intensifies in Mbare,” SW Radio Africa, January 19, 2012, available at http://www.swradioafrica.com/2012/01/27/zanu-pf-violence-intensifies-in-mbare/; “Political violence likely to characterise forthcoming elections,” Zimbabwe Daily News, January 25, 2012, available at http://dailynews.co.zw/index.php/news/34-news/6716-political-violence-likely-to-characterise-forthcoming-elections.html.
2 Tabitha Mutenga, “Women wary about elections in 2012,” Financial Gazette, January 6, 2012, available at http://www.financialgazette.co.zw/national-report/11037-women-wary-about-elections-in-2012-.html.
3 Geoffrey York, “In Mugabe’s entourage, suspicion of a political murder,” The Globe and Mail, February 14, 2012 (“Reports from Zimbabwe suggest that Mr. Mugabe intends to win one more election – by hook or by crook....”), available at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/in-mugabes-entourage-suspicion-of-a-political-murder/article2337758/.
4 See H.E. Patrick Chinamasa, Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs, Final Remarks, UPR Report of Zimbabwe, October 12, 2011, available at http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/2011/10/final-remarks-upr-report-of-zimbabwe-12th-universal-periodic-review.html.

IRIN PlusNews: WHO Clarifies Guidance on Hormonal Contraception and HIV

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

JOHANNESBURG — Four months after a study suggested women on hormonal contraception may be at an increased HIV risk, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reaffirmed the birth control method's safety, but strongly recommends that women on progesterone-only injections, like Depo-Provera, also use condoms to prevent HIV infection.

In October 2011 the British medical journal, The Lancet, published the findings of a study howing that women who relied on hormonal shots to prevent pregnancy doubled their HIV risk. They also found that women on this type of birth control and living with HIV doubled the chances that they could transmit HIV to their partners.

Although the women in the study did not identify their birth control methods, most were probably using the progesterone-only, depot medroxprogeterone acetate shot. More commonly known by the brand name, Depo-Provera, this drug is the backbone of most African family-planning programmes.

The study prompted WHO meetings in late January and February 2012, during which experts and civil society representatives reviewed research on hormonal contraception and HIV risk. However, because no clinical trial has ever looked specifically at this potential link, including the October 2011 study, evidence remains largely inconclusive.

In the absence of a proven link between hormonal contraception and HIV infection, the WHO issued a statement on 16 February standing by current guidelines that allow women living with or at high risk of HIV to use hormonal contraception. However, the body has recommended that current guidelines be amended to advise women using progesterone-only injections be strongly advised to use condoms concurrently to prevent HIV infection.

The need for future research into the matter was discussed at side meetings, said Dr Jared Baeten of the US University of Washington, one of the authors of the 2011 study. Although no decision was taken, he added that conducting such a trial would pose serious challenges. About 12 million women in sub-Saharan Africa are estimated to be on injectable contraception.

Women need options and integration

"I think the [WHO] statement really reflects what was an extremely thoughtful deliberation and detailed evaluation of the evidence," Baeten told IRIN/PlusNews.

"They made a clear statement by issuing a strong clarification and I think that what's important in the context of delivering family planning service is that we strongly remind women at high risk of HIV that contraception does protect against HIV and that condoms are the HIV preventative measure."

Baeten has worked in high HIV prevalence countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Uganda - all of which depend on family planning services to help fight high maternal mortality rates — and said he was also happy that the need to integrate family planning and HIV services, voiced by policy-makers and researchers at the meeting, was recognized.

This would mean that health facilities providing care and treatment for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections would offer clients family planning and reproductive health services — and an extended array of contraceptive choices.

"What this statement should stimulate is making sure that women have access to a variety of contraceptive choices, and this could include intrauterine contraceptive devices (IUCD) or lower-dose, long-acting hormonal contraception," Baeten added. "The point is that Depro shouldn't be the default."

IUCDs are available in both hormonal and non-hormonal forms. A device is inserted into a woman's uterus, where it affects the ability of the sperm to fertilize an egg, and the egg's ability to implant itself in the uterus. The devices are cost-effective and work for almost all women, according to research by the Maternal, Adolescent and Child Health division at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Dissent in the ranks

There has been some criticism of the WHO. Paula Donovan, former East and southern Africa AIDS advisor for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), now heads the international HIV advocacy organization, AIDS-Free World, with former UN Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis.

Days before the WHO released its statement, Donovan issued a statement of her own slamming the body for not moving sooner on consultations when it had convened emergency meetings on past issues like swine flu. She faulted the WHO for not involving more people living with HIV in discussions, and because the body did not issue clear or cautionary messaging to the public following the 2011 study.

According to Donovan, only one HIV-positive African woman was present at the WHO meeting, and confidentiality agreements prevented her from sharing what was discussed with networks of activists and people living with HIV.

Donovan has also criticised the WHO statement, saying that it goes too far by conclusively stating that women living with or at high risk of HIV can continue to use hormonal contraception when the evidence is inconclusive.

"WHO and UNAIDS have violated human rights by withholding information," Donovan said in her statement. "They have failed to inform women that using hormonal contraception may carry some risk. Women have the right to make fully informed sexual and reproductive health decisions."

She added that she would have liked to see the WHO go further in its recommendations, advising that all hormonal contraceptive users be given a three-month supply of condoms with every injection.

"No reasonable person can believe that condom use will increase because the WHO issued a statement declaring that hormonal contraceptives are safe - but condoms should also be used to protect against HIV," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "Statements don't prevent HIV. We would have hoped that [the] announcement would have been accompanied by a plan of action."

Read the IRIN article here.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: The Deadly Bill That Refuses to Die

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:03:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

A deadly pall hangs over Africa: After failing to be voted on in 2011, the hateful anti-homosexuality bill that may allow for the death penalty for homosexuals has been reintroduced into the Ugandan Parliament. From the looks of things this piece of medieval barbarity is slated to pass with nearly unanimous parliamentary support. On February 7, when the bill was re-tabled in Parliament, there was thunderous applause and whoops of endorsement from the floor of the chamber as parliamentarians, almost to a person, tried to outdo each other in vociferously expressing a need for this bill, which may make it legal for the state to kill gays and arrest anyone who doesn’t inform on them.

The Ugandan president, wisely acceding to evidence about the devastating impact this bill will have on his country and international pressure calling for its rejection, has stated that his government does not support it. However, this presidential guarantee is cold comfort to gay rights activists in Uganda and others who oppose the bill as it is clear Parliament intends to overrule any attempted Presidential veto.

Tragically, the misguided members of Uganda’s Parliament actually believe that by supporting this abhorrent legislation they are actually doing something that will assist in the development of their impoverished and struggling nation. Such is the power of blind faith uninformed by science, and blind faith is the driving force behind this bill. Evangelical groups, mostly sponsored by their counterparts in North America, are engaged in a concerted effort to re-colonize the minds of Africans with hate for their fellow citizens. The legislation was first introduced in 2009 one month after a two-day conference in Uganda at which three American evangelical Christians asserted that homosexuality is a direct threat to African families. After these evangelicals had done their dastardly deeds they retreated to the safety of their home country, where access to justice and health care are more readily available, leaving Africans to wallow in the mess they left behind. Undoubtedly there were and continue to be vague promises of financial support to counter the inevitable fall-off in international aid and investment when countries, companies and allies refuse to support such backward homophobic policies, but why trouble oneself with such details? After all, this is a (cultural) war and there have to be causalities. Best that these casualties not be from your own country.

And casualties there will undoubtedly be as a result of the still deadly matter of HIV and AIDS in resource poor Uganda. Despite overwhelming evidence that laws which criminalize same-sex intimacy serve to severely retard the HIV response by driving homosexuals underground, away from effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support interventions, the ladies and gentlemen of the Ugandan parliament have persisted in doing their best to further entrench the disease on African soil. A clearer dereliction of Parliament’s duty to make laws for the peace, order and good governance of society can hardly be found. With the African continent bearing the highest HIV and AIDS burden and in dire need of more resources to combat it, the fact is that the recent actions by the Ugandan parliament will make the UNAIDS goal of getting to zero a pipe dream on that continent. Africa’s porous borders will see to that.

A troubling footnote to this sorry story is that countries in the global north (all of whom are parties to the UN Refugee Convention) are increasingly less willing to grant visas to noted Ugandan gay rights activists under the expectation/fear that once these activists leave Uganda they will not return. This effectively condemns such persons to certain imprisonment or, worse, death at the hands of Ugandan officials and their fellow citizens. This attitude by the global north is reprehensible as there is more than enough evidence that the homophobia now gripping Uganda is largely driven by fundamentalist Christian beliefs imported from the global north. These countries therefore have a moral or, at least, ethical responsibility to assist the victims of their exported homophobia to flee if they so choose. This is no time for fine diplomatic words as, make no mistake, people will die. Exactly how many David Kato’s are needed before the world responds effectively to this looming Ugandan and African crisis?

The UN’s Gag Order on Reproductive Health

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:13:00 -0500

Invitees who attended back-to-back World Health Organization (WHO) consultations at the start of February were required to sign confidentiality agreements prohibiting them from talking about the meetings. They had to promise not to divulge anything that was said during the three days — not to colleagues, not to their networks, and especially not to journalists, who might misreport the facts. The world health body explained that journalists often exaggerate, and the UN doesn’t want to induce panic. The media will be informed when WHO holds an additional meeting of UN insiders on February 15, behind closed doors, and prepares a carefully worded public statement for release the next day.

The highly classified topic of discussion wasn’t a nuclear threat or a new virus that can kill within days. It was birth control.

WHO’s gag order is just the latest in a years-long effort by the United Nations’ AIDS apparatus to limit how much women know about possible links between HIV and injectable hormonal contraceptives. The UN appears to have forgotten that its job is not to control women’s sexual and reproductive decisions, but to inform them.

Here’s what the UN knows: In July 2011, researchers led by Renee Heffron at the University of Washington in Seattle presented findings from studies involving 3,790 sero-discordant couples (one HIV-negative and one HIV-positive partner) in east and southern Africa.¹ The data compared women who had and women who had not used hormonal contraceptives during the research periods: twice as many HIV-negative hormonal contraceptive users acquired the virus. The rates of transmission from HIV-positive women to their male partners was also two times higher for users of hormonal contraceptives. (The findings focused on injectables because very few study participants took hormonal contraceptives in pill form, making the higher rates of HIV infection and transmission in that group “statistically insignificant.”)

In laypersons’ terms, hormonal contraceptives are products that adjust a woman’s hormone levels to prevent ovulation and pregnancy. In the east and southern African countries where the research was carried out, injectable hormonal contraceptives (“depot medroxyprogesterone acetate,” or DMPA) are the top choice of women who use contraceptives, and the Depo-Provera brand owned by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc. is the most widely used. Despite common side effects, popular features of the method are that one injection lasts three months, and a woman’s sex partner need not know that she is using a contraceptive.

The findings by Heffron and colleagues weren’t definitive; it would take years of additional research to determine beyond a doubt whether or not hormonal contraceptives actually double women’s risks of acquiring or transmitting HIV during unprotected sex. But the research team was concerned enough last July to say: “Our findings argue for policies to counsel women about the potential for increased HIV-1 risk with hormonal contraceptive use, especially injectable DMPA use, and the importance of dual protection with condoms to decrease HIV-1 risk.”

WHO and UNAIDS were not shocked. They had known for years that other research had linked sub-Saharan Africa’s most widely used form of birth control to higher rates of HIV. They knew about Depo-Provera users’ three-fold rates of chlamydia² and of gonorrhea,³ two of the sexually transmitted infections that place people at high risk of HIV,and about research showing that condom use decreased when women started using Depo-Provera.⁴ They were aware that women’s health advocates have been battling drug companies and policymakers for decades over Depo-Provera on a range of issues, including the ethics of clinical trials in developing countries, and the contraceptive’s connection to breast cancer and to health hazards that warrant a “black box” label, the US Food and Drug Administration’s most dire warning. The UN was aware that the new data on HIV and injectable hormones raised new questions about the safety of a method that women cannot reverse for three months. They knew all this and much more, but hadn’t conducted a systematic review of the best evidence since 2009, when an official guidance document (which included a small-print statement that “potential drug interactions between many antiretroviral drugs and hormonal contraceptives might alter the safety and effectiveness of both”), nevertheless concluded that “women at high risk of HIV infection and those who are living with HIV can safely use hormonal methods.”⁵ The new evidence presented by Heffron et al didn’t cause the UN to move faster.

On the contrary, WHO reacted in July 2011 to the latest and most concerning observational data (uncovered in the process of looking for something else) by announcing that they had scheduled a ‘technical consultation’ for February 2012, seven months down the road. But in the interim, on October 4th, Heffron and colleagues published their research in The Lancet, and it was reported in The New York Times. Word began trickling down, by word of mouth and in distorted versions, to contraceptive users in east and southern Africa. Even then, neither WHO nor UNAIDS felt obligated to address women’s questions, quell the rumors, or correct the misinformation that naturally circulated in the absence of facts. The February 2012 meeting wasn’t moved up. Unlike swine flu, which gave rise to nine Emergency Committee meetings at WHO before it eventually killed roughly 19,000 people worldwide, no urgent response was triggered by the threat of a doubled HIV risk for 20 million hormonal contraceptive users on a continent where tens of millions have died of AIDS. WHO made no effort to send a balanced, cautionary message out to the general public. No information was issued to government health officials, nor to the healthcare providers who offer birth control or HIV testing, prevention, and treatment services; no one was reminded to stress the need, now more important than ever, of using condoms along with hormonal contraceptives. No attempts were made to make male and female condoms more widely available to hormonal contraceptive users, at prices and in quantities that could encourage their use, and no public information campaigns have been initiated to spread the word.

WHO and UNAIDS each posted statements on their websites—separate ones, with different messages—which were seen by people who regularly comb the WHO and UNAIDS websites. WHO’s statement did not remind those readers about the importance of condom use.⁶ But both statements offered disturbing insights into why the UN was withholding information from hormonal contraceptive users — 20 million in sub Saharan Africa, including 12 million who make use of injectable methods and 8 million who opt for pills. They were afraid that African women might abandon hormonal contraceptives altogether. That would result in more pregnancies. More pregnancies would lead to more maternal deaths, since pregnancy is especially risky for women who have HIV. More unintended pregnancies might cause more women to undergo unsafe abortions. And if more HIV-positive women went through with pregnancy, that would put more babies at risk of infections.

Those possibilities are all real. So is the possibility that hormonal contraceptive use will increase a woman’s risk of HIV infection.

But it’s not the right of the United Nations to make that choice for a woman.

Says the UN, when it’s speaking in public:

“The human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health…”⁷ and

“Failure to provide information, services and conditions to help women protect their reproduction health…constitutes gender-based discrimination and a violation of women’s rights to health and life.”⁸

WHO and UNAIDS have violated human rights by withholding the information. They have failed to inform women that using hormonal contraceptives may carry some risk, and that it is especially important now for women who use them to protect themselves and their partners from HIV by using condoms at the same time.

Women have the right to make fully informed sexual and reproductive health decisions, whether or not the UN likes those decisions.

AIDS-Free World asked a WHO spokesperson how the agency would communicate to women after their February consultation. She answered that they hadn’t thought much about it; mass communication isn’t WHO’s strength. Perhaps they’d publish an article in a medical journal and in The New York Times. They certainly would welcome our input. We asked if we could attend the February meeting, and were told that, “As our capacity for participants is limited, we have representatives from UNAIDS, IPPF, the International Coalition of Women Living with HIV/AIDS and the Family Life Association of Swaziland attending the consultation. We apologize for not being able to accommodate additional organizations and representatives.” (We eventually got hold of the participants’ list. Invitations were issued to 81 people, just one representing women living with HIV. Of the 61 non-UN staff, nearly half were experts from the US.)

AIDS-Free World turned to UNAIDS (the body responsible for coordinating all the UN’s AIDS work, ensuring no overlap and no gaps) with an appeal to hold an urgent meeting in conjunction with the early February consultation WHO was planning. We asked the Executive Director to gather a small group of communications experts to help the UN develop a rapid dissemination plan. That way, right after the WHO technical meetings, UNAIDS would be ready to disseminate clear, factual information through every possible channel to reach the women who need it. We argued that the UN’s information lockdown had to end: women who are making decisions that have to do with sex and birth control and HIV have the right to know what the UN does knows and what it doesn’t yet know — today.

On December 13, the UNAIDS Executive Director replied: “I am pleased for UNAIDS to help convene all partners to take forward this communications meeting.” UNAIDS would host; the timing and venue were settled. A week later, his staff backed out of the commitment. On second thought, UNAIDS thought such a meeting would be premature. And expensive. Sometimes teleconference calls are a more efficient way to plan global strategies than in-person working sessions. And (said the UN’s AIDS coordinating body) their WHO colleagues might perceive a UNAIDS meeting as “oppositional” to theirs.

I traveled instead to east Africa, where 40 women — women’s rights advocates, researchers, medical professionals, HIV and reproductive health counselors, activist women living with HIV from Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Uganda, South Africa, Kenya and the US – met to discuss what we wanted the UN to hear from women at its technical consultation. After just half a day of discussion, there was consensus, including:

“It is not sufficient to say that the data are mixed and we need more research…. Clear information must be provided now on the potential risks of both HCT use and pregnancy. Women need clear and balanced information on what is known and unknown.”

“Women will not be divided by issues of various risks — the response cannot pit contraceptives versus maternal mortality. We don’t accept an “either/or” approach. Both problems need to be addressed.”

Because WHO couldn’t squeeze an additional chair for AIDS-Free World into its conference hall, we only know what was leaked from those meetings by several different attendees — including UN staff. They had taken the confidentiality agreement with a grain of salt: researchers can ask for signed assurances that their unpublished data won’t be quoted, but WHO’s prohibition against discussing anything raised during three full days seemed a bit overwrought. Speculation swirled about who has WHO so spooked: the American pharmaceutical companies that see hormonal contraceptives as a growth industry? Participating “experts” with ties to those companies?

In an ironic twist, the gag order prohibited the one African civil society representative who was invited to speak on behalf of the continent’s HIV-positive women from reporting back to her network about what she had heard and learned. That’s a new twist on the solemn UN principle of “Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV/AIDS.” It’s a new definition of “stakeholder” and a frightening new direction for facts about African women and HIV: information now flows in reverse, toward Geneva, where it’s held in a reservoir until WHO allows it to trickle out.

The UN has promised to release a statement on February 16. The communications departments of UNAIDS and WHO will work together on the wording. Their joint “communications plan” will then amount to sending a statement to the clogged inboxes of Ministers of Health, sending a press release to media outlets, and waiting to see who bites. On Thursday, then, it will suddenly become the job of journalists to distribute life-and-death health information to the world’s women — the same journalists who can’t be trusted by WHO to get the facts straight.

AIDS advocacy organizations and women’s rights groups have questions for WHO and UNAIDS as they prepare their statement. Haven’t the past 30 years taught us that information is the single most important weapon against HIV? Isn’t the UN in the business of advancing women’s rights to make their own informed decisions about sex and reproduction? Doesn’t the UN argue that there are enough men telling women and girls what they can and can’t do with their lives and their bodies — enough husbands and fathers and brothers, in-laws and clergy and heads of state robbing women of the right to make sexual and reproductive decisions? Doesn’t the right to information apply to African women, women who are living with HIV, and women with strong chances of contracting HIV? Doesn’t the UN in Geneva — which can never know the unique circumstances of women’s lives — trust informed women to weigh risks and benefits, and to make decisions for themselves?

And lastly, this far into the Information Age, shouldn’t UNAIDS and WHO have a better communication strategy than the blind hope that life-saving information will find its way to the world’s women from The Lancet and The New York Times?

Download a copy of this statement (PDF, 197 KB)

1 Heffron R, et al., “Use of hormonal contraceptives and risk of HIV-1 transmission: a prospective cohort study,” Lancet Infectious Diseases 2012 Jan;12(1):19-26. The study was funded by the Gates Foundation and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

2 Morrison, Charles S, et al., “Hormonal Contraceptive Use, Cervical Ectopy, and the Acquisition of Cervical Infections,” Sexually Transmitted Diseases, September 2004 Vol. 31, No. 9, p. 561-567.

3 Lavreys L, et al. "Hormonal contraception and risk of cervical infections among HIV-1-seropositive Kenyan women,” AIDS, 2004 Nov 5;18(16):2179-84.

4 Sangi-Haghpeykar H, Posner SF, Poindexter AN 3rd, “Consistency of condom use among low-income hormonal contraceptive users,” Perspect Sex Reprod Health. 2005 Dec;37(4):184-91.

5 WHO, Medical Eligibiity Criteria for Contraceptive Use, 2009.

6 http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2011/WHO_RHR_11.28_eng.pdf

7 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, paragraph 96.

8 http://www.unfpa.org/gender/empowerment.htm

For more information:
Paula Donovan
TEL: +1-781-734-0330
pd@aidsfreeworld.org

Global Commission on HIV and the Law: Criminal Law as a Risk Factor for MSM

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:41:00 -0500

Regressive laws endanger LGBTI individuals

International human rights law has slowly progressed in recent years to better ensure that people of all sexual orientations and gender identities can exercise their human rights.¹ Yet recent years have also witnessed the increasing criminalization of sexual minorities, particularly men who have sex with men (MSM), in many countries. This rise in criminalization and homophobia often means that the proportion of MSM who contract HIV remains very high, as many are simply too traumatized or afraid to seek treatment, or even to carry condoms to protect themselves, and governments make no attempts to reach them with targeted information, prevention, or treatment services.

“I pay tribute to the young homosexuals who died in anonymity without anyone caring about them. Today I want to cry out and express my anger. And there’s every reason to be angry.”—activist from Cameroon

Currently 76 countries in the world outlaw homosexual acts.² Punishments range from monetary fines to the death penalty. Many of these discriminatory laws in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are remnants of colonization; within the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of countries once ruled by Great Britain, 40 out of 51 member states continue to criminalize homosexuality in some form. In some instances, it is right-wing Christian movements from the United States that are seeking to strengthen and reinvigorate these legal relics from colonial times, as a way to spread their anti-gay agenda around the world.

The testimony given to the Global Commission on HIV and the Law brought the discrimination against MSM into frighteningly vivid focus. Individuals whose lives are at risk on a daily basis, either because of their sexual orientation or gender identity or merely for supporting MSM advocacy, told their stories. Here are just a few examples, given by activists during the Global Commission’s Regional Dialogues, of the crimes perpetrated against them.

Murder

• “‘Social cleansing’…is committed by neighbors or strangers whose primary aim is to eliminate gay and transgender people from the neighborhood or community. ‘Social cleansing’ appears to be the main source of the murders of LGBT people.” — activist from Honduras

• “Within the last year, more than 20 trans and gay people have been assassinated. These are the only ones that we have been able to detect through out networks and friends in the community.” — activist from Guatemala

• “Although incidences of violence, harassment and murder against people who live with HIV and have a different sexual orientation than heterosexuality continue in Latin America, there is no real response from the state or a true public response to the situation.” — activist from Colombia

Torture

• “A number of men in MSM networks in Trinidad who sought sexual partners on an extremely popular internet site began to fall victim to a pattern of opportunistic crimes. In the worst instances they were kidnapped, tortured, robbed, anally gang-raped and threatened with blackmail if they reported the crimes.” — activist from Trinidad & Tobago

• “‘Corrective’ rapes of lesbians to ‘make them straight’ are not uncommon” — lawyer from Jamaica

Abuse by the state and by law enforcement

• “I was 24 when I was imprisoned unfairly on the basis of my sexual orientation and my HIV status.” — activist from Ivory Coast

• “The police use condoms as evidence to arrest people, close down entertainment venues and thus hamper prevention efforts. MSM are compelled not to carry condoms…” — NGO submission from Thailand

• “Recent reports indicate that there is an increasing number of Caribbean nationals seeking political asylum in the UK and North America on the basis that they fear persecution on account of their sexual orientation.” — lawyer from St. Lucia

The deadly link with HIV

Expert evidence provided to the Commission demonstrates that the criminalization of sexual orientation and gender identity has a devastating impact on HIV prevention work and on access to health care generally. In addition, the activists at the Regional Dialogues articulated ways that the criminalization of MSM has made them increasingly vulnerable to HIV:

• “The HIV prevalence rate among Jamaican men who have sex with men (MSM) is 32% as against 1.6% in the general population… The criminalization of male same-sex conduct not only breeds homophobic violence; it also systematically drives Jamaican lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals underground, away from effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support interventions.” — lawyer from Jamaica

• “HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men in Trinidad & Tobago has been measured at 20%, four to eight times higher than estimated national rates of HIV.” — activist from Trinidad & Tobago

• “…the majority of MSM meet in conditions of secrecy and imminent risk, in places without guarantee of physical, emotional or personal security.” — activist from Mexico

• “[The laws against MSM] preclude the distribution of condoms in Jamaican prisons with the result that the HIV prevalence rate among inmates is twice the national average.” — lawyer from Jamaica

• “These narratives [from MSM] illustrate a sense that they have no confidence that health care providers, protective services, or even NGOs specializing in support for victims of sexual violence will not simply re-victimize them.” — activist from Trinidad & Tobago

Debates, Controversy, Challenges

Government officials attending the Regional Dialogues often expressed resistance to slowing or reversing the criminalization of MSM. Many claimed that they were merely supporting overall public opinion, and that they were unable to change their laws until “society changes first.” Activists argued strongly that the law exists to protect and defend people, and the state has a duty to all individuals — governments will never halt HIV if they only address “moral” people and exclude those they see as “immoral.”

AIDS-Free World Says…

AIDS-Free World denounces, in no uncertain terms, the criminalization of LGBTQI identities and the criminalization of any same-sex behavior. Not only does this criminalization violate human rights law, it has and will continue to serve as a death sentence for individuals all over the world — allowing them to be targeted for brutal violence, and putting them at a heightened, and completely unnecessary, risk of HIV.

There is an area of the Global Commission’s work where the need for a rights-based legal environment is painfully clear — an environment where religions, societies, or cultures that discriminate are kept in check, an environment where the law works to defend and protect individuals, and where culture is never used as justification for the violation of fundamental human rights.

AIDS-Free World has focused our organizational work in this area on the Caribbean, and we have just presented the first-ever legal challenge to Jamaica’s anti-gay laws. Read more about the legal challenge here.

The Commission on HIV and the Law Says…

The final report of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law will be released in the first half of 2012.

¹ See The Yogyakarta Principles: The Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, available at http://yogyakartaprinciples.org/; See also CESCR, General Comment No. 14 (2000): The right to the highest attainable standard of health (article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), U.N. Doc. E/C.12/2000/4, (11/8/00), para. 18.

² State-sponsored Homophobia: A world survey of laws criminalizing same sex sexual acts between consenting adults. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. Available at http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/1161.

It's Not Complicated: Money Will End AIDS

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:22:00 -0500

Stephen Lewis, streaming live: 10:45 a.m. EST. In a 15-minute speech to the Dutch Postcode Lottery, the world's third-largest non-governmental contributor to development and human rights, Lewis sets out three solutions that could be ending AIDS now, if we'd just spend the money.

The event can be viewed on livestream at http://www.postcodeloterij.nl/Organisatie/LivestreamGoedGeldGala2012.htm.

Global Commission on HIV and the Law: Criminal Law as a Risk Factor for IDUs

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:58:00 -0500

The links between HIV and the criminalization of injecting drug users generated significant discussion amongst the activists and government representatives who participated in the Regional Dialogues. Here are some of the voices that emerged.

Injecting drug users said…

• “I have often been ill-treated only for the fact that I am a drug user and I was repeatedly tortured during interrogation.” — man from Ukraine

• “In country there is no state rehabilitation program. There is no substitution therapy. The country has violated the rights, according to some estimates, of several million people. Several million drug users who are denied the right to be human.” — woman from Russia

• “Policies on drugs and HIV are often developed separately, with neither coordination nor coherence.” — NGO submission from Nepal

• “Campaigns against drug users include…stigmatizing media coverage, public beatings of drug users, and public shame.” — woman from Nepal

• “There was, and is still, no clean injecting equipment available in Thai prisons, or opiate substitution therapy.” — NGO submission from Thailand

• “Criminal charges against IDUs because of drug use mainly leads to their arrest. Despite the fact that the judicial authority shall decide on compulsory treatment of IDUs in prisons, no such treatment and rehabilitation programs exist. At the same time in the prisons of the country there is no methadone program.” — woman from Azerbaijan

• “Quite a big number of prison inmates are drug users, who continue to inject and usually tens of people share the same needle, which exposes them to extremely high risk of transmission of HIV and other blood infections.” — NGO submission from Bulgaria

• “On the basis of the substance abuse records in which I was registered when I first asked for medical help, I became a man whose rights are violated and can continue to be violated. For example, information about my diagnosis and my drug use were disclosed without my consent and on that basis that my driver’s license was taken away, even though I have not used any drugs for the past 7 months. This is a mass practice in our country and my city. Many of my friends have already suffered. This arbitrariness continues. Because of the [substance abuse] record we have many other difficulties, for instance with employment and education.” — man from Russia

• “Most of our drug policies are still punitive, embracing a ‘quit or die’ approach.” — man from Nigeria

• “These debates cannot ignore the consequences of drug control policies in the region: social isolation, disproportionate numbers of drug users and 'mules' incarcerated, social violence, environmental damage and violations of basic human rights.” — woman from Argentina

Women and Injecting Drug Use

Why are women in Eastern Europe and Central Asia who inject drugs reported to be at a higher risk of acquiring HIV than men?:¹
(1) They are reported frequently being “second on the needle” after men when sharing injection equipment.
(2) There is a significant overlap between drug use and sex work, and many women who inject drugs will exchange sex for drugs. UNAIDS estimates that 35 percent of women living with HIV in Eastern Europe and Central Asia acquired the virus through injecting drug use, and a further 50 percent were infected through unsafe sex with partners who inject drugs.
(3) Female drug users are frequently denied health care, and many reported judgmental attitudes by health care providers.
(4) Female drug users experience high levels of poverty, incarceration, and domestic violence – all risk factors for HIV.

Debates, Controversy, Challenges…

Regional differences quickly came to light. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the only part of the world where HIV rates remain on the rise, the pandemic is heavily concentrated amongst injecting drug users. In contrast, there was only one submission at the African Regional Dialogue addressing injecting drug use and HIV, although activists warned of a looming crisis as drug trafficking through West Africa continues to rise.

Government representatives at the Regional Dialogues were reticent to address the issue. Russia, a country repeatedly shamed by the human rights community for its regressive, brutal drug policies, refused to send any government representation to the Eastern Europe Regional Dialogue. During the African Regional Dialogue, some of the government representatives left the room during the discussions about injecting drug use so as not to be associated with the topic. Other government representatives expressed fear that if they called for the decriminalization of injecting drug use, they would be criticized for promoting drug use or encouraging the legalization of all drugs and drug trafficking. Experts invited to present informed opinions to the Commissioners and the civil society participants at the Regional Dialogues responded thoroughly to these concerns. Here is a small sample of the debates that took place.

POINT	COUNTERPOINT
Only injecting drug use directly spreads HIV, through the sharing of needles, and in the context of HIV and the law, this is the only type of drug use that policymakers should address.	• Criminal prosecutions for possession of drug use place huge numbers of people who use drugs of any kind in state custody, in conditions where their vulnerability to HIV is further heightened. • A comprehensive harm reduction program for injecting drug users includes switching to snorting or smoking drugs. If the Commission only calls for injecting drug use to decriminalized, rather than encouraging harm reduction, they would be calling for approaches that could potentially encourage people to inject. • Recent epidemiology suggests stimulants are also major drivers of the HIV epidemic.
Depriving injecting drug users of drugs will reduce drug consumption.	• Injecting drug users are placed in jail for long sentences, and in many countries prisons do not provide any form of substitution therapy or syringe exchange. As a result, most continue to inject drugs but are forced to use covertly and to share dirty needles in prison, placing them at high risk of contracting hepatitis C or HIV. This deprivation ultimately becomes a death sentence because in many countries prisoners receive no medical treatment for tuberculosis, hepatitis C or HIV.
If governments take a strong stance on injecting drug use, they will be criticized for calling for the legalization of all drug use and drug trafficking.	• Governments should amend their laws to decriminalize drug use not for trafficking. This will allow countries to implement harm reduction, focus on critical, life-saving public health measures, and protect the human rights of individual drug users who are not causing harm to others.
It is sufficient to recommend that countries decriminalize the possession of “small amounts of drugs.”	• Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia have already decriminalized trace amounts of drugs. Some activists from the region requested the Commission to specifically call for “decriminalization for the purpose of personal use.” • Others urged the Commission to specifically state that threshold amounts that are deemed for “personal use” should not be set so law as to render decriminalization illusory in reality – in many countries incredibly small amounts of a prohibited substance are deemed to be “large” and attract serious penal consequences.

AIDS-Free World Says…

The testimony provided to the Global Commission at the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Regional Dialogue was heartbreaking. The laws and policies inflicted daily on people who use drugs violate their human rights and their basic humanity. Activists from these countries recounted the long string of abuses they have faced because of their drug use — from the denial of methadone, to police extortion, to the lack of adequate legal aid, to interrogation and torture, to long prison sentences without any basic medical care or treatment for HIV. Those who emerge from the grip of incarceration and try to restart their lives are often placed on national drug registries, allowing the state to deny them social support or employment, to arbitrarily arrest them again, or to take their children away. The system is simply stacked against them from the very beginning. Within a context of rising HIV rates, these policies are regressive and unconscionable — and even more so because the spread of the virus is preventable.

“At some point, reasonable people must surely recognize that injecting drug use is an illness, a public health issue, not a target for punitive attack, or incarceration, or assault by the police. The mentality is profoundly warped … it’s as though injecting drug users weren’t human, and this environment of personal malice turns into the malice of the state.... When you have a conspiracy of hate directed against a vulnerable group, you can almost be certain that they’ll go underground, they won’t get tested, they won’t turn to prevention or treatment or care, and your prevalence rates for AIDS will soar through the roof.” — AIDS-Free World Co-Director Stephen Lewis

AIDS-Free World stands behind all of the courageous activists who came forward to testify and who work on these issues every day in incredibly difficult circumstances. We will continue to advocate for harm reduction, for drug policies driven by public health goals, and for the human rights of people who use drugs.

Remarks by Maurice Tomlinson, Receiving the Inaugural "David Kato Vision and Voice Award"

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

I would like to start off with a number of humble thank-yous. Thank you all for the tremendous honor bestowed on me this evening. Thank you to the International Planned Parenthood Federation for the vision in establishing and creating this Award. (Thank you Kevin for planting the seed a little over a year ago to the day!) To all on the Steering Committee (and to Frank its chairperson) and supporters who helped give a tangible shape to that vision. To all the fabulous people who worked tirelessly to organize this equally fabulous event—thanks in particular to Alastair, Daniel, Fiona, and the resource mobilization team at IPPF — you have all done David’s memory proud.

I would also like to thank my organization, AIDS-Free World, for allowing me to do the job that I love; Metropolitan Community Churches, in Toronto and around the world, for innumerable expressions of concern about my safety; my dear husband Tom for his nervous caution about my well-being; all the brave lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and around the world who remain unbowed in their determination to realize their full human rights; my still divided family for at least remaining open to me; my students for being curious about tolerance; and my country Jamaica for allowing a remarkable dialogue to take place about the very sensitive issue of human rights for homosexuals.

Pioneer and pariah are just two of the epithets I am sure that have been used to describe David Kato, because of his unwavering commitment to advocating for the full human rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people. However, I prefer to think David desperately fought, and ultimately gave his life, simply to make it easier for people like him, to go about our regular mundane lives contributing to the development of our families, countries, regions and the world. David sought to do this in his quiet unassuming way; focusing on documenting, educating about and responding to human rights abuses against LGBT in his beautiful country of Uganda. I try to do the same thing in my equally wonderful homeland Jamaica, which this year is celebrating its 50th year of independence.

I think what motivated David was a deep and abiding faith in the goodness of all humankind, especially his fellow countrymen. I am sure he felt that if his people only knew what tremendous harm intolerance and homophobia were causing to countless of their fellow citizens — including the spread of HIV as a result of vulnerable groups being forced underground away from effective prevention, treatment, care and support interventions — then all Ugandans would, in one voice, call for an end to such acts of cruel inhumanity. That is why he vigorously opposed the draconian and despicably medieval anti-homosexuality bill which was before the Ugandan parliament. And that is quite possibly why he was so savagely murdered.

Jamaica has been described as the most homophobic place on earth; one Ugandan commented that David’s murder reminded him of the type of homophobic attacks usually reported from Jamaica. One such attack was the brutal and barbaric slaying on October 18, 2011, of a 16-year-old youth, Oshane Gordon in the resort city of Montego Bay. Early in the morning, a gang of thugs barged into Oshane’s home and slashed him on his foot to slow his escape as he tried to flee through a window. When they caught up with Oshane, the men finished him off with several more blows from their machetes. Oshane was killed because of “questionable relations” with another man and his mother was also severely cut up for harboring him.

Since 2009, AIDS-Free World has been engaged in an ambitious and aggressive program in partnership with the major LGBT group on the island, J-FLAG, aimed at documenting human rights abuses against homosexual Jamaicans. We were motivated to undertake this work by the vastly disproportionate level of HIV prevalence among Jamaican MSM (about 32%) as against a prevalence rate of 1.6% in the general population. This MSM HIV prevalence rate is about the highest in the world and there is evidence that the country’s notorious homophobia is a major contributor. Between 2009 and 2011 there has been a near 300% increase in the number of human rights violations against LGBT reported to J-FLAG, and highlighting these abuses has resulted in very supportive statements for the human rights of LGBT by Jamaican leaders of all stripes. Most noteworthy was a declaration during the December 2011 election leadership debate by Jamaica’s new Prime Minister, the Honourable Portia Simpson-Miller, that she rejected the homophobia of her predecessor, Bruce Golding, and would have no objections to appointing gays to her cabinet. She also stated that she would bring the matter of reviewing the country’s nineteenth century British colonial anti-sodomy law to a conscience vote in Parliament. While she was viciously attacked for her leadership on this contentious issue during the election campaign, she bravely stood her ground and the Jamaican electorate rewarded her and her party with a 2/3 majority in Parliament.

I see Prime Minister Simpson-Miller’s views as representing what I and my dear mother consider the true Jamaican “One Love” culture. As my mother tells it, during her youth, everyone knew at least one person in the village who was gay, but no one cared. People respected the privacy of others and the anti-sodomy law was rarely, if ever, invoked. There certainly were no marauding mobs seeking to eradicate gays from the society. However, all this changed during the 1980’s and 90’s when there was a coarsening of Jamaican society through a deliberate export of hate and intolerance to Jamaica by, ironically, American televangelists. These preachers spawned sick replicas of themselves in the form of local religious leaders who poured a steady stream of poisoning homophobia into the ears of their congregants on an almost weekly basis. Many of their parishioners and choristers consisted of young impressionable individuals who would later go on to record some of the most hateful homophobic songs on earth. These songs (over 200 of them at last count) contributed to a vortex of hate that swirled unchecked for many years and resulted in numerous assaults, mob attacks, extortion, and murder of Jamaican LGBT.

The previously unused law then became a fixture, and police — who are after all products of their society — started to extort, attack, or ignore attacks on gays who were perceived as unapprehended criminals. Despite the obvious harm caused by the existence of the anti-sodomy law, our independence constitution exempted it from judicial review. Last year, Jamaica completed a 12-year process of reviewing the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, but, sadly, the anti-sodomy law was once again “saved” from review by any domestic courts. So in August 2011, AIDS-Free World, on behalf of two gay Jamaicans, filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on the grounds that the anti-buggery violates numerous human rights found in the American Convention on Human Rights to which Jamaica is a party. I hope the new Jamaican PM will make this legal challenge redundant by simply calling for the conscience vote as she has promised.

A repeal of the law will not result in an immediate end to homophobia in Jamaica, in the same way homophobia still persists in the UK decades after the law was consigned to history. Sadly, evangelical Christian groups from North America are still funding and supporting a vicious fight to deny the human rights of Jamaican LGBT. However, one thing the law’s repeal will do is provide gay Jamaicans leverage when they seek assistance from police in the face of attack. When I first started receiving death threats as a result of my advocacy, I made an initial report to the police. The officer who received my report went off on a homophobic tirade stating, among other things, that he hates gays and that they make him sick. As a lawyer, I sat there stunned at the level of sheer unprofessionalism displayed by this agent of law enforcement. I later reported the matter to an Assistant Commissioner of Police (who was recruited from Britain and is financially supported by the UK) and he told me that such attitudes are unfortunate but they will not change until the law changes. The fact is, the anti-buggery law makes me — at least to Jamaican police — an unapprehended criminal with few, if any, human rights.

I fled Jamaica on January 10, 2011 after my marriage to Tom was made public when the Jamaica Observer newspaper (which is owned by Butch Stewart of “Sandals” Resort fame) published an unauthorized photo of our wedding on their web site. Even though I requested that the newspaper remove the picture because of the real threats it posed to my safety, they have refused. Since then I have started receiving a steady stream of death threats. I would like to return to Jamaica to continue teaching law at the University of Technology, Jamaica, as well as assist J-FLAG with their documentation and reporting of LGBT human rights violations, but I simply do not feel that the Jamaican police force would protect me. The Inter-American Commission has written to them twice on my behalf and they have failed to respond. So I may have to continue my work in exile, away from my mother, students, and my home. But I hope one day this vortex of hate will end, and I can once again return to the warmth of my amazing country, to teach my inspiring students, and be able to sit and chat with my mother after a wonderful bowl of her fabulous “Saturday soup.”

Until then, Mr. Chair, I promise, in David Kato's name, that I will never abandon my role in the struggle for the full human rights of LGBT until those rights are universally achieved.

Thank you.

For additional information, please contact:
Christina Magill
AIDS-Free World
TEL: +1-416-657-4458
clm@aidsfreeworld.org

AIDS-Free World Lawyer Maurice Tomlinson from Jamaica Wins First David Kato Voice and Vision Award

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:47:00 -0500

On January 29, 2012, AIDS-Free World’s Legal Advisor on Marginalized Groups, Maurice Tomlinson, will become the first recipient of the new David Kato Voice and Vision Award, which honors courage and innovation in advancing the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people.

As a Jamaican lawyer and activist advocating for LGBTI rights in a country where homophobic hate crimes and discrimination proliferate, Maurice puts himself at risk every day. It is rare for a Jamaican gay man to come out publicly and speak on behalf of sexual minority rights; most LGBTI advocacy in Jamaica occurs under cover of anonymity. Maurice, however, has recognized that the LGBTI movement in Jamaica needs faces and voices, and he has decided to lend himself to the struggle regardless of the personal consequences.

His charisma, tirelessness, and keen political sense have made it possible for Maurice to help build a movement across divides, and more than that, to unite HIV and AIDS organizations with LGBTI groups, women’s coalitions, and mainstream human rights networks. His intelligence and charm have also enabled him to open doors to some of Jamaica’s most prejudiced but powerful members of society, including politicians and church leaders. In the words of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, “Members of the LGBTI community celebrate him who is for many a hero, doing the things that they would only dream of doing for fear of their lives.”

It is precisely this combination of bravery, creativity, relentlessness, and commitment that the David Kato Voice and Vision Award honors. David Kato was a courageous and inspiring person, a man who fought for equality, dignity, and the rights of all people in a place where espousing tolerance was dangerous. He was murdered in his home in Kampala on January 26, 2011, several months after a tabloid published his photo as part of a diatribe urging violence against those it alleged were gay and lesbian. It was an incomparable tragedy and an incomparable loss. The prize honoring his legacy and memory will be presented to Maurice almost exactly one year after David Kato’s death, in London on January 29, 2012.

Like David Kato, Maurice Tomlinson is outspoken about sexual minority rights in a country where homophobia is strong and activism is risky. As it happens, the road to activism for Maurice was unusual. Over a dozen years ago, Maurice was a flight attendant for a major airline in Jamaica, and not particularly politically active. In that job, his supervisor told him that he needed to act more “masculine,” as his voice and mannerisms were off-putting to customers. His personal experience of raw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was revelatory. And he rightly connected it to HIV/AIDS in Jamaica, realizing that the disease could affect anyone, but particularly those who were oppressed and driven underground because of their sexuality.

Maurice subsequently went to law school, where he learned that discrimination against sexual minorities violates international law, and can be challenged with the right tools. After he obtained his law license, he initially practiced in the corporate realm, focused on intellectual property issues. However, he found himself increasingly drawn to LGBTI activism. He began to volunteer at Jamaica’s premiere LGBTI advocacy organization, Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), where he served on the board of directors. He also began to undertake pro bono work for Caribbean Vulnerable Communities (CVC), looking at a possible legal challenge to Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law. In March 2010, Maurice began full-time work with AIDS-Free World as the Legal Advisor for Marginalized Groups.

Maurice’s efforts to reverse the tide of discrimination that threatens to engulf every LGBTI person living in Jamaica have been creative and comprehensive. He communicates and meets regularly with government officials urging changes to bring Jamaican law and policy in line with international human rights standards. He speaks publicly and often about the toll that homophobia in Jamaica takes on national efforts to combat the HIV and AIDS pandemic in his country … a pandemic that has exploded amongst Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) to a prevalence rate of nearly 32%. Working collaboratively with many Jamaican organizations and networks, especially J-FLAG, he develops public education campaigns, including public service announcements and “Stands” advocating tolerance for all people in Jamaica.

He reaches out to powerful community leaders—including those who openly espouse homophobic views—to try to find common ground. He works to influence the next generation of Jamaican lawyers by teaching constitutional and international human rights law. Maurice is often the man who receives calls when someone from the LGBTI communities is beaten, evicted from his or her home, arrested, or killed. He is also the man who transports the injured person to the hospital, or offers his home as a refuge.

Finally, and of equal importance, Maurice has launched an unprecedented legal challenge to Jamaica’s “anti-sodomy” law (which criminalizes consensual, same-sex sexual activity) at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. This law, like many others of its kind, legitimizes homophobia by transforming homosexuals into criminals. In Jamaica, where vigilante justice against criminals is tacitly accepted, the anti-sodomy law has the effect of marking every actual or perceived LGBTI person as available for mob violence. This law also renders impossible a truly effective national response to the HIV and AIDS crisis, demonizing homosexuality, and inevitably discouraging access to testing, prevention and treatment. The legal challenge is the first of its kind at the regional level, and if successful, will have far-reaching implications for similar laws throughout the Caribbean and globally.

Maurice’s efforts to challenge homophobia in Jamaica have led, for the first time, to an open conversation in Jamaica about the rights of people of all sexualities. This public debate is controversial, confrontational at times, and essential to changing the status quo. But for Maurice’s work, supported by others in the LGBTI community, it simply would not have happened; public expressions of hatred and homophobia would have gone unchallenged, and LGBTI Jamaicans would have been driven further underground. The result of these efforts is that, in the words of Jamaican activist Yvonne McCalla Sobers, “His courage has created space for some persons to reveal their support for tolerance.”

During the Jamaican national elections, held on December 29^th, 2011, the Leader of the Opposition, the People’s National Party, said—in contrast to Jamaica’s last Prime Minister, Bruce Golding—that she would have no objections to gays in her cabinet. She won a landslide victory. The governing party had focused the final days of its campaign on attacking the opposition leader’s statements of tolerance and inclusion, marking the government for all to see as the premiere party of homophobia. That Jamaicans voted overwhelmingly for the party of inclusion, and therefore endorsed the opposition leader’s promotion of sexual tolerance, would not have happened without the public conversation challenging homophobia that Maurice, in a very real sense, initiated and pushed forward, inch by inch.

The political victory has huge implications. The new Prime Minister has promised a “conscience” vote on the anti-homosexuality law.

Maurice has borne the cost of these efforts courageously, but the hazard is real. There is no question that Maurice Tomlinson is at risk in Jamaica. Homophobic violence is common, as evidenced by the murders by machete, in November, 2011, of two gay men because of their sexual orientation. Maurice has received several death threats and has been recognized and jeered at on the streets of Kingston and Montego Bay. He regularly appears on television and radio to promote homosexual rights; he’s aggressively visible. He writes letters to the editor of all the major Jamaican newspapers, and consequently his name has become notorious.

Maurice Tomlinson recognizes that a movement, to be effective, cannot be faceless, and he is willing to risk his security to build that movement. Like David Kato, Maurice has done this work in the service of human rights for all. As Maurice said once the Jamaican opposition party won its recent victory, “Hope and love have triumphed over fear and hate:” his life’s work reminds us that profound change is possible.

# # #

For additional information, please contact:
Christina Magill
AIDS-Free World
TEL: +1-416-657-4458

clm@aidsfreeworld.org

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: The Coordinated Fight Against the Human Right of Gays to Form their Own Families is Undeniably Harmful

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:05:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

In January 2012, two pieces of international news, as well as two startling admissions, made me reflect on the still vexed question of same-sex marriage and its possible impact on the HIV epidemic. Firstly, Pope Benedict XVI declared before leaders of nearly 180 countries that same-sex marriage threatened the very existence of mankind. Next, the Canadian government sought to revoke thousands of same-sex marriage licenses it had issued to non-Canadians since 2004. Further, John Smid, the former Executive Director of Christian organization Exodus International admitted that changing sexual orientation is in fact not possible for 99.9% of homosexual men (like me) who relied on his organization’s teachings to try and “be normal.” Finally, the ex-wife of US Republican candidate Newt Gingrinch stated that the family values champion (who in September 2011 called same-sex marriages an “aberration”) wanted an “open marriage” so he could carry on an eight year extra-marital affair with the woman who would later become his third wife.

The link between these news stories and admissions is the scary lengths public officials will go to in order to deny the rights of people they simply do not like. Yet these same officials express at least token commitment to a reduction in the HIV and AIDS epidemic. I am left wondering if, in light of evidence that promoting committed monogamous relationships is one effective way to halt the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, is it not time that we demand more responsible public utterances from persons in such exalted positions?

First off, let me declare my personal interest in this matter. Coming from a hyper-homophobic country I yielded to the pressure of having “legalized sex” and therefore married a woman who had been a good friend for many years. She knew my orientation going in to the marriage, but we honestly thought marriage could “change” me. However, throughout the marriage I knew I was not being authentic. I therefore pursued clandestine affairs with men. When the marriage ended (bitterly), I had a girlfriend for a while but eventually that too fell apart. I then hosted an “ex-gay” Christian group in my home for a while but after sleeping with two of the group members I realized that my same-sex attraction was hard-wired, so I called it quits. After dating men for some time I eventually met and married a wonderful man last August. I am therefore “wedded” (pardon the pun) to the concept of same-gender loving people being able to form unions with individuals they truly wish to be with, instead of being forced to lie about who they are. I cringe when I think about the careless way I endangered the lives of women and men that I cared about (as well as myself), in the pursuit of a genuine relationship. I am now quite passionate that other men not be forced to make the same mistakes and take the same unnecessary risks I did.

So I was incensed by Pope Benedict XVI’s declaration, considering its potential to cause tremendous harm. Admittedly, I regularly dismiss such extreme statements by the Pope as, let’s face it, the Vatican has not always been on the right side of sound science. I figure, at some point, good sense (or at least another synod) will prevail and what was once deemed heresy will be “revealed” as scientific reality. Similarly, the Catholic Church’s denialism on the efficacious nature of condoms was apparently reversed last year when the same Pope who so roundly condemned them, conceded that they are in fact a “necessary evil,” if you will, in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Now the church is once again flying in the face of good science. Research in New Hampshire last year found that the health of homosexual men is much better in states where same-sex marriage is allowed. This is because of the psychological and physical well-being associated with their ability to form unions of their own choice. It seems quite logical to me as a lay person that allowing and supporting people to form the family units they really wish to be a part of, instead of forcing them to compromise their true selves, is vastly superior for all concerned. The impact on HIV is also clear. Men who feel, as I did, pressured into forming heterosexual relationships put themselves, their partners, and their children at risk of HIV through engaging in clandestine relationships. Professor Peter Figueroa, former head of Jamaica’s National HIV/STI Programme and a regional expert on HIV transmission among marginalized groups, points to research which shows that Jamaican men on the “down-low” act as a bridge for the HIV epidemic to enter the general population. With an HIV prevalence rate of 32% among Jamaican men who have sex with men (MSM) as opposed to 1.6% in the general population, there is indeed cause for concern. Homophobia driven by structural barriers such as the colonial era anti-sodomy law restricts the ability of Jamaican MSM to effectively protect themselves and their partners.

I was also outraged when the Canadian government initially sought to invalidate the same-sex marriages of thousands of non-Canadians on the pretext that these marriages would not be considered valid in the couples’ countries of origin, hence they could not be recognized in Canada. Thankfully the government quickly abandoned its misguided attempt to invalidate its own marriage licenses, no doubt in response to public pressure and vigorous media condemnation. However, the proposed revocations briefly caused great consternation in Canada and around the world. It struck very close to home as well. As a non-Canadian, I had a momentary dread that my own marriage to a Canadian was invalidated. Thankfully, this was clarified as it was initially pointed out in the media that the revocations only occurred if both partners were non-Canadian. All this needless anxiety precipitated by unmasked animus towards same-sex marriages served no one except those silly enough to think that undermining same-sex marriages will somehow result in stronger heterosexual ones.

If Newt Gingrich’s second wife is to be believed, the thrice-married gentleman carried on an affair with his second wife while his first wife was dying of cancer. He then carried on an affair with his third wife while his second wife had multiple sclerosis. It is such flagrant disregard for Mr. Gingrich’s “no-adultery” pacts, and not the fact that the 7-10% of the population which is estimated to be gay can actually marry each other, which undermines heterosexual marriages.

Finally, I did not find it at all amusing when John Smid stated that he is now a “homosexual man living with a heterosexual woman.” His admission that his attempt to “pray away the gay” is an abject failure is just too little too late if you ask me. Many persons, including myself, have taken unnecessary health risks as a result of his misguided teachings.

The coordinated international fight being mounted against the human right of gays to simply form their own families is undeniably harmful and should be of concern for public health officials everywhere. My own country, Jamaica, has already imposed a constitutional bar to my marriage being recognized there. North Carolina is proposing even more hateful language for their constitution, which says that the only “valid” relationship will be that between one man and one woman. This trend is being picked up and led by religious groups around the world. In November 2011 Nigeria’s Senate voted in favor of a draconian law which punishes the mere participation by third parties in a same-sex marriage. I wonder if any of those who are so violently opposed to gay marriages have ever stopped to consider the full implications of their hateful practices.

Global Commission on HIV and the Law: Women and HIV

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Global Commission on HIV and the Law was formed to interrogate the relationship between human rights, HIV, and legal responses. Officially launched in July 2010 by the United Nations Development Programme, the Commission was tasked with forming evidence-informed recommendations that will spur national, regional, and global action to protect the human rights of people living with and vulnerable to HIV.

The Commission held 7 Regional Dialogues during 2010 and 2011. Over 1000 submissions were sent to the Commission from groups of people living with HIV, from lawyers and activists and grassroots organizations, from those negatively affected by laws and seeking to make change through the legal system. First-hand testimony from these individuals was given over the course of seven regional dialogues held in Asia-Pacific, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and North America. Activists presented their concerns to both the Commissioners and to the government representatives from their region invited to attend the dialogues.

The Global Commission had four areas of focus, one of which was "law and practices that mitigate or sustain violence and discrimination as lived by women." Of the many injustices that allow HIV to spread, gender discrimination is perhaps the most pervasive and deadly. Women have disproportionately higher rates of HIV globally; they also bear the burden of caring for the sick and the dying even as they are denied the knowledge, the resources, and the autonomy to protect themselves. The continued trampling on the human rights of women drives the AIDS pandemic.

How is HIV disproportionately impacting women?

• In sub-Saharan Africa, the region most impacted by the epidemic, women account for 80% of new HIV infections.¹
• In the Caribbean, the second most highly affected region in the world, HIV prevalence is twice as high among young women than among young men.²
• In the United States, HIV was the first leading cause of death for African-American women ages 25-34, and the third leading cause of death for all women ages 35-44.³

The law is heavily implicated in discussions of women and HIV because most legal systems are deeply rooted in patriarchy. In many countries laws do not mandate equality for women or prohibit gender discrimination. Even when laws are on the books to prohibit gender discrimination, legal systems are rarely used diligently or effectively to prosecute rapists, or to remedy other violations of women’s human rights. Women attempting to seek justice face stigmatization and abuse from police, doctors, prosecutors, and judges, who often deride or ignore their experiences of violence or deny them the information and resources they need to make informed choices about their health.

The Report from the Commission — with recommendations and summaries — won’t be available until later in 2012, but discussions on women’s issues highlighted several dominant themes:

Bodily integrity and informed consent

Commissioners repeatedly heard from women living with HIV whose rights around bodily integrity and informed consent are being violated. Women around the world reported that they had been told:

• they should abort their pregnancies
• doctors would not deliver their babies
• they could not adopt children
• they could not provide foster care for children
• they must sign a document promising they would never have children
• they must prove they were HIV-negative in order to get married
• doctors would not operate on them
• they should be sterilized
• they must present documentation of their sterilization before they could have a job

In fact, many women living with HIV were forcibly sterilized. Cases of widespread forced or coerced sterilization of HIV-positive women have now been documented in many countries, including Chile, Namibia, South Africa, United States, Uzbekistan, and Swaziland. Women reported that they were forcibly sterilized without giving informed consent, and some reported that their husbands then abandoned them because they could not have children. Their forced sterilizations — traumatic enough — were compounded by societal gender roles and expectations.

Individual women’s reports captured the anguish of being HIV positive and pregnant:

• “It is my body, yet I did not get the information I was entitled to. They treated me like I didn’t own my own body” — woman from Sri Lanka

• “My primary care doctor looked at me like I was sick for even thinking of becoming pregnant. I just felt that the consensus was that I should not, that I was selfish and irresponsible for even thinking about it” — woman from United States

• “Throughout my pregnancy I was very, very sick. I got admitted several times, my CD4 count was very low and my viral load was high. Every visit to my doctor was a nightmare because my doctor would always remind me of how disappointed in me he was.” — woman from Swaziland

Forced Sterilization in Uzbekistan

The Global Commission’s Technical Advisory Group reports that: “In 2011, hundreds of reports emerged from Uzbekistan concerning forced sterilization of women, primarily targeting low income women, women with HIV, tuberculosis, drug dependence or other conditions. Instruments used for the procedure are often not sterile, which puts women at increased risk.”

What will the Global Commission on HIV and the Law say?

The Commission’s final report will be released in the first half of 2012.

AIDS-Free World says:

Forced sterilization — a horrific, irreparable violation of a woman’s right to sexual and reproductive autonomy, to dignity, to have a family, to informed consent, to non-discrimination — is just the end of a long line of violations women face when seeking HIV prevention and treatment. Again and again, women are denied agency, choice, and the information they need to protect their own health. Paternalistic policies are often focused on the health of infants while neglecting the health of mothers, and leave women uninformed and at risk.

In many countries, pregnant women living with HIV are given single-dose nevirapine to prevent transmission of the virus to their babies, yet they are not informed of the risk nevirapine can cause to their own health by creating resistance to HIV drugs. Information given on infant feeding for HIV-positive mothers is frequently incorrect or contradictory, leading to confusion and unnecessary risk. Recently publicized data suggests women using injectable contraception may be at twice the risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV, yet no information has been shared with women at a community level about the best precautions to take. Until women are given the information, dignity, respect, and choice that they need and deserve, the pandemic will not cease.

Criminalization of HIV transmission: The Impact on Women

Countries throughout the world continue to criminalize HIV transmission or exposure. Prosecutions against people living with HIV are currently the highest in Western Europe and North America, and over 20 African countries have introduced laws criminalizing HIV transmission and exposure in the last decade.⁴

The emergence of these laws was the subject of debate throughout the Regional Dialogues of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law.

Some of the testimony offered arguments for the criminalization of HIV transmission:

• Fear of malicious, intentional HIV transmission: Ministers of Parliament attending the Africa Regional Dialogue reported that they felt pressure from the public to address this. The public wanted to feel safe from those who may intentionally spread the virus.
• Some argued that the criminalization of HIV transmission could protect women -- if women are unable to negotiate safe sex in their marriages or relationships, the law protects them by making their husbands criminally liable for infecting them.

Other submissions and testimony from the Regional Dialogues made arguments against criminalization of HIV transmission — and specifically why it is bad for women:

• Women are often the first to learn their HIV-status because of testing at prenatal centers. Yet many remain afraid to disclose their status because disclosure may subject them to abuse from husbands or relatives — HIV-positive women are ten times more likely to experience violence and abuse than women who are HIV-negative. Their knowledge of their status and their inability to disclose leaves them susceptible to prosecution for transmission of HIV to their husbands.

“In most of the cases women in monogamous relationships get the infection from their husbands – the bread winners of the family. She is usually an illiterate, unskilled housewife left to care for her children and ensure the wellbeing of the family. They are denied property rights and most of the times their basic rights of food, shelter and access to medical support are violated due to the prevailing stigma in our society. On top of all this women are always left behind to bear the blame of giving infection to their husband.” — submission from NGO in Delhi, India

• Marital rape complicates the criminalization of HIV transmission. An activist from Malawi asked, “how are women expected to negotiate safer sex if they are refused the power to negotiate the very act of sex?”
• Cultural practices can place women in impossible positions with regards to HIV transmission. Lawyers from Kenya reported that the practice of wife inheritance — traditionally used to provide economic security for widows – is now being abused, and the “inheritance” of widows by their husbands’ brothers is used as a pre-condition for the widows to remain on their marital property. Faced with the choice of being “inherited” or being evicted and homeless, many widows are forced to choose inheritance. Yet art of this “inheritance” requires the widow to have unprotected sex with her new husband — if she is HIV-positive already she becomes susceptible to prosecution for infecting her new husband.
• Kenya’s law criminalizing HIV transmission does not require intent; women now fear being prosecuted for giving birth or for breastfeeding their babies.
• Activists expressed fear that the criminalization of HIV transmission will result in the targeting of sex workers, who are often treated merely as vectors of the virus.

What will the Global Commission on HIV and the Law say?

The Commission’s final report will be released in the first half of 2012.

AIDS-Free World Says:

Laws criminalizing HIV transmission and exposure, already problematic for the overall population, cannot be untangled from the context within which they exist — a context of pervasive and toxic gender discrimination where women frequently experience violence and blame if they disclose their HIV-positive status. The combination of gender discrimination and criminalization laws is deadly for women, rendering them especially vulnerable to targeting and prosecution by the State.

Sexual violence

More than 2.6 billion women live in countries where marital rape has not been explicitly criminalized. Throughout the Regional Dialogues women urged their government representatives to put these laws in place, and pushed the Global Commissioners to take a strong stance on the issue. A woman from Malawi testified that, “the criminalization of marital rape will allow women to be seen equally under the law and will allow for a needed change in the social perception of women. It will give Malawian women the legal rights to their own bodies.”

Even where marital rape is outlawed, lawyers and activists conveyed a dismal record of enforcement and prosecution:

• A Minister of Parliament from Zimbabwe reported that there have been no prosecutions of marital rape in her country because the Attorney General has to give his personal consent before the crime is prosecuted.

“In the displacement following the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, a 28-year old woman was gang-raped by a group of looters…A few months after the rape, she began to feel ill, and discovered she was pregnant and then that she was HIV-positive. Her husband abandoned her and her twin sons.” — submission from Pakistan

• The leading human rights organization in Botswana, BONELA, said that Botswana’s Parliamentarians removed the country’s martial rape law in 2008.
• In Nepal someone guilty of rape receives a minimum sentence of 5 years; someone guilty of marital rape will only be sentenced to 3 to 6 months of imprisonment.

Within a context of HIV, a lack of protection against marital rape is incredibly dangerous for women, who are often infected by their husbands and then abused or abandoned after disclosure of their HIV status. HIV then becomes both a cause and consequence of the violence perpetrated against women throughout the world.

What will the Global Commission on HIV and the Law say?

The Commission’s final report, with recommendations on marital rape, will be released in the first half of 2012.

AIDS-Free World Says:

The appalling fact that marital rape is still condoned around the world indicates that women are still considered to be the property of men.

Property and inheritance laws

Activists from African and Asian countries testified about laws and practices that deprive women of land and inheritance rights:

• In Botswana, under customary law only men are permitted to inherit from a parent’s estate.
• In Malawi, at the time of divorce a woman must show monetary contribution to the marital property in order to claim her share of it.
• In Kenya, women have a statutory right to own property yet many traditional male leaders and government officials do not believe women should own property, and make it difficult for women to claim their rights.
• Nigerian activists reported that HIV-positive women were simply told that they didn’t need to inherit property because “they were going to die soon.”

What will the Global Commission on HIV and the Law say?

The Commission’s final report will be released in the first half of 2012.

AIDS-Free World Says:

Yet again, HIV sheds light on the underlying systems of misogyny that are at the root of the pandemic. Property laws that make women economically dependent on their husbands, and unable to negotiate safer sex within their marriages, must be overturned. Inheritance laws that leave widows homeless, forcing them into impoverished lives in urban areas and placing them at a higher risk of rape and disease, must be overturned. To end AIDS, we must end the oppression of women.

1 Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and World Health Organization (2009) Epidemic Update: http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2009/JC1700_Epi_Update_2009_en.pdf

2 "Women, HIV and AIDS": http://www.avert.org/women-hiv-aids.htm.

3 Submission to the Global Commission on HIV and the Law from the National Association of People with AIDS, USA.

4 The Global Criminalisation Scan Report 2010, produced by the Global Network of People Living with HIV: http://www.gnpplus.net/programmes/human-rights/global-criminalisation-scan/1648-2010-global-criminalisation-scan-report

See our introduction to the Global HIV Commission and the Law here.

Global Commission on HIV and the Law

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:59:00 -0500

Purpose

Who serves on the Commission?

The Global Commission on HIV and the Law is an independent body with three complementary components:

(1) High-level Commissioners: 15 eminent persons from all over the world were selected to serve as Commissioners, including AIDS-Free World Co-Director Stephen Lewis.

(2) Technical Advisory Group: 23 experts in law, public health, human rights, and HIV support the Commissioners by formulating and analyzing the evidence base on these issues.

(3) Regional Dialogues: Over 1000 submissions were sent to the Commission from groups of people living with HIV, from lawyers and activists and grassroots organizations, from those negatively affected by laws and seeking to make change through the legal system. First-hand testimony from these individuals was given over the course of seven regional dialogues held in Asia-Pacific, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and North America. Activists presented their concerns to both the Commissioners and to the government representatives from their region invited to attend the dialogues.

Why law?

Law intersects with HIV in critical ways. Law can be used to protect and advance the human rights of people living with HIV. Anti-discrimination laws can protect employment and housing rights, keep children free from HIV-discrimination in schools or ensure the rights of prisoners to HIV prevention services. Confidentiality laws encourage HIV testing and treatment. Laws protecting women’s property and inheritance rights reduce their economic dependence and their vulnerability to HIV. The criminalization and prosecution of all forms of sexual violence can keep women safe and prevent them from being infected with HIV by a rapist.

Laws can also be harmful, and worsen the reach and the impact of the epidemic. Laws criminalizing sex workers, men who have sex with men, or injecting drug users fuel stigma and discrimination against these populations, which then drives the spread of HIV. Laws passed in reactive fear of HIV, such as those criminalizing the transmission of HIV, are dangerous and need to be better understood and addressed. Intellectual property laws and patent laws can drastically impede access to HIV treatment around the world.

The Global Commission on HIV and the Law recognized from the outset the important fact that law alone is not sufficient. They have thus devoted their attention and analysis to both law and to law enforcement – to law on the books, but also the ways in which law is practiced on the streets by police, in hospitals, by judges, or in the workplace by employers.

The Commission’s Four Areas of Focus

(1) Laws and practices that effectively criminalize people living with HIV and vulnerable to HIV

(2) Laws and practices that mitigate or sustain violence and discrimination as lived by women

(3) Laws and practices that facilitate or impede HIV-related treatment access

(4) Issues of law and HIV pertaining to children

Why another Commission? What impact will this Commission have?

The 15 Global Commissioners have promised the hundreds of activists who participated that this will not be another UN report to sit on office shelves, or another set of recommendations that are released and then ignored. The initial outcomes of the Commission will have three formats:

The final report of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, to be released in the first half of 2012, promises to include urgent, pressing recommendations for individual governments, law and policy-makers, civil society, lawyers and judges, United Nations bodies, and regional and international communities. The analysis and recommendations will be informed by scientific evidence, testimony from the regional dialogues and submissions, and the expertise of the Technical Advisory Group and the Commissioners themselves.

The Commission will provide specific road maps for ten countries to immediately begin improving their legal environments and better protecting the human rights of people living with and vulnerable to HIV.

Individual members have and will continue to use their status as global leaders and their role on this Commission to advocate at a high level for much stronger human rights protections and improvements to the legal response to HIV. For example:

• Commissioner Stephen Lewis gave a speech in Moscow at the International Forum on MDG 6 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, addressing the severe violations against injecting drug users in the region.

• Commissioner Lewis wrote the foreword to the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network’s report on HIV and the Law in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

• Commissioner and former President of Botswana, Festus Mogae, publicly called for Botswana to decriminalize homosexuality and prostitution in order to prevent the spread of HIV.

• Michael Kirby, Commissioner and former Judge of the High Court of Australia, published an Op-Ed on ending the sexual apartheid in Commonwealth countries that is driving the spread of HIV.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: Reversal by New Prime Minister on LGBT Human Rights?

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:17:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

On January 8, new Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller took her entire cabinet to the church of notoriously homophobic Bishop Wellesley Blair. In 2007, Blair, who also heads the Integrity Commission of the PM’s People's National Party, had called for the public flogging of gays in Half-Way-Tree Square in the nation's capital. It is therefore very disturbing (to say the least) that Jamaica’s Prime Minister should be seeking the blessing of someone who clearly and unrepentantly called for violence against some of the very citizens she swore to serve and protect.

During his sermon Bishop Blair predictably instructed his captive congregants, which included all the members of the new government, to avoid international and local pressure in deciding policy. Instead, he urged that anything which displeased God should be ignored, no matter the cost. This was interpreted by the local press as an oblique reference to recent calls by international and local groups for repeal of the country's archaic anti-sodomy law. It is important to note that the new Jamaican Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms requires that human rights are to be interpreted in accordance with principles found in free and democratic states, not theocratic values.

Simpson-Miller historically promised during the national leadership debates for the December 29, 2011, polls that she would break with the homophobic policy of former PM Bruce Golding and consider ability rather than sexual orientation in selecting her cabinet ministers. She also promised to call for a review of the country's anti-sodomy law in the form of a Parliamentary conscience vote.

However, recent religiously themed statements by Simpson-Miller, as well as her attendance at Blair's church, have raised concerns that now that she is PM, there will be a jettisoning of the promised conscience vote. Instead, the government may now be courting the favor of the very powerful Christian fundamentalist evangelicals in order to consolidate their power and gain the support of the incredibly influential Jamaican moneyed class. Their plan seems to be working. Gordon “Butch” Stewart (of Sandals Resorts fame), who is perhaps the country's most infamous and aggressive business tycoon, had a very public falling out with Simpson-Miller during her first term as PM. His paper, the Jamaica Observer, had berated the PM during the election campaign and showed unmasked bias towards the Jamaica Labour Party government that was once led by Bruce Golding. The paper also demonstrated clear anti-gay animus during the campaign. Recently, however, Stewart seems to have had a change of heart and has publicly supported Simpson-Miller in the first scandal to buffet her new administration, which concerns the size of her cabinet.

The upcoming days are going to be very critical in understanding the new PM’s commitment to the human rights of Jamaican LGBT citizens. J-FLAG has suggested that the conscience vote happen quickly in order to meet the country’s reporting obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, there is no doubt the church will intensify its efforts to get Simpson-Miller off this trajectory. For me, the PM’s recent moves have demonstrated a regression to her first term, which saw her engage in deliberate attempts to undermine the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. For example, she infamously placed the Bible in front of her Prime Ministerial instrument of appointment at her official swearing in ceremony and also stated that a pastor would serve on every board of government-controlled entities. I sincerely hope she has learned some lessons this time around and will be more inclusive and respectful of religious freedom in her future utterances and actions.

Keynote Speech at the International Research Symposium on Equitable Health Services for People with Disabilities

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:22:00 -0500

Closing keynote address at International Research Symposium: Equitable Health Services for People with Disabilities with a Focus on Low- and Middle-Income Countries, co-organized by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

I am grateful to the LSHTM, the WHO, and all of you here today, for this opportunity to speak with you today.

I hope to use this privileged position of speaking at the end of the day without powerpoint, graphs, or charts, to take a step back and reflect not so much on what we’re doing—which has taken up much of our day—but rather on why we do what we do.

I have spent five years working on disability rights issues in the field of HIV/AIDS as well as other projects related to disability rights in international development projects and, most recently as you just heard, humanitarian interventions... I feel extremely fortunate to be working in this field at such an exciting time. As an intern with Disabled Peoples International in 2005 I was translating daily press briefings from the negotiations towards the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and three years later as Advisor on Disability with AIDS-Free World I celebrated the entry into force of the Convention and immediately began using it as a tool for our advocacy work calling for greater inclusion of people with disabilities in AIDS discourse, policy and programming. By 2009, I was invited to speak at the launch of the UNAIDS Policy Brief on AIDS and Disability. It was actually during this same visit to Geneva that I first met Alana and Tom and was briefed on the upcoming World Report, and two years later I have a copy on my desk at the LSHTM. It is important, I think, to remember and celebrate all of these major accomplishments that have been achieved in a relatively short period of time. It is truly exciting. But in this excitement of being in the midst of a rapidly expanding field I think we feel we don’t have the time—or we don’t take the time—to consider the underlying motivations for our work. To remember what brought us here. Why do we do what we do? What do we want to be doing and how? Not just patting our backs about what we’ve already done (though, of course that’s nice to do too...).

So, I would like us to stop and momentarily consider why are we here today? What different factors have brought each of us here? Why have you been sitting through a day of discussions about disability and people with disabilities and access to health services? Why do you care? Why bother to talk about disability in particular when there are so many needs out there?

The answers in this room will be many: Perhaps you have been working in the field for decades, perhaps this is the first time you’re exposed to the issues. Perhaps you were required to attend because of your work or studies. There are no wrong answers to this questions.

But, actually, before I go any further I would like you to turn to the person sitting beside you and ask them how they first came to the field of disability and health—whether the first exposure was today or 10 or 20 years ago. I know this is not a conventional exercise during a keynote address but, please, go ahead—just two minutes.

Thank you.

I hope that you learned something that you didn’t know before, even if you’re sitting beside a colleague you see every day.

We have spent this day together discussing aspects of building equitable health services, and through several presentations today we’ve seen that it’s not only about treating the “right people” and ensuring our quotas are met but also to tackle systemic issues impeding access.

(Though, of course, gathering data about who accesses our services and how that compares to who we expect to be treating is also important).

I want us to challenge ourselves to think beyond quotas and ticky-boxes on equal opportunity forms. We need to look at the social systems putting up barriers and how, through the virtue of our gendered or racialized or other privileged positions, we reinforce certain barriers. I think that, given the tremendous gains we have seen on the international disability “scene” over the past decade, we are at a point where we can stop and reflect.

In order to try and give you an idea of why I believe this is important, I’d like to tell you a part of my own story of how I have come to work on disability issues and access health services.

Yes, I was born with most of my joints dislocated, spent the majority of my first four years in hospital, started walking when I was seven and used a wheelchair for long-distances until I was 20. But I was lucky to be born in Canada with accessible medical and surgical services and to parents who treated me just as anyone else and fought to get me enrolled in my local neighborhood school when I turned six. Now it seems unbelievable to me, but they were put under a lot of pressure to keep me at a segregated school, but my parents are unbelievably and gorgeously determined and I remained in mainstream schooling throughout my education.

From a young age, my sisters and I were raised to consider the privileges we enjoyed growing up, and in many ways grew to appreciate all the benefits we derived from a good education, enough to eat and a comfortable home, but also to work towards challenging the systems that kept some people better off than others.

Yet, despite the appreciation instilled in me of my Canadian context, I grew up despising physiotherapy appointments and annual x-ray appointments. I didn’t like to be singled out. Being told what to do, being expected to conform to the demands of clinical professionals. My aunt gave me a Sesame Street T-shirt with Oscar the Grouch on it saying “everyone has a right to be a grouch” I wore deliberately to medical appointments. I enjoyed swimming and weekly ballet lessons; I did not feel it necessary to sit alone in some room doing some exercise or other.

Some years later, while already in University, I agreed to have a few occupational students “shadow me” in University as they were meant to “meet a disabled person and learn about their daily life.” They seemed a bit disappointed during their meeting. They admitted that, well, I was just another student like them. Why should this be surprising? Because they expected all their subjects to be hospital patients?

I guess that in some ways my critique of rehabilitation services was only possible due to my privileged access to health services as a Canadian, but also, it made me think that our access can lull us into a false sense of security. It can obscure the social factors of disability—the ways that people’s attitudes disable or enable us. Especially as children growing up with visible disabilities. Having surgery can help us to fit our foot into a shoe, or to be able to sit up better, but it does not make us necessarily accepted as “normal.”

In any case, I played wheelchair sports, got quite good at cross-country sit-skiing in long Canadian winters. And thanks to the regular interactions with fellow athletes with disabilities, I did see my experience of disability as part of a larger phenomenon, rather than just an individual physical frustration but I was adamant about the fact that just because I have lived experience with a disability didn’t mean that I had to take that on as my social cause. Just as even if I identify as a feminist, as much as that pushes me to try to ensure that my work does not re-enforce sexist paradigms, I do not have to necessarily devote myself only to women’s issues.

With time, I could articulate this in terms of intersecting prejudices. After reading a book in my undergraduate years by Canadian scholar, Sherene Razak called “Looking White People in the Eye” I became more comfortable articulating how different prejudices, whether it’s racism or sexism or homophobia, feed off of each other. One can never truly be addressed without tackling another; but reading that book came a few years later and I’ve digressed from my story, sorry.

I began my University studies in the year 2000 at Queen’s University, in Canada. Having been raised with a strong sense of social justice, I appreciated the critical nature of the Development Studies program that I found there and combined this with my degree in Environmental Science due to my extensive involvement with environmental activism at the time. For my third year of studies, I had the opportunity to travel to Ghana for a full-year of study in Accra and Tamale. I was expecting—hoping—to explore questions around traditional healers, herbalists, traditional knowledge.

But in my first month there what shocked me was that the only people with disabilities I saw were begging on the street—it took me three weeks before I found a group of musicians practicing under a tree, one of which was disabled and so we started to chat. I was constantly being reminded of the visibility of my own disability when Ghanaians would walk by and comment “ah, look at that white girl! What happened to her legs!?” To be fair, the whole comment was said in Twi but I lived with two young girls who were very faithful translators and language instructors, so the comments didn’t escape me.

Questions about my positionality as a white, disabled person started forming in my head. I started asking more questions, finding out about treatment and attitudes. With time, I was brought to the Tamale Resource Centre for Persons with Disabilities, where I was introduced to Madam Mercy Apoe, a blind woman about my mother’s age who took me under her wing. She instilled in me the sense that, as an educated, relatively wealthy, disabled woman I not only had a role to play but I had the responsibility to speak out for the cause of women with disabilities, many of whom, due to poverty and prejudice, did not have the education and mobility that allowed for the voice that I could have.

I spent a lot of time at the Resource Centre, just chatting. Sharing stories. Talking about families, relationships, men, sex, marriage... This is why I stayed. I liked the gossip. Actually, seriously, probably the most common question I get asked across countries and contexts is about marriage and relationships. Not about funding or available surgeries.

Many of the people dropping into the center from nearby villages commented that I was the first “white disabled” that they ever saw. Now this is not so long ago; yes Tamale is not Accra and is quite rural, but still it surprised me and made me stop and think. How many of our young student volunteers, interns, and others conform to the expected image of wealthy foreigner: usually white, probably blonde, and not disabled.

So during my time in Tamale people took the opportunity to ask me about my own experience of relationships, and also education, and childcare and a whole range of really down-to-earth topics. I was inspired and excited by the way they framed their issues as a social struggle, as a question of challenging assumptions and pushing for inclusion in social and political systems—regardless of how they walked or talked. I was refreshed by the diversity of bodies and ways of moving around that I was surrounded by in the resource center. I was inspired by peoples perspective on the issues and humbled by the fact that they were asking me to be an ally in their struggle. They invited me to take part.

That is how I got onto the path I am now.

Positionality IS important. But it is not about essentializing someone’s experience based on their label. My sister, Anastasia, is at times a much stronger disability advocate than I am! She has grown up with me and our youngest sister, who has a neurodegenerative condition and requires constant care, and Anastasia is often more ready to be vocal about our rights to access this or that or to challenge peoples offensive behavior than I am. She is as involved in shifting societal perspectives of who does and doesn’t belong.

I bring up this point because I think that often we want to quickly put people in boxes of who does and doesn’t belong here or there. Within the disability movement we’re starting to talk about the need to dismantle “hierarchy of disability.” In other words, prioritizing some people’s voice by virtue of their disability. I think this is unhelpful, dangerous even, as we draw divisions rather than cultivating alliances. And that can happen both within and outside of the disability movement.

A while back when I was chatting with Prof. Nora Groce, who’s guidance I have been grateful for since the earliest days of my career, but when Nora and I were speaking a few months ago, I remember Nora marveling at how many meetings she has attended of mental health activists who were saying “Yes, we may have some problems but we’re not stupid...” and then soon after she’d find herself in a meeting of people with learning disabilities and they’d say “Sure, we may have trouble understanding things sometimes but we’re not crazy...” Where does that leave us?

Sometimes even within the disability movement we try to determine who does and doesn’t belong rather than valuing different experience. Of course, we must be wary of thinking that a caregiver's perspective is the same as, or a proxy for, that of a person with a disability. But, then again, these categories are definitely not as rigid as we may like them to be either. In certain times and places I also find myself as a primary caregiver just as much as a disabled person myself. Just as I am simultaneously a disabled person and a researcher.

I remember once being toured around a new hospital site where the managers were very proud of the fact that the clinic was entirely accessible: space between beds, accessible toilets, everything. But then we had to climb up the stairs to get to the office. The management area of the hospital was not accessible at all. No one ever imagined that managers or clinicians would ever need a lift or accessible toilets!

In some ways that is what critical feminist disability scholarship gets to...it challenges the binaries of us and them, disabled/non-disabled, carer and cared for. We can be both oppressed and oppressors in different situations.

The more integrated schools we have, the more professionals and politicians with disabilities we see, the more our movement will grow. Not because disabled people will intrinsically be better at their studies or at their jobs but because we would all be more and more exposed to different ways of communicating and interacting with difference, and that in turn enhances our openness and inclusivity in our social and professional interactions.

Sadly, it’s impossible to prescribe a universally applicable way of ensuring access or true inclusion. Disability is too multifarious, too historically, culturally and contextually contingent to permit a cookie-cutter approach. A clear set of 10-steps for accessibility isn’t realistic to ensure access because inaccessibility and exclusion are based on deeply entrenched notions of normality that we have grown up with. This needs to be challenged in order to dismantle barriers to access.

This large scope may seem very disheartening, and it does seem like an insurmountable task on one hand, but very exciting on another because we each have a part to play: medical doctors and physiotherapists, yes, but also teachers and lawyers, shop-owners and parents.

And because each one of us plays a part in it, it is also important to reflect on our participation—our complacency in the system and what opportunities we have to change it.

One of my favorite projects to talk about as a positive example is LVCT in Kenya. LVCT had been running mainstream voluntary HIV counseling and testing services for several years when it decided to address the gap in services available to Deaf people. So they trained Deaf people as VCT counselors and employed them in Deaf VCT clinics in Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombassa. The programs were so well received and so successful that soon people with different disabilities who were hearing started coming to the clinic, and LVCT had to hire interpreters to translate from the Deaf interpreters to the hearing clients. It was an unexpected but fantastic inversion of the norm but at the same time as it challenged perceptions, the project was also delivering solid services, and the Deaf program has since expanded into a larger disability VCT project.

Our consideration of equitable access through a lens of disability gives us the tremendous opportunity to challenge the way we see our patients, our clinics, or professional and personal roles. Considering disability as a person's social and physical reality—a reality that anyone of us can experience at any point in time due to an injury, illness, or trick of genetics—gives us the impetus to challenge our way of perceiving others and of building systems and structures to welcome a whole variety of people and bodies that do not conform to the unrealistic expectations that all our bodies are of a strong, white, heterosexual man.

Working towards accessible services will enhance access for people far beyond those we currently perceive as disabled. It will help open up our offices, clinics and services to single parents with young children, elderly people, caregivers requiring more flexible work hours....and many more people who may currently find it difficult to “conform” to what is perceived as normal.

It is one more strand in the many elements that feed into inclusive communities and community structures, including health services.

I think that still, too often, our minds jump to the specialized services—such as orthopedic surgery and/or physiotherapy that people with certain disabilities may require. And as true and real as these concerns are, we also heard today from our colleagues whose work highlights the barriers that people with disabilities may face is accessing primary health care. Are babies born with congenital impairments accessing childhood immunizations at the same rate as children not diagnosed with any impairments?

I conducted a series of 100 interviews with women with disabilities in Uganda and Canada from late 2008–2009 asking about their experiences with sexual and reproductive health care services. I expected... but I found that the experience with the health care worker was just as likely to be positive as it was to be negative. We heard from Tom this morning that empirical evidence shows that actually women do face greater chance of mistreatment at the hands of healthcare workers than non-disabled women, but at the time it was a 50/50 chance in both countries. But what was much more likely to discourage them was a lack of transportation options to arrive at the clinic and discriminatory comments from people in their home-village or in the queue at the clinic itself, questioning why they should need to attend an HIV test center or to attend pre-natal care. I remember hearing a story from one woman using a wheelchair who had no one to accompany her to the health center when she was about to give birth, so someone’s brother who was around at the time accompanied her. He faced so many derogatory comments while sitting in the waiting room: “ei, you, how could you do that to her? Isn’t her life difficult enough?” Not knowing, first of all, that he was the father but, secondly, never considering once that that woman may have in fact wanted to have that child and that that could be a positive experience for her!

I remember another story from a disabled woman who had to spend a few days in hospital after giving birth and the nurses warned that she won’t be able to cope. That she’ll struggle to cope at home when she couldn’t even get in and out of her hospital bed with her new baby. She had to try to explain over and over again that at home everything would be fine—things were set up for her, the counters were lower, her bed was at the right height and in the right position—that she knew she would not encounter the daily frustrations she faced at the hospital.

Although in these stories the people did manage to access the health services, they still highlight the role of attitudes and perception and that ensuring equitable access to health care services is about so much more than just ramps or Braille.

So much exclusion and discouragement happens long before someone makes it to the front doors of a health care center.

It is crucially important that we don’t assume that we know too quickly the needs of others. We need to listen to people's experiences. This is why individuals with disabilities and Disabled Peoples Organizations need to be part of the process of planning and implementing services. We have committed to this on paper, but how often is this actually happening?

I think that in our policy documents we’ve achieved this goal. Just as on paper we have committed to including disabled people in our work, we have committed to cross-sectoral collaboration: working in partnership with organizations on the ground, valuing the experiences of activists and program staff.

Thanks to gatherings such as today, we have the chance to take advantage of opportunities arising from different research methodologies, different ways of acquiring and presenting information and knowledge.

Thankfully we see this pattern developing in various contexts.

I have presented papers at four International AIDS Conferences of the past six years and I have seen the ways in which people living with AIDS are able to sit side-by-side with microbiologists in the plenary session and present their own experiences of setting up community-based programs, establishing relationships with scientists and researchers. The synergy between perspectives of users, policy makers, and scientists are increasingly respected.

This is not to devalue scientific knowledge but to value the different knowledge that is derived from different kinds of experiences and using this to deepen and strengthen—rather than to weaken and dilute—our work.

Attitude towards knowledge affects how we use knowledge.

But true interdisciplinarity does not come just from hiring an anthropologist to join a team of epidemiologists or making sure that a few statistics are thrown into a series of case-studies.

Just as including disabled people and disabled peoples organizations (or DPOs) should not be done as simply a token gesture.

Yes, it can be difficult to work with DPOs. Collaborating with many community-based organizations in low-resources settings across geographical, linguistic, technological and cultural barriers can be extremely frustrating. I have heard DPOs in the Caribbean referred to as “very weak partners,” and had first-hand experience with organizations in Africa mismanaging grants completely, where their funding had to be withdrawn because it was simply being “eaten,” so to speak.

Yet, before we write-off collaboration entirely, or before we agree to work with dysfunctional organizations at an arms-length simply to satisfy inclusion criteria, we should be looking at the underlying causes of these organizational weaknesses: lack of resources; lack of experience amongst staff; grants, money coming in chunks too large with time-lines too tight. Could we embed more shadowing? More training opportunities and partnerships within the projects we are funding or proposing to be funded? What about facilitating partnerships between disabled peoples organizations and other social movements and civil society organizations within the home city or community that our potential partner is engaged in? How can the capacity of these weaker organizations be built up in the course of the project?

When I was working in South Africa, although I was based at DPSA I worked closely with colleagues at the Treatment Action Campaign that some of you may be familiar with. Colleagues from TAC were not very familiar with the needs of disabled people. They did have some members with disabilities but it was not, at the time, by conscious effort. In fact, the first time a friend at TAC was called to facilitate a two-week training of trainers with a group of youth with disabilities from the townships, he complained to his friends about how boring the coming fortnight was going to be—he was about to spend it with a bunch of disabled kids, after all. But after two weeks of running the workshop, his eyes had been opened up to disability issues just as much as the eyes of the participants were opened to HIV issues. He subsequently invited these and other youth with disabilities to each training, party, and radio program he was involved with through TAC because he was suddenly aware of the systemic exclusion these young people were facing for no good reason.

We need more of this. This was not an expert coming in and teaching. It was more about listening, creating links, and enabling reciprocal exchange of info and expertise.

We need to reflect upon, recognize and take advantage of the strength of others. This can seem to lead to a trite statement about “everyone’s abilities vs. disability,” but I don’t mean it like that. Rather, I think that this can extend our conversation into a consideration of the multi-disciplinarity we see in this room today and how, as much as it can be difficult to work with people molded in different paradigms, we can also celebrate the multi-disciplinarity in this room and try to approach other ways of knowing and gaining knowledge as a strength rather than something to be measured out and placed on an epistemological hierarchy.

This includes activists appreciating the time and, yes, money that it takes to produce rigorous research, and to appreciate the immense benefits that they can derive from having robust data at their disposal after months or years of intensive research by qualified researchers. I think that in the NGO world we’re not always good at appreciating this.

Yes, we must certainly do our best to ensure that there are ramps and facilities to accommodate people with various impairments in our health care centers, educational institutions, and so on. But at the risk of sounding very cliché, I do believe that accessibility really is first and foremost a question of attitudes. Parents attitudes, extended family, teachers, bosses. Yes, legislation is important as is the UN Convention. But it is a tool. Only as useful as its masters, so to speak. It is up to people to use the legislative and other tools to affect change.

As I mentioned before, I don’t think that there is a cookie-cutter approach. If there was, all of our jobs would be much easier! We’d just need to get the WHO to publish our 10-steps of disability inclusion and we’d be set.

But in my experience so much of access has to do with individuals. With communities. Yes, with laws and structures, but with the acting-out of them.

Disability teaches us that our bodies are diverse, that we interact in our environments in different ways. I truly believe that if we are open, creative, and genuinely fascinated and appreciative of this diversity then that will enable all of us to live healthier lives—which includes getting access to the health services we all need.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: Jamaica Labour Party Appeals for Homophobia in the Voting Booth

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:37:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

Jamaicans will go to the polls on December 29, 2011, to elect a new government and, as expected, the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has resorted to homophobic tactics in an attempt to bolster their electoral victory. This should come as no surprise: Former party leader Bruce Golding once declared on BBC that gays would not form part of his cabinet, and backbencher Ernest Smith called for the outlawing of J-FLAG, Jamaica’s main LGBT lobby group, because the organization was "conspiring to corrupt public morals."

The People's National Party (PNP) (which is in Opposition and trailing in the polls) has selected a non-gender conforming individual as its candidate in a constituency traditionally viewed as a PNP "safe seat.” Since his selection there has been quite a media and social buzz about this candidate’s sexual orientation and gender expression. On December 18, the Government mouthpiece, the Jamaica Observer, reported on a JLP campaign meeting in this constituency where a senior party member and government minister said the PNP candidate does not “look right,” “dress right,” “love women” or “have a wife.” The Prime Minister, who was in attendance at this meeting, then proceeded to call the candidate’s challenger to the stage, referring to him as a “straight up” man.

A venomous Youtube video also making the rounds urged persons not to vote for this and several other PNP candidates because they are gay. The video has since been removed and replaced with a subtler but still unmistakably homophobic creation.

Vicious animus directed at a political opponent based solely on his sexual orientation and gender expression is sadly not new to Jamaica’s politics. In previous election campaigns both political parties have used violently anti-gay tunes as their theme songs. However, this new Prime Minister promised a break from the old-style of politicking. Clearly, he meant after these elections.

J-FLAG has written to the junior minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Senator the Honourable Marlene Malahoo-Forte, who is also a candidate for the JLP, to complain about this piece of gutter electioneering. So far, she has failed to respond. This is not surprising, as the good Senator similarly failed to respond when I wrote to her (as an old university colleague) seeking her intervention in the absolute lack of police responsiveness to a death threat made against me for my advocacy on LGBT rights.

J-FLAG was urged to write to the Political Ombudsman, Bishop Herro Blair, to complain about the use of this tactic by the JLP. While in principle I support this approach, I doubt it will amount to much: The Ombudsman is the head of one of the island's popular evangelical churches and has publicly stated that he does not want anyone to "make" his four boys "homosexuals or criminals.” We have also been urged to write to the UNDP representative, with a copy to the government, to let them know we are upset about the use of homophobia in the campaign. This approach will, once again, prove to be a fruitless exercise.

On a positive note, the head of the island's Anglican community has written in favor of decriminalizing sodomy. Sadly, Anglicans are numerically insignificant in Jamaica and the evangelical Christians of the ilk of Shirley Richards hold far more sway over the population. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which counts the country's head of state, Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, and the Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, as members, is also very influential and virulently homophobic. The Governor General has met publicly with a pastor from an “ex-gay” Christian ministry in the US.

It is tragic that as Jamaica selects a government to usher in its 50th year of independence, the country will more than likely be saddled with a regressive regime whose style of campaigning belongs squarely in the Middle Ages.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: Christian Fundamentalists' Homophobia on Display

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:53:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, Jamaica (LCF), in association with the international (but very secretive) Issachar Foundation (IF), held a symposium on World Human Rights Day, December 10, 2011 at the Faculty of Law of the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica’s premier university. The symposium was held under the curious theme “Human Rights, Sovereignty and the Politics of Truth,” and the 200-seat auditorium was nearly packed with mostly middle-aged participants, although there were some noticeably younger persons in attendance.

The listed presenters were Shirley Richards, co-founder of the LCF; Piero Tozzi, legal counsel for the US Christian lobbying group, Alliance Defense Fund; and Paul Diamond, a UK barrister who specializes in religious liberties cases. An unlisted presenter was Dr. Wayne West, whose slick slide presentation looped continuously on a giant screen while persons assembled and took breaks. The presentation basically characterized men who have sex with men (MSM) as disease vectors and relied on the infamous Lancet article that said HIV is “out of control” among MSM in France despite the fact that France decriminalized sodomy in the 18th century. This was clearly seen as a justification for the retention of Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law. The concluding slide asked a rhetorical question: could Jamaica afford the cost of US$19,912/patient/year for ARV that would be associated with decriminalizing sodomy? If there was room to answer the question, one possible answer would that the US$19,912 figure came from a study of health care costs in the United States and would almost certainly not apply in Jamaica, and the use of the figure amounts to scare tactics. But while the agenda for the symposium indicated there would be questions and answers after each presentation (though tightly controlled, as shall be explained), there was no opportunity to rebut West’s presentation. During one break, the Chair of J-FLAG pointed out this inconsistency and was told that there would be no opportunity at the symposium to counter his claims. J-FLAG’s Chair noted that the slide presentation was deliberately intended to influence the audience (although “congregants” may be a more apt description, based on the “Amens” that greeted certain statements by the presenters) without the possibility for dialogue or rebuttal.

Among the persons who sacrificed an entire Saturday to be in attendance at this event (which ran from 8:30 a.m. to well after its stated end of 2:30) were two sitting judges of Jamaica’s Supreme Court, the country's Attorney General (who brought greetings on behalf of the Justice Minister), the Executive Director of the Broadcasting Commission (which regulates content distributed via the electronic media), Jamaica's Chief Parliamentary Counsel (who is responsible for drafting the country’s laws), the Legal Counsel to all Parliamentarians, the Director of the Norman Law School Legal Aid Clinic (which is responsible for training all lawyers in Jamaica) and the Executive Director of the Airports Authority of Jamaica. Special mention was made of the presence of a Jamaican couple now residing in Britain who were denied the right to foster children there because they objected to homosexuality.

The stated aims of the symposium were to:
1) Re-examine the role of law in society;
2) Increase public awareness of the potential danger that exists if human rights are freed from their traditional moral foundations;
3) Examine the subversive effect of the “fallacies” of popular human rights rhetoric on the democracy and sovereignty of nations; and
4) Examine major human rights treaties.

During the nearly 7-hour symposium, the presenters extolled the virtues of Dominionism—the belief that countries must be governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law—and cautioned (actually, more like threatened) Jamaican Christians that if they don't organize a counter-offensive against the militant gay agenda sweeping the world, their beloved country will be overrun by aberrant ideas “hell bent” on destroying marriage, children, and, of course, Christianity. One wonders where these people get their information as the Jamaican church community seems quite organized to me. Not only were they successful, as they constantly trumpet, in ensuring human rights for gays were not recognized in the constitution, they were able to get the country’s Attorney General to publicly declare at this forum that he has no intention of abiding by the Constitutional requirement to interpret human rights according to standards found in other free and democratic societies.

The law’s paternalistic purpose in preventing misguided gays and fetus-aborting feminists from self-harm was also emphasized, and although Diamond repeatedly said he did not care what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms (curiously extolling the benefits of living in a free and open society), all presenters did express that gay sex is manifestly harmful to its practioners (as is abortion). The role of the law was defined as protecting the welfare of the common good. Therefore Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law, which sentences consenting adults to up to 10 years in prison for private sodomy, is justified by its role in preventing people (especially impressionable children) from engaging in gay sex. (Didn’t you get the memo that repealing the anti-sodomy law will lead to, on average, more gay sex? That certainly is the case in the UK, South Africa, Canada, Nepal, India, etc., etc... or at least the presenters seemed to suggest it.)

In her presentation entitled “The Role of Law in Society,” Shirley Richards sought to provide ‘natural law’ justifications for the retention of the laws against sodomy and abortion. In this quest, she ignored modern jurisprudence and relied, for example, on the 3rd edition of a core criminal law text now in its 12th edition, which defined a crime as an action which is “morally blameworthy; a sin.” During the March 2011 revision of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Richards and her team had successfully lobbied Jamaica’s Parliament to save laws against sodomy, abortion and “obscene publications” in the country’s constitution. However, she expressed distress that the constitution provided that the recognition of violations of human rights is still permitted, if justified by the standards in a “free and democratic society.” This, to her, undermined our sovereignty by denying Jamaicans the right to define the extent of individual rights. In her view, this could clearly open the way for the importation of dangerous liberal ideas into our constitution (such as the right to non-discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, as is sanctioned in South Africa’s radical constitution! Shocking!). Richards needn’t have worried too much as the Attorney General in his greetings made it quite clear that he has instructed his staff that they should use Jamaican situations, not international human rights norms, to determine the extent of our rights since “we too are a democracy.” A seeming contradiction occurred when, during the question and answer section, Richards made it clear that she is “challenged” by the way some Muslim societies treat their women, but she quickly corrected by defending the right of these countries’ to make such repressive laws.

During his two-part presentation entitled “Development of Human Rights Law,” Tozzi sought to show how the moral purposes of law had become hijacked by libertarians, such as those hippies of Bill Clinton’s generation (i.e. persons who had not served in World War II). Making no attempt to disguise his racism and Islamophobia, he said "Europe is on the verge of a demographic collapse and the UK is in ‘free fall,’ with the most popular name in the UK being Muhammad." Other gems he supplied were "All good law originates in Judeo-Christian values but there is natural law written on the hearts of all men,” and "Sharia law is anti-law, anti-reason. The only basis for it is the claim that Allah said so." He clearly missed the obvious contradiction in accepting the Bible as a source of law simply because it says it is the word of God, but why obscure a good story with facts? Listening to him I wondered, “What exactly is the basis for the Judeo-Christian morality that you are advocating for us to protect from the onslaught of a militant homosexual agenda?” The clincher for me came when Tozzi alluded to most feminists and homosexuals having experienced some abuse, which accounted for their advocacy. When I pointed out that I was raised by loving Christian parents and have never experienced any sexual abuse, and asked if he could kindly provide some examples of abused advocates, Tozzi claimed that “it’s hard to make generalizations” (duh!). He however said that when he worked at the UN (which he argued is overrun by feminists and gays), many of those persons advocating for the human rights of gays as well as the rights of women to control their fertility had been abused. As a Christian conservative, he surprised no one when he claimed that “many studies” show children raised by two parents of the same sex are developmentally disadvantaged. (This claim runs counter to the extensive longitudinal study by the American Psychological Association that states otherwise, but again, why cloud a good story with facts?) He concluded that these same studies found that placing children in these types of settings is “experimental” and therefore dangerous. Oh, and by the way, contraception is bad, too, because it’s leading to population collapse in Europe (just in case you missed that)!

Paul Diamond condemned Jamaican Christians for being disorganized (a strange accusation considering the ability of this group to shut-out free speech and the recognition of the human rights of gays and women from our constitution) and made an emotional appeal that they “not become like Britain.” When I asked whether he thought the murder of 16-year-old Oshane Gordon on October 18 "due to questionable relations with another man" was a result of the existence of Jamaica's anti-sodomy law, Diamond said, "That's a stupid question as the most persecuted group in the world are Christians." Of course, he provided no evidence for this assertion.

On the issue of what Jamaica should do in light of the calls by the US and the UK for decriminalization of sodomy, Richards said, to thunderous applause, "There are enough countries in the world that support us, and we should be willing to sacrifice aid from the US and UK and join a block with them.” Well, I suggest she lead the way by renouncing her US visa.

The entire proceedings were tightly controlled: Participants were required to write their questions on pieces of paper that were collected by ushers (much like a church offering) and then submitted to a moderator. The moderator then decided which questions would be read to the presenters. It was amazing that so many of our pro-LGBT questions were addressed; Richards was overheard during a break chastising a moderator that “some of those questions should not have been read.” One presenter also intoned that he was surprised that so many “un-Christian questions were being asked at a Christian symposium.” (I thought the purpose of putting up flyers to advertise the event was to allow an opportunity for all views to contend. Silly me.) Also noteworthy is that the taping of presentations was strictly forbidden (even though the news media was allowed to record some elements). One wonders if this group is genuinely interested in open dialogue around the sensitive issues of human rights, as they have said on so many occasions.

For me, the moral of this story is that another symposium that truly allows for full and frank discussions needs to be convened. What happened on Saturday was simply a travesty of ideology parading as logic. One can’t help but wonder: when a cure for HIV is discovered, what new “public interest” argument will be deployed for state-sanctioned homophobia in Jamaica?

The Guardian: Disabled People Finally Given a Voice on HIV and AIDS

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:46:00 -0500

Access to HIV information, testing and treatment for people with disabilities was raised for the first time as a central theme at the International Conference on Aids and STIs in Africa (Icasa), held last week in Addis Abba, Ethiopia.

A "disability zone" gave delegates rare space to discuss the risks and barriers that arise from misconceptions around disability and sexuality, the heightened vulnerabilities of people with disabilities to infection through sexual violence, and models for inclusive HIV-programming.

"People with disabilities are the world's largest minority group but a substantial number within the Aids community are yet to recognise them as vulnerable," said Emelia Timpo, a senior adviser for UNAids.

A 2004 World Bank study showed that almost all known risk factors for HIV and Aids are increased for people with disabilities.

Professor Nora Groce, chairwoman of the Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre at University College London, who conducted the original research is now in the final stages of a full review of existing research on the matter.

"Rarely do more than five or six papers appear per year to add new knowledge and help us design better support services for persons with disabilities," she said. "Given the millions of dollars spent on Aids research, this very slow increase in data accumulation is striking – especially with so many lives at risk."

The data that does exist echoes anecdotal evidence from NGOs and health providers that HIV infection rates tend to be higher among people with disabilities.

Handicap International has just conducted two surveys, in Senegal and Mali, which showed that HIV prevalence among people with disabilities was almost double than that of the non-disabled adult population. Another survey from South Africa reported HIV prevalence of 14% among people with disabilities compared with 10% among those without.

Even when the issue is raised with those who have a mandate to target vulnerable groups, Muriel Mac-Seing, HIV and Aids technical adviser for Handicap International, says she sees a pattern of surprise and embarrassment that people with disabilities have been rendered "unintentionally invisible".

Paula Donovan, co-director of Aids Free World, believes that the lack of focus, data and research on Aids and disability is a matter of wilful ignorance. "If you get data that shows that access to basic testing services is unavailable to people with disabilities, then there is responsibility to allocate some priority funding," she said. "But you don't have to do something about a problem if no one has measured it yet."

Mac-Seing questions why we need to wait for "hard evidence" to recognise that if people with disabilities are struggling to engage with awareness campaigns or access health centres, then the right of 1 billion people to access HIV information, treatment and care is at stake.

The promotion of this message at last week's conference ties in well with the conclusion of the five-year regional strategy plan set out by the African Campaign on Disability and HIV& Aids in 2007 to advance awareness.

As the regional plan wraps up, Mac-Seing says that the energy has naturally progressed towards national ownership of inclusive HIV-programming.

At Icasa, a framework for the inclusion of disability in national strategic plans on HIV and Aids was launched, providing a tool-kit to guide both the development and the review of national plans through a "disability lens".

As planning begins for the Aids 2012 conference in Washington in July 2012, organisers say it will be "a watershed moment to eliminate stigma, criminalisation, and discrimination, which fuel the HIV pandemic".

But in order to achieve that, even at the conference level, said Donovan, disability must be mainstreamed into strategies and budgets. At the same time, people with disabilities must be allowed to join the power-brokers and decision-makers within the Aids community.

Read The Guardian article here.

Lewis Calls for an End to the Medieval Treatment of People Who Use Drugs

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:43:00 -0500

A new report by the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network, with a foreword by AIDS-Free World Co-Director Stephen Lewis, reveals the brutal human rights violations against drug users and calls on governments to implement humane drug policies and promote effective responses to the HIV epidemic. The report presents results from the monitoring of human rights violations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and offers recommendations on how to improve the access of drug users to HIV prevention and care.

The foreword by Lewis is below. The full report, titled ‘HIV and the Law in Eastern Europe and Central Asia,’ can be accessed here (PDF, 315KB).

To read this report is to drown in a tsunami of rage. The behavior of the governments of Eastern Europe and Central Asia towards people who use drugs — and there is not a single country without some degree of culpability — is both brutal and diabolical. I can scarcely believe what these pages yield. It is as though we were thrown back to medieval times when agony on the rack was the punishment for the most trifling of so-called crimes.

But in contemporary terms it’s much worse. The testaments in this monograph flow from people struggling desperately with illness — not crimes by any sane definition — but illness that has been criminalized with malicious intent. It is to weep. What in God’s name is wrong with governments that they should so savage basic human rights?

Conventional wisdom says that societies should be judged by the way in which they treat the most disadvantaged in their midst. If that is so, the AIDS pandemic has given us much by which to judge our societies and the policies and laws that are the expressions of our collective values. From its beginnings, AIDS has represented a clear choice for governments — to use policy and law to protect those at high risk of contracting HIV or to fail to do so — or, even worse, to allow law and policy to be an additional burden to people already disadvantaged by discrimination and stigma.

Thirty years into the pandemic, we can report that some countries have struggled with and met this challenge in ways that do credit to their commitment to the rights and dignity of all people. Some countries have removed harsh and senseless criminal laws against homosexuality, perhaps sooner than would have been the case had AIDS not brought the situation of men who have sex with men to the policy foreground. These countries have learned the fundamental lesson that protecting the rights of those living with or at risk of HIV is also the most effective way to contain the epidemic.

It is unfortunately only a minority of countries that have made a commitment to legal protections of the rights of people who use drugs and have provided legal grounding for basic health services for them. It is apparently politically acceptable — even politically advantageous — that people who use drugs are allowed to suffer without basic health care, to be stripped of their dignity by repressive policing, and to die from preventable deaths. The heart-breaking accounts in this report from the real experiences of people who use drugs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia epitomize this scandal.

As I read these moving and maddening accounts, I am overwhelmed by how unnecessary is the suffering documented here. No one can claim ignorance of what works and doesn’t work when it comes to reducing HIV transmission linked to drug use and ensuring access to services for people who use drugs. The continued resistance of some governments to ensuring access to clean injection equipment and to evidence-based and humane treatment for drug dependence is beyond comprehension. It is nothing short of criminal that states enable police to interrogate people in a state of drug withdrawal, to arrest people for possession of a syringe, and to gain what is virtually a second income by extortion of people who possess small quantities of drugs.

My colleagues on the Global Commission on HIV and the Law and I have been in awe of those who have been courageous enough to step forward to tell us their stories. When societies condemn drug use as a moral failing and governments treat drug addiction as a high crime, it is no small thing for people who use drugs to recount publicly the experiences of their daily lives. This report itself is a testament to the initiative and courage of people who use drugs, and I am grateful to the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network for the work of compiling these exceptional stories.

There will be a tendency, on reading this report to be paralyzed by the despair that is inevitably felt in the face of such a compendium of abuse. Somehow, we must all in our own ways be advocates for the fundamental reforms that are desperately needed to ensure that laws and policies on illicit drug use become instruments of justice and human dignity.

Tomlinson Receives Kato Award

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:05:00 -0500

On December 10th, 2011, Maurice Tomlinson of AIDS-Free World was awarded the David Kato Voice and Vision Award. Inspired by David Kato's work, the award recognizes the leadership of individuals who strive to uphold the numerous dimensions of sexual rights for LGBTI people. Sexual rights are an evolving set of entitlements related to sexuality that contribute to the freedom, equality and dignity of all people, and are an important aspect of human rights. The realization of these rights is also an integral element to a meaningful HIV response among these marginalized groups.

From the Nomination
Maurice has worked to unite the major LGBTI and HIV/AIDS groups in Jamaica to challenge homophobia, but he also has demonstrated leadership in forging new alliances. He has reached out to groups in Jamaica representing sex workers and youth, and he also has worked very hard to include the chief mainstream human rights organizations on the island.

In a country where homophobia is violent and relentless, Maurice has become a known face and voice in support of sexual minority rights. This is a dangerous project. Maurice has received at least one death threat and has been recognized and jeered at on the streets of Kingston and Montego Bay. He regularly appears on television and radio to promote homosexual rights. He writes letters to the editor to all the major Jamaica newspapers, and as a result, his name has become notorious. He recognizes that a movement, to be effective, cannot be faceless, and he is willing to risk his security to build that movement.

As a lawyer, it would have been easy for Maurice simply to bring a legal action challenging the Jamaican anti-sodomy law. Instead, he took a more thoughtful approach, recognizing that the groundwork had to be laid for a public dialogue about LGBTI rights before a legal judgment (if successfully obtained) could be implemented. He developed an integrated approach to advocacy, combining high-level persuasion (meeting with government and elected and UN officials), public education (starting the first-ever “Stands for Tolerance,” public actions in which citizens stand on busy street corners holding signs promoting human rights), media work, documentation of abuses, capacity-building for members of the LGBTI community to understand their rights, and litigation. This approach has been strategic and effective. Government officials have privately confessed to him that they realize the law must change if Jamaica is to keep pace globally. Church officials (a few) have confided that they understand LGBTI rights are human rights. Maurice is no longer the lone voice writing letters to the editor in support of LGBTI rights; other Jamaicans are doing it too. This is evidence of the impact of his work.

Maurice also has recognized the importance of linking Jamaica’s indigenous LGBTI movement to the struggles of others. He has served as a resource and inspiration to Caribbean activists who have sought Maurice’s counsel and help in developing similar integrated campaigns for their own countries. He has met with officials from other CARICOM countries about the need to eliminate homophobia and homophobic laws across the region. He also has endeavored to link his advocacy to movements outside the Caribbean, and has spoken at conferences in Africa, Europe, and North America. Finally, he has lobbied officials globally, particularly from other Commonwealth countries, to demand that LGBTI rights be protected, respected, and fulfilled.

About Maurice
Maurice Tomlinson has been involved in HIV and AIDS and LGBTI activism in Jamaica for over twelve years. He first realized the importance of work challenging LGBTI discrimination through his own lived experience, when he was a flight attendant for a major airline in Jamaica. His supervisor told him that he needed to act more “masculine,” as his voice and mannerisms were off-putting to customers. His personal experience of sexual orientation discrimination, combined with a raging AIDS pandemic, made Maurice realize the disease could affect anyone, but particularly those who were oppressed and driven underground because of their sexuality.

Maurice subsequently went to law school, where he realized that discrimination against sexual minorities is not a given, and can be challenged with the right tools. After he obtained his law license, he initially practiced in the corporate realm, focused on intellectual property issues. However, he found himself increasingly drawn to LGBTI activism. He began to volunteer at Jamaica’s premiere LGBTI advocacy organization, Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), where he served on the board of directors. He also began to undertake pro bono work for Caribbean Vulnerable Communities (CVC), looking at a possible legal challenge to Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law. In March 2010, Maurice began working with AIDS-Free World as legal advisor on marginalized groups. He is also a lecturer-at-law at the University of Technology, Jamaica, where he has instituted a new class in international human rights law.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: Hypocrisy Reveals Itself

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:15:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

On December 29, 2011, Jamaicans will go to the polls to elect a new government and there is no doubt that tolerance towards the country’s homosexual citizens will (once again) be a hotly contested election issue. In advance of the elections, the local group Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship (LCF) (affiliated with the conservative international lobby group Advocates International, and in association with the secretive US-based Issachar Foundation (IF), have organized a symposium for World Human Rights Day (December 10) under the curious theme “Human Rights, Sovereignty and the Politics of Truth.” Ironically, one of the stated aims of this LCF/IF symposium is “To examine the subversive effect that the fallacies of popular human rights rhetoric have on the democracy and sovereignty of nations.” The irony, of course, is that not only is the symposium being co-sponsored by a foreign organization, but also that two of the three featured speakers are from the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively. I guess when importation from the West fits the agenda of hate and misinformation, then it is okay.

LCF and IF have publicly advocated for the retention of the country’s anti-sodomy law, calling it critical to the HIV and AIDS response. The latest such occasion was a full-page color ad taken out in the most respected Jamaican newspaper, the Jamaica Gleaner, on December 1, World AIDS Day, under the deliberately inflammatory caption “HIV is ‘out of control’ among MSM.” LCF has also loudly championed the continued criminalization of abortion, as well as laws against “obscene publications.” The group proudly trumpets their successful lobbying of the Jamaican Parliament during the recently concluded revision of the country’s constitution, which saw the “saving” of laws outlawing consensual same-sex intimacy, abortion and “obscene publications” from being constitutionally challenged in any of the island’s courts. These “saved” laws directly undermine the rights of Jamaicans to privacy, prevention from cruel and inhuman treatment, and freedom of expression. Consenting adults engaged in private acts of intimacy can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. Women have no rights over their bodies (despite the fact that this government boasts fielding the largest number of female candidates in any national election). Mature individuals are not able to decide what they want to watch, listen to or read, even if this takes place in the privacy of their own homes.

The LCF has also brought a noted “ex-gay” pastor to meet with the country’s Governor General (head of state) and held sessions about “curing” homosexuality. It must be noted that the Governor General is the former head of the Adventists denomination in Jamaica and was selected by his “church brethren,” the former Prime Minister and notorious homophobe Bruce Golding. His selection and actions then and now bring into question the doctrine of separation of church and state, which ostensibly is the bedrock of the country’s independence constitution.

Most alarming is the fact that Jamaica’s Minister of Justice will bring greetings for this symposium, which shows a clear alignment of the current government with the regressive human rights agenda proposed by LCF and its allies. This is not surprising, as Dorothy Lightbourne, the Attorney General disgraced and made the scapegoat for the government's duplicitous handling of the "Dudus" extradition matter (and appointed by this same ruling party), gave the opening remarks at another symposium hosted by LCF last year.

Compounding matters is that on Thursday, December 6, the Jamaica Observer newspaper (which is increasingly being viewed as the mouthpiece of the current government) sought to whip up national antagonism against the country’s gay population by totally miscasting US President Obama’s recent memorandum as “Gay Pressure-US to limit aid.” This despite the fact that Obama never mentioned aid conditionality in his landmark memo. Instead, he simply instructed US government departments to support the human rights of LGBT around the world. Any doubt as to the anti-gay agenda of the Observer must now be clearly put to rest. An interesting side-note is that the Chairman of the Observer, Gordon “Butch” Stewart, is also Chair of the world-famous Sandals/Beaches resort chains. It seems to me that pro-gay allies who vacation at these couples/family resorts should be made aware of this alignment.

Meanwhile, the country’s opposition party (which is currently trailing in the polls) has used strong tolerance language in their electioneering and selected a very gender non-conforming male as one of its candidates for a traditionally “safe seat.” While as an organization we remain politically neutral, we are concerned that, once again, the same homophobic party (which gave the country its most notoriously homophobic Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, famous for his statement on the BBC that gays would not form part of his cabinet) is heading for another electoral win.

The Christian lobby in Jamaica is undoubtedly very powerful and well connected internationally. They also count among their supporters such influential persons as the attorney who provides legal counsel for all members of the Jamaican Parliament. It is clear that in any strategy to change the country’s repressive laws that undermine the HIV and AIDS response (including laws against HIV-positive women being able to terminate their pregnancies), this lobbying group will have to be confronted and their regressive ideologies discredited.

Disability Takes Center Stage at the ICASA Conference: Launch of Important New Resource for the Inclusion of Disabled People

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:08:00 -0500

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — AIDS-Free World, in collaboration with an international group of activists, academics and disabled people, is pleased to announce the launch of a new publication entitled a “Framework for Inclusion of Disability in National Strategic Plans on HIV & AIDS.”

Despite the mounting evidence on the interrelationship between disability and AIDS, disabled people have been largely excluded from national planning efforts on AIDS. A key factor in this work is the development of National Strategic Plans (NSPs), which invariably fail to address issues related to people with disabilities. We believe that the inclusion of disabled people in the NSP development process is a first step to adopting a human rights-based approach for disabled people based on principles of universal design and reasonable accommodation. The new framework presented in this publication represents the first concrete attempt to systemically introduce issues of disability, access and the human rights of disabled people into the process.

The launch of this valuable new tool took place at the ICASA conference on December 6, 2011. For your own copy of the new resource, click here (PDF, 205KB).

The Nation: UN Women Limps Toward Its First Anniversary

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

UN Women is in trouble. The newest agency in the United Nations system, widely hailed as the best hope for significant action globally on women’s rights, is falling short of both money and power as it limps toward its first anniversary in January.

Despite years of statements, campaigns and even Security Council resolutions, the situation of women around the world remains difficult for many millions of them and mortally dangerous for hundreds of thousands who die in civil conflict, gender violence, curable diseases and preventable complications of pregnancy.

Women in many countries lack access to legal systems and may in fact be forced to live under discriminatory laws that deprive them of property ownership, rights over their children, an education or freedom to travel. Hundreds of millions have no access to family planning or are prohibited from seeking contraception when the size of their families becomes a burden too heavy, physically and psychologically, to bear. At least 10 million girls are estimated to be living in forced childhood marriages in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, not a few of them younger than 10, when they should be going to school.

When four underfunded and largely powerless programs for women were abolished or folded into UN Women in 2010, the assumption among its advocates was that, finally, a new agency with much higher rank in the UN system—and a seat in the secretary-general’s cabinet—would put some meaning into decades of pious declarations, rousing international conferences that often produced little more than paper plans of action and hypocritical promises of “gender mainstreaming” in UN work globally. Early signs are that these challenges will take a very long time to be met—if they ever are.

The two crippling factors getting in the way of this important new agency are largely beyond its control: miserly financial contributions from nations on which UN Women’s operating expenses were designed to depend, and some petty turf games inside the UN system. These internal jealousies are compounded by the tepid support bordering on neglect among some of the organization’s highest officials, according to people who have followed very closely the struggles of UN Women in its inaugural year.

The problem is not in its leadership. Its high-powered executive director, Michelle Bachelet, a former Socialist president of Chile who now holds the rank of under secretary-general in the UN, has worked hard to put the agency on the international map, assisted by two very able and experienced deputies who know how the UN works, John Hendra of Canada and Lakshmi Puri of India.

The financial picture, however, is truly bleak, undermining UN Women’s work and forcing Bachelet, with her strong record of action on social issues in Chile, to devote much of her time at UN Women to fundraising. “UN Women has benefited from Bachelet's international standing, though she spent too much time at the outset looking for additional resources,” said Anwarul Chowdhury, a diplomat from Bangladesh and former UN under secretary-general representing the least developed countries, who was an early advocate for the creation of the agency. He believes this preoccupation with fund shortages has dimmed the image of an agency that needed to establish a high profile right from the start.

When UN Women was created by the General Assembly in July 2010 after years of haggling over its status and powers, it was named officially, clumsily and cautiously the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women—“entity” being a safer word than agency or department among the opponents of the move. The plan was that there would be money from the UN Secretariat budget for setting up offices and providing salaries. That allocation would be augmented many times over by $500 million in voluntary contributions annually from the UN’s 193 member nations, added to donations from corporations, organizations and individuals. Those contributions would fund active programs around the world, filling the gaps left by UN Women’s predecessors.

As late as August of this year, Puri, who handles the management and budget side of the agency, was still hopeful, in an interview with the Inter Press news service, of raising $300 million in 2011, $400 million in 2012 and that goal of $500 million in 2013.

Here’s the reality: at the end of October this year, the total funds pledged to the agency amounted to $131.4 million—and only $58.2 million of that had actually been received. The largest payments came from Canada, Australia, Britain and the United States—in that order. The US contribution, despite loud and clear messages of support for the agency from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was just under $6 million, with a promise of more later.

Last year the US government gave more than $132 million to Unicef, the UN Children’s Fund. Add to that the $435 million raised among private donors to the nongovernmental US Fund for Unicef—$70 million of it for Haiti alone following the January 2010 earthquake.

Bachelet’s own country, Chile, now under a conservative government, has managed to find only $ 23,000 for UN Women.

The list of donors says a lot about how much or how little the nations of the world want a powerful women’s agency to succeed. No important developing nations—except India, with $1 million already paid—are among the major donors. China could find only $60,000. Iraq, with its resurgent oil wealth, pledged $100, and had not paid up by the end of October. (For the full list of donors, see www.unwomen.org.)

“The lack of funding is a symptom of what’s going on,” said Paula Donovan, co-director with the Canadian diplomat Stephen Lewis of AIDS-Free World, a nongovernmental organization that also fights for LGBT rights and was at the forefront of promoting a strong UN unit for women. “I think the problem is the lack of support for a new agency from within the United Nations.”

“Just one example is that UN Women is not yet one of the official co-sponsoring agencies of UNAIDS,” Donovan said in an interview. “That’s preposterous.” UN Women is trapped by a bureaucratic paperwork process for membership in UNAIDS even though the epidemic has become a woman’s disease in parts of Africa and Asia and the new agency would seem to be a welcome partner.

“This has nothing to do with addressing and focusing on a subset of the population that desperately needs to be represented around the table when the UN’s talking about the global response to AIDS,” Donovan said, noting that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has not used his power to shoehorn the new agency into UNAIDS, cutting through the sclerotic procedures.

Donovan added that the exclusion from UNAIDS is part of a broader picture of “internal rivalries, jealousy and fear” that UN Women under Bachelet will gain too much popularity or influence within the UN system, since women are meant to factor in every area of development. There is concern that funding for other agencies might suffer. The rivalry is particularly strong with the UN Development Program, Donovan said.

Within UN Women itself there are organizational turf lines, caused by the amalgamation of the four separate and occasionally mutually hostile programs for women in the UN system: the Division for the Advancement of Women, the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). None of these bodies had the organizational stature or budget that UN Women was promised.

From the beginning, it was decided that staff from these four would be absorbed into UN Women. There would have been disruptive labor challenges had that not happened. UNIFEM—which operated under the auspices of the UN Development Program—was the biggest winner in the merger. Much of its staff, all of its programs and its largely powerless and underfunded offices in the field simply moved over to UN Women, as even a cursory look at the new agency’s Web site confirms.

This situation has been a damper on UN Women’s ability to be a truly new and more powerful part of the system, said Chowdhury of Bangladesh, a country that has defied substantial odds to promote girls and women, particularly in education and reproductive health.

“So far, UN Women’s efforts to carve out its own independent image had to depend on the staff of its component offices that merged in the new entity,” he said. “The separate streams seem to exist even now as undercurrents.”

Chowdhury, who has also been active in peace projects and in promoting the protection of women in conflict areas, suggests that among fresh campaigns that UN Women could undertake would be to demand more action on a resolution passed by the Security Council in 2000 (and subsequent other resolutions on the subject that followed) calling for not only the protection of women in conflict and post-conflict but also their direct involvement in peacemaking.

Moreover, Chowdhury added: “Despite a wide-ranging sense that a fifth UN world conference on women is long overdue and should be convened latest by 2015, twenty years after the landmark Beijing conference, UN Women has given the idea a cold shoulder instead of seizing the opportunity for leadership that we expect of it to give the women's agenda the standing it deserves.”

While there is little doubt that a big conference to review and advance progress on women's rights would attract a lot of attention, not all of that attention would be positive, as anti-feminist forces would work to use the occasion to roll back earlier gains. Practically speaking, UN Women does not yet have the staff strength, the huge amount of money or a partner nation to host such a conference, which is an event on an enormous scale requiring years of preparation. At a time of global financial crises, there would be little international support. A similar set of obstacles has apparently led to a decision in the United Nations Population Fund to shy away from a twentieth-anniversary event on the 1994 Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo, when nations essentially signed on to a pledge to give women control of their reproductive lives.

UN Women did produce a substantial report in July, Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice, which drew attention to the hundreds of millions of women around the world who suffer under discriminatory laws and illegal harmful practices, an issue that Obama administration has put on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council. But UN Women still lacks the authority to intervene with governments in any meaningful way beyond asking them to fix their sexist laws. At the UN only the Security Council can compel nations to act, with the threat of enforceable sanctions.

Leaders of numerous nongovernmental organizations and foundations working with the UN lament the slow start to UN Women, saying that while the upper echelons of the UN administration understand the problem they appear to be unwilling to challenge either UN agencies or member nations, some of which were very much opposed to the agency’s creation.

Bachelet has other options; she may return to Chile and reassemble her political team to run for the presidency again in 2013,as the Chilean constitution permits, after a term’s break. A physician by training and the daughter of an air force officer who died in prison under the rule of Augusto Pinochet, she survived tragedy to build a reputation after Pinochet’s fall that made her the most popular politician in the country. Should she decide to leave UN Women, it might never recover from the loss.

This week in Busan, Korea, Bachelet issued a pointed call to action on gender at an international conference on development aid. When Secretary of State Clinton spoke later, she remarked: “I was standing listening to Michelle, who is her usual effective and strong way was making the case, but I could sense in her voice the same frustration that I feel from time to time, which is, How much longer to we have to make this case?”

Paula Donovan also emphasizes the importance of a strong UN women’s agency in all the UN’s work. “The heads of agencies of the UN, and really the secretary-general and the UN secretariat should have made this the big cause,” she said. “All the heads of agencies should have been pounding the pavement, going with Michelle Bachelet to some of those fundraising meetings, saying that in order for UNICEF to do its job well UN Women will have to be up and funded. For UNDP, the same thing. But that’s not happening. No one inside the UN is taking the big view of what’s best for women.”

Read The Nation article here.

BMJ: Global Fund Suspends New Projects Until 2014 Because of Lack of Funding

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has for the first time in its 10 year history cancelled the pending funding round and suspended new grants because of a lack of funding from donors.

The fund is the world’s largest international funder of programmes to treat tuberculosis and malaria and the second largest for HIV and AIDS, after the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

At the fund’s 25th board meeting in Accra, Ghana, on 20 November, the board voted to cancel all plans for new grant making. Projects that are currently supported by the fund have guaranteed funding for their full lifetimes, but there will be no money for new initiatives until 2014.

The fund’s director of external relations, Christoph Benn, told the BMJ that it had already dispersed some $8.5bn (£5.5bn; €6.4bn) and had approved an additional $1.5bn for 2011-13. However, the recent “critical global economic situation” meant that the board anticipated that it might not be able to achieve the 20% extra funding it estimates is needed to scale up services in the near future, although it has appealed to donors to “provide additional funds to enable countries to meet their millennium development goal targets.”

The fund will instead provide a “transitional funding mechanism” whereby countries known to be facing disruption of their programmes for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria before 2013 will be offered a chance to apply for funding to cover their most essential needs. However, it says that such funding will be “restricted to the continuation of essential prevention, treatment, and/or care services currently financed” by the fund.

For HIV, this funding can cover drugs for people already receiving treatment but does not provide money for treating new cases of HIV.

Mike Mandelbaum, chief executive of the UK charity TB Alert, told the BMJ that the reduction in funding will have “a catastrophic effect and directly lead to many avoidable deaths.”

He added, “The Global Fund is a very effective funding mechanism and is a huge success. Last year the number of people who died from tuberculosis fell to 1.4 million from 1.7 million the previous year. This progress costs money, and the fund has become a key donor across the world. In Africa, for example, it funds 85% of TB programmes.

“It would be a human catastrophe to take a backward step now. Instead the international donor community should follow the example of the United Kingdom in increasing support to high quality aid programmes.”

In a press statement the UK Coalition to Stop TB said, “The ramifications of this decision will be tragic for millions of people around the world who depend on the Global Fund for lifesaving treatments.

“Without TB drugs and healthcare workers, millions of people with TB and multidrug resistant TB, especially those coinfected with HIV, have little hope of survival. Furthermore, this decision will make it impossible to achieve the millennium development goals on health, and failure to support the Global Fund will drive us further away from controlling the three killer diseases.”

Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, told the BMJ: “The Global Fund currently represents nearly two thirds of international malaria funding. If we don’t have sufficient resources to continue the fund’s work, we will lose the tremendous gains we have made in malaria control in recent years and put millions of lives at risk.”

Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of Médecins Sans Frontières’s access to medicines campaign, said, “There’s a shocking incongruence between both the new HIV science and political promises, on one hand, and the funding reality that is now hitting the ground, on the other. Donors are really pulling the rug out from under people living with HIV and AIDS at precisely the time when we need to move full steam ahead and get lifesaving treatment to more people.”

Stephen Lewis, director of AIDS-Free World, described the move as “the most serious, catastrophic setback in the fund’s decade of existence.” In a speech to the Yale School of Public Health on 28 November he said that the donors’ failure to live up to their commitments amounted to murder and that their leaders should be tried for “crimes against humanity.”

Earlier this year the Global Fund committed itself to reforms in response to specific incidents of countries’ misuse of funds and corruption.

A spokesperson for the UK Department for International Development told the BMJ: “The international development secretary has been clear that while the Global Fund performed well in the UK’s multilateral aid review, reform is needed. Future UK funding levels will depend on the fund implementing the recommendations in the recent high level panel report and on the success of its consolidated transformation plan.”

Source: BMJ 2011; 343:d7755.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: UNAIDS MSM Data Fiasco Could Have Been Avoided

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:57:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

The 2011 Caribbean HIV Conference, which took place at the lavish Atlantis resort in Nassau, Bahamas, from November 18-21, 2011, was held under the theme “Strengthening Evidence to Achieve Sustainable Action.” In his keynote address at the elaborate opening ceremony, the Bahamian Prime Minister proudly announced that one of the measures his country adopted to address its HIV epidemic (still the largest in the region) was the decriminalization of sodomy over 20 years ago. So what evidence exists that this sole act of decriminalization has reduced the HIV prevalence rate among Bahamian MSM? Sadly, the news is quite grim. What is worse is that confusing messages attributed to UNAIDS about this Bahamian initiative—still unique among the Anglophone Caribbean—may have set back regional decriminalization efforts by many years.

An oft-cited graph developed by the UNAIDS regional office in Trinidad shows that some countries in the Caribbean without sodomy laws (The Bahamas, Cuba and the Dominican Republic) have a lower HIV prevalence rate among MSM than countries where same-sex intimacy is still criminalized (Jamaica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago). However, what this graph does not show is that between 2006 and 2008 the HIV prevalence rate among Bahamian MSM appears to have soared from 8.18% to over 25%. Those persons who oppose decriminalization have also been able to point out that some countries that maintain sodomy laws in fact have lower MSM HIV prevalence rates than The Bahamas. Simply put, the evidence presented by the principal world body charged with advising countries about an effective response to HIV is simply unhelpful in understanding the role of structural stigma and discrimination in perpetuating the concentration of the epidemic among this marginalized group.

Considering the deeply held prejudices against homosexuals in the Anglophone Caribbean and the overwhelming attachment these countries have to their sodomy laws, it is disgraceful that UNAIDS did not present clear and unequivocal data to support its long-stated position that decriminalization is good for the HIV response. To make matters worse, an article carried in the Jamaican media quoted Dr. Michel de Groulard, the creator of the infamous graph, as saying that there was no data that decriminalization in The Bahamas had any impact on the national HIV prevalence. I alerted the head of the UNAIDS Regional team, Dr. Ernest Massiah, as well as de Groulard to this article and pointed out that this statement attributed to de Groulard contradicted a very powerful plenary presentation made by Professor Peter Figueroa, former head of Jamaica’s national STI program, in which he positively cited de Groulard’s graph and advocated for decriminalization as critical to the HIV response among regional MSM populations. Massiah was very defensive and maintained that his staff had been misquoted. De Groulard then sought to correct this misquote in a subsequent interview which was again carried in the Jamaican press. In this interview he pointed out that the inadequate data he was referring to was HIV incidence, not prevalence (a regrettable oversight considering the press’s and the public’s unfamiliarity with the critical difference in the meanings of these terms). Unfortunately, in this later interview de Groulard was quoted using the much lower 2006 MSM HIV prevalence rate and not the more recent data from 2008. Not surprisingly, Dr. Wayne West, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of the West Indies, Mona and chairman of the “ex-gay” movement in Jamaica (who has previously used his medical credentials to publicly support retaining the anti-sodomy law as indispensible to the HIV response), was able to question the credibility of the UNAIDS data (and obliquely UNAIDS’ true agenda). The undeniable result is that UNAIDS’ credibility has been undermined.

This entire fiasco could have been avoided.

In April of this year, at the Caribbean Regional Dialogue of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, I personally alerted Dr. Massiah to statements made to the Jamaican media by Shirley Richards, former head of the powerful Jamaican pro-criminalization religious lobby group, Lawyers Christian Fellowship, claiming that the country’s anti-sodomy law was indispensable to the national HIV response. Richards relied heavily on a study published in The Lancet that said HIV prevalence among MSM in France was “out of control” even though sodomy was decriminalized in France in the 18th century. I suggested then that UNAIDS, as the most credible global voice on HIV, needed to respond urgently to Richards’ statement, especially because of its potential to derail regional efforts to achieve greater tolerance for homosexuals in addressing the HIV epidemic. Massiah initially agreed that such a response would indeed be possible, but it was not until the just-concluded Conference that I was informed that UNAIDS sent an article (on November 15—a full seven months later) to the Jamaican press.

Meanwhile, a presentation I made at the Caribbean HIV Conference discussing the petition AIDS-Free World filed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights challenging the Jamaican anti-sodomy law was well received. Our human rights arguments for decriminalization considered sound, as was our strategic approach of documenting and publicizing human rights violations against Jamaican LGBT before launching the petition and our selection of prominent human rights voices in Jamaica to advocate on behalf of the petition once it was filed. Our approach contrasts quite favorably with that adopted in Belize, where the legal challenge against their anti-sodomy law has been met with vicious opposition by religious groups and little in the way of prominent support from influential voices or groups.

What is tragic is that both the Jamaican petition and the Belize legal challenge now face serious difficulties as the epidemiological evidence necessary to overcome the arguments against decriminalization remains unclear at best and non-existent at worst. By delaying its response and ultimately relying on stale data, UNAIDS has made the job of the legal teams arguing these cases much harder and arguably has set back the movement for tolerance toward MSM across the region.

Finally, while Jamaica’s gains in the reduction of the vertical transmission of HIV have been remarkable, and the national HIV prevalence rate is trending downward, as Figueroa demonstrated in his two conference presentations, the rate among MSM is trending upward. This will no doubt be compounded by the fact that The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has decided to cancel its Round 11 due to financial constraints. States like Jamaica are therefore sitting on a time bomb. Tragically, UNAIDS has failed to provide the sort of incontrovertible data that will encourage states to make the structural changes necessary to achieve efficiencies in the face of reduced resources to combat the disease among MSM within the region. This is truly appalling.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: What are Jamaican MSM Complaining About?

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:57:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

It’s the week leading up to World AIDS Day, and in Jamaica a popular morning drive-time radio program has decided to focus on the connection between HIV and the country’s anti-sodomy law. I was interviewed this morning and welcome such opportunities. While we wait on UNAIDS to get their act together and clarify which statistics to use regarding the impact of the 1991 decriminalization of sodomy in The Bahamas on the rate of HIV among MSM and the general population in that country, it is important to continue educating Jamaicans about the public health implications of homophobia supported by legislation, which drives MSM underground, away from effective HIV prevention, treatment, care and support interventions.

Supporters of the anti-sodomy law have been, in recent times, relying on the potential impact of decriminalization on the spread of HIV, while subjective moral arguments have rarely featured in the debate. This is a positive development.

This morning I was able to share some of the realities associated with being homosexual in Jamaica. These include incidents of police extortion and non-responsiveness to human rights abuses against homosexuals, which have led to serious distrust of the police and under-reporting of violations by members of this vulnerable population. What I found surprising is that the interviewers felt Jamaican homosexuals really had no right to complain because the Jamaican police extort just about everyone and there is general public mistrust of the police. I have heard this argument before and used the opportunity to emphasize a fact that is sadly ignored: Jamaican homosexuals are regularly abused by state and non-state actors simply due to their actual or perceived orientation and rarely if ever because of anything they have done. Two men found parked and chatting in a secluded spot at night can and have been attacked simply because they are perceived to be gay. One gay couple that was discovered by police had to drive to an ATM (with the police trailing behind) to pay a bribe or face being arrested for “gross indecency.” Thugs also invaded the home of 16-year-old Oshane Gordon on October 18, 2011, and chopped him to death because of his “questionable relations” with another man.

We also know that Jamaican MSM (biologically more vulnerable to HIV because of their sexual practice of anal intercourse) sometime engage in “down-low” relationships with women in order to mask their sexual orientation. This represents a serious public health risk as it creates space for the HIV epidemic to enter the general population. There is a large—some estimates say 20%—of “unknown” sources of HIV infections in Jamaica; it is strongly suspected that many gay men are unwilling to divulge their sexual orientation to their doctors. Such reticence skews the data and makes it very challenging to design and implement an effective response to the virus.

It is unquestionably an opportune time for Jamaicans to be having this important debate (the cancellation of Round 11 of the Global Fund will invariably mean less resources to fight the HIV epidemic). I only hope that good sense and good science will prevail over superstition and prejudice. Happily, I received a friend request on Facebook from a total stranger who said they listened to this morning's interview and found it "enlightening and informative." I hope the rest of the radio interviews on this critical topic scheduled for this week will result in many more "aha" moments for the Jamaican public.

The Globe and Mail: Economic Crisis Hits Health Aid That Has Helped Millions as Donors Cut Back

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The global economic crisis has claimed a new victim: a $22-billion (U.S.) health fund that has saved millions of lives in Africa and other low-income regions during the past decade.

Wealthy donors in Europe and elsewhere are drastically cutting back on contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. As a result, in an unprecedented step, the fund has announced that it is cancelling its next round of grants, despite strong protests from health activists.

The impact could be huge. More than 70 per cent of life-saving AIDS medicine in the developing world, and about 85 per cent of TB programs in Africa, are financed by the Global Fund. The cancellation of its next round of grants will have a direct impact on tens of thousands of impoverished people living with HIV who depend on foreign financing for their medicine, analysts say.

The cuts by donor governments are not just because of the economic slowdown and the financial crisis in Europe, but also because of concerns over corruption in several recipient countries. Some donors, including Germany and Sweden, have frozen their donations because of the misuse of health grants in four recipient nations.

The Global Fund has fallen into “the most dire financial situation it has ever seen since its creation,” according to a statement on Wednesday by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

There is a “shocking incongruence” between the financial cuts and the latest scientific evidence suggesting that an expansion of HIV treatment could be a crucial step toward eliminating the AIDS epidemic, MSF said.

“Donors are really pulling the rug out from under people living with HIV/AIDS at precisely the time when we need to move full-steam ahead and get life-saving treatment to more people,” the group said.

Stephen Lewis, the former United Nations special envoy on AIDS in Africa, warned that the funding cancellation will cost thousands of lives. “It’s incredible that so many countries should default on their commitments at exactly the moment when we know what to do to defeat the pandemic,” he said. “I don’t know how the financial architects of this disaster sleep at night.”

A leading advocacy group, Health Global Access Project, said the donor countries are “betraying” poor people and pushing the Global Fund “to the edge of a cliff.”

The cuts were announced just two days after the UN released dramatic new data on AIDS, showing how the increase in financing from donors such as the Global Fund over the past few years has helped prevent the death of 700,000 people and reduce the number of new infections by 30 to 50 per cent.

In addition to the cancellation of the next round of grants, there is mounting evidence that some donors are failing to fulfill their existing pledges, leading to turmoil among many recipients.

The most famous AIDS activist group in South Africa, Treatment Action Campaign, says it will be forced to close its doors and dismiss its 230 workers by the end of January unless it receives a much-delayed grant that was originally supposed to arrive in July. “We face a real crisis,” the group said.

Read the Globe and Mail article here.

Jamaica Observer: Free Representation for Persons Facing Discrimination

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

NASSAU, Bahamas — Gay men, sex workers and HIV-positive persons will be among Caribbean nationals who will qualify for free legal representation under the newly established Caribbean Social Justice Coalition, if they believe they are being discriminated against.

Already the foundation of the international apparel company Levi Strauss Company has stepped forward to become the first funder of the coalition, which has been registered as a legal entity and launched here at the 2011 Caribbean HIV Conference which concluded Monday at Atlantis Paradise Island.

Dr. Ernest Massiah, director of the UNAIDS regional support team for the Caribbean, said the coalition was born out of a need for the region to provide a mechanism for people who are subject to arbitrary discrimination, especially those who are poor and cannot afford legal representation.

Explaining how the coalition will work, Massiah said a team of lawyers has already been identified and will have their travel expenses paid to get to and from the islands where the cases are being heard.

"Should they win a case, part of the award will go to the lawyer, part to the individual and part to the coalition so that the coalition won't have to be overly dependent on external funding," he said. He added that UNAIDS will also put resources in this coalition and other funders are also interested in funding it.

"The idea of how it will function is still being worked out but the basic principle is it must become self-sustaining," said Massiah, who stressed that it would not only involve discrimination of HIV-infected persons but will provide a mechanism for anyone who seeks redress for injustice.

Miguel Bustos, senior programmes manager for the Americas at Levi Strauss, said that company has been involved in social justice ever since its inception and was one of the first to step forward in the 1980s when people first began dying from HIV in San Francisco. "We used to fund prevention and treatment but we decided we need to get to the root cause and fund advocacy," he said. The company, he added, was delighted at this new initiative and was happy to be the first funder.

"We are pleased to fund the work to support men who sleep with men, sex workers, drug users and anybody else searching for human rights," he said.

Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican lawyer on the team, said he opted to leave his private practice in intellectual property rights and take up this cause after he heard of some disturbing human rights violations.

He said the killing of 16-year-old Oshane Gordon on October 18, by men who hacked him to death in his house, because he was suspected of having questionable relations with another man, is one such cause that resulted in his involvement with the coalition.

"It is hard to hear those stories and go back to your life without being compelled to do something," he said. As such, he said, he wanted to dedicate his work with the coalition to the Gordon's memory.

Tomlinson said he is hoping to influence other colleagues to join in this work as it is tragic that a region which has seen so much oppression can continue to oppress others.

"I can't understand why Jamaicans have a problem with privacy rights, and who people choose to love. That was one of the rights denied us as people brought here as slaves to populate a region, yet we can't validate the love of two consenting adults," he argued.

Dr Edward Greene, United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS for the Caribbean, said the initiative is even bigger than HIV/AIDS.

"It gives us as advocates something to grasp at and support because its success means we could succeed in our mission to eliminate discrimination of people living with AIDS," he said. He added that social justice is something strived for in order to eliminate stigma of people living with HIV.

Miriam Edward, head of the Caribbean Association of Sex Workers, said this coalition should help sex workers who cannot afford legal representation. "We face a lot of challenges on the street where men would beat us and take back their money and then report us to the police and we are the ones who get locked up," said the Guyanese national.

Read the Jamaica Observer article here.

Maurice Tomlinson's Countdown to Tolerance: Setting the Stage

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:55:00 -0500

By Maurice Tomlinson

There is unquestionable evidence that homophobia negatively impacts the global HIV response. Whether it is subtle acts of discrimination or intimidation which discourage men who have sex with men (MSM) from accessing effective prevention, treatment, care and support interventions, or more egregious policies such as the non-distribution of condoms to male inmates, the results are the same: countries where there is a high level of hostility towards the recognition of the human rights of homosexuals bear some of the world’s highest HIV burdens.

The foregoing is palpably demonstrated in Jamaica, where the country’s notorious homophobia contributes to an HIV prevalence rate of 32% among MSM against 1.6% in the general population. Since 2010 I have been working with AIDS-Free World and local partners in Jamaica to document, report on, and respond to human rights violations against homosexuals in an effort to remove the impediment that homophobic intolerance poses to an effective HIV response. As a proud Jamaican, I believe that we can reform the way this country views homosexuals by encouraging dialogue and presenting hard evidence that will drive legislation, policy and behavior change toward tolerance.

This work comes at a very opportune time, as the movement for global LGBT liberation has never been greater, even as the funding for the global HIV and AIDS response is being imperiled by the world financial crisis. I am therefore excited to be able to contribute to this process within my country and region and am very proud of the remarkable successes AIDS-Free World has achieved and contributed to in the area of LGBT human rights recognition in the space of less than two years. At the supranational level, not only have we launched, in August 2011, the first legal challenge to the Jamaican anti-sodomy law at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), but we have also been able to record the first Precautionary Measures issued by the IACHR against a state on behalf of an LGBT human rights defender (yours truly) as well as members of a gay community (the two petitioners in our matter before the IACHR). Further, in 2010, I, along with regional partners, presented a thematic report to the IACHR that outlined the human rights situation for Caribbean LGBT individuals. These initiatives, no doubt, contributed to the IACHR inaugurating, in October at its 143rd sitting, the first unit on LGBT human rights, and there are plans for the IACHR to establish a Special Rapporteurship on LGBT rights in the near future.

At the regional level, I scripted a pro-tolerance public service announcement currently being aired in Barbados and trained LGBT groups in Dominica, Belize and Guyana on our successful model for documenting and reporting LGBT human rights violations, which was pioneered in Jamaica. AIDS-Free World is also financially supporting the first legal challenge to the anti-sodomy law in Belize.

In Jamaica, along with Betsy Apple, AIDS-Free World’s Legal Director and General Counsel, I developed a model for documenting and reporting on LGBT human rights abuses, which is now being exported around the Caribbean. I also scripted the first tolerance-themed PSA aired on Jamaican radio and television and led over a dozen incident-free tolerance-themed public events. The work we have been doing has definitely borne fruit, as the dialogue in support of LGBT human rights has never been richer in Jamaica. From extremely positive newspaper editorials to statements of tolerance made in Parliament by the President of the Senate and the Police Commissioner, I don’t think it is hubris to say that Jamaica has never seen this level of public discourse in favor of tolerance for homosexuals.

Much further afield, I have presented our work using the Inter-American system to advance LGBT human rights to students as part of an innovative HIV and Human Rights Master of Laws program at the University of Pretoria, and I am working on “Envisioning Global LGBT Rights,” an ambitious project based at York University in Canada that is seeking to document the global LGBT liberation movement. I have also been speaking to Jamaican Diaspora groups and organizations that work with them to provide insight into the level and drivers of Jamaican homophobia.

Thinking globally and acting locally is a cliché but as an island nation, it works!

We are certainly not immune to the waves and currents of LGBT liberation washing over the region and the world and so I am ecstatic about the impact of our work. While I keep a watching brief on the international LGBT movement, I am very conscious of how it impacts the Caribbean struggle for gay liberation.
So as I begin this “Countdown to Tolerance,” I will be joining the many regional and global voices already addressing the issue of tolerance for homosexuals. My perspective, however, will be heavily influenced by the impact of tolerance on the HIV epidemic within the Caribbean context.

The Daily Beast: The Eye of the Storm

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:57:00 -0400

The past decade has seen natural disasters on an unprecedented scale: “Hundred-year” floods are hitting Western Europe and India every two or three years; hurricane and tornadoes of extraordinary strength are ravaging every continent; agriculture systems from Somalia to Texas are collapsing under the assault of unrelenting drought. But what is lesser known is how the effects of these environmental catastrophes—whether sudden or slow-moving—are disproportionately borne by women. Disaster is seldom gender-neutral.

The gap is easiest to see in the most acute disasters. In the 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami, death rates for women across the region averaged three to four times that of men. That’s in part because girls and women, per tradition, were less likely to have been taught how to swim. Also, many lacked the upper body strength necessary to climb to safety or cling to a tree; and, most tragically, in a fast-moving storm surge, mothers who stopped to find and gather up children or other dependents lost valuable time, which in some cases meant the difference between life and death.

The tragic list goes on: in the 1995 Kobe Japan earthquake, one and a half times more women died than men; in the 1991 floods in Bangladesh, five times as many women as men died. In these societies, women often live longer, but they often live in substandard conditions compared with men, making them most vulnerable to havoc wreaked by nature.

Even when the disaster does not roll in with jaw-droppingly swift power, women typically fall victim far more often than men. For instance, climate change is already producing shifts in the habitats of malarial mosquitoes throughout Africa, pushing the disease into new places. For millions of women, especially pregnant or HIV-positive women, this is a new threat knocking at the door: malaria is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality.

As climate change wreaks havoc in agriculture, we are witnessing a burgeoning crisis regarding food, both in its availability and price. In most cultures, including, arguably, our own, women eat the least; men and boys are privileged in household and family food allocation. In a feature article for The Washington Post in 2008, reporter Kevin Sullivan observed that, “In poor nations, such as Burkina Faso in the heart of West Africa, mealtime conspires against women. They grow the food, fetch the water, shop at the market, and cook the meals. But when it comes time to eat, men and children eat first, and women eat last and least.” This is certainly happening in Somalia in the path of the devastating famine: The United Nations has warned that women fleeing for refugee camps across the border are being raped, abducted, and forced into marriage. In the new world order of climate change, the world’s women will get hungrier, and more brutalized, still.

When acute disasters or chronic environmental change produce social and economic disruption, and particularly if civic order collapses entirely, violence against women and girls, especially sexual violence and sex trafficking, increase dramatically. As the U.S. State Department noted in its 2010 Human Trafficking Report, “From cyclones and floods in Southern Africa to the earthquake in Haiti, the last year has seen a multitude of natural disasters leading to increased physical and economic insecurity. These disasters disproportionately affected the most vulnerable sectors of society—migrants, job seekers, and poor families—making them easy targets for exploitation and enslavement.”

To mitigate the gendered impacts of environmental change, we need, first, to start with awareness—knowing the problem, and acknowledging it. Most official and policy analysis of disasters and environmental change is stunningly gender-blind. But a small cadre of feminist researchers and activists are poised to turn this tide. The international Gender & Disasters Network and the Gender and Climate Change Network provide clearinghouses for research and offer focal points for activists and scholars working toward policy change. Persistent efforts, combining the forces of academia and community organizing, are shifting official policies, albeit at a glacial pace. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is only recently—yet stingily—taking note of the gender component, while most of the U.N. agencies dealing with social or environmental issues make obligatory, if fleeting, note of the gendered dimensions of disasters.

One of the brightest spots on the official policy map is Mozambique, where Environment Minister Alcinda Abreu in 2009 and 2010 commissioned a worldwide first national strategy plan for gender and environment. Let us hope the rest of the world is not far behind.

Read The Daily Beast story here

Television Jamaica: Jamaica Pressured to Remove its Sodomy Laws

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:57:00 -0400

This story from Prime Time News on Television Jamaica covers the press conference announcing AIDS-Free World's petition to the Inter-America Commission on Human Rights challenging Jamaica's anti-gay law. View the press release about the IACHR petition here.

The First-Ever Legal Challenge to Jamaica's Anti-Gay Law

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:25:00 -0400

KINGSTON, JAMAICA, Oct. 26 — At a press conference in Kingston today, Jamaican attorney Maurice Tomlinson announced that his organization, AIDS-Free World, has presented a first-ever legal challenge to the country’s anti-gay laws. AIDS-Free World has filed a petition at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of two gay men whose names are being withheld to protect their safety. A legal team assembled by AIDS-Free World argues that by criminalizing homosexuality under its constitution, Jamaica is in violation of international human rights law. (See details about the legal case and Commission procedure in the attached Q&A.)

The so-called “anti-sodomy law” in Jamaica has cast a destructive pall over the lives of gay Jamaicans. It has fed a homophobic society in which gays and lesbians are harassed, mocked, vilified, beaten and killed simply because of their sexual orientation. Driven underground, many fear that seeking an HIV test will brand them as homosexual, and therefore criminal. The national prevalence of HIV is over 30 percent among men who have sex with men, compared to a rate of 1.6 percent in the general population. The petition establishes clear ties between the country’s active promotion of discrimination and its AIDS epidemic.

Tragically and unconscionably, the Government of Jamaica is determined to sustain its discriminatory legislation. The petition brought by AIDS-Free World makes clear that this law tramples on the American Convention on Human Rights, to which Jamaica is a party, and violates numerous guarantees contained in other international treaties that the country has signed and ratified. Jamaica’s law legitimizes abuses against homosexuals by state actors, including the police. It also encourages vigilante justice by private citizens, most of whom believe that the “anti-sodomy” law grants them permission to commit acts of violence against sexual minorities. Because the Government and its highest officials support and enable homophobia, the only possible way to end the persistent violation of the human rights of gay Jamaicans is to strike down the law as soon as possible and usher in an era of tolerance.

Because measures to reverse the homophobic legislation are unavailable within Jamaica, AIDS-Free World is bringing its challenge at the regional level, to the Inter-American Commission. If the Commission decides favorably, other countries in the region with similar anti-homosexuality legislation will be forced to take notice. In fact, it is the conviction of AIDS-Free World that a favorable outcome will have a dramatic impact on all countries that persist in the medieval persecution of their citizens on the grounds of sexual orientation.

There is great irony to the fact that the Jamaican legislation derives directly from the days of the British Empire. Despite being an independent country, Jamaica has not rid itself of the discriminatory shackles of colonialism. This is also true of some 40 other members of the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of countries once ruled by Great Britain. Hence, the issue of decriminalizing homosexuality is on the agenda of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting that begins in Australia in two days’ time.

Mr. Tomlinson is joined in representing the petitioners by Lord Anthony Gifford, noted counsel on a similar and successful case before the European Court of Human Rights, and a formidable legal team assembled by AIDS-Free World Legal Director Betsy Apple that includes pro bono attorneys from the US firm Thompson Hine and the Law Center at Nova Southeastern University.

###

Media Contact:
Christina Magill
TEL: +1-416-657-4458
clm@aidsfreeworld.org

Download the press release here (PDF, 137KB)

View the Q&A on AIDS-Free World's petition to the IACHR here

Q&A: AIDS-Free World's Challenge of Jamaica's Anti-Gay Law

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:49:00 -0400

AIDS-Free World has filed a legal petition at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights arguing that by criminalizing homosexuality under its constitution, Jamaica is in violation of international human rights law. View the press release about the IACHR petition here.

What Jamaica’s Anti-Sodomy Law Is And What It Does
1. Why does AIDS-Free World care about Jamaica?
2. What is Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law?
3. What punishment does the anti-sodomy law prescribe?
4. What does the anti-sodomy law have to do with homophobia in Jamaica?
5. What does the anti-sodomy law have to do with the fight against HIV and AIDS?

The Legal Challenge To The Anti-Sodomy Law
6. Why is AIDS-Free World challenging the Jamaican anti-sodomy law?
7. Why is AIDS-Free World challenging the anti-sodomy law NOW?
8. Where is AIDS-Free World challenging this law?
9. Why isn’t AIDS-Free World challenging this Jamaican law in Jamaican courts?
10. What is AIDS-Free World’s role in this legal challenge?
11. Who, exactly, are the Petitioners?
12. Why are the Petitioners’ names and identities kept secret?
13. What has AIDS-Free World done to help the Petitioners (besides representing them in this legal challenge)?
14. If the Petitioners fear for their safety, what has AIDS-Free World done to protect them?
15. What exactly is the IACHR authorized to do?
16. What is a “petition” filed at the IACHR?
17. On what basis are the Petitioners and AIDS-Free World challenging the Jamaican “anti-sodomy” law?
18. What is the American Convention on Human Rights?
19. What rights in the American Convention does Jamaica’s “anti-sodomy law” violate?
20. What is the ultimate goal of this legal challenge?
21. Is the Jamaican government obligated to listen to the IACHR?
22. If Jamaica is not obligated to listen to the Inter-American Commission, why not go to the Inter-American Court?
23. What, then, is the purpose of the IACHR petition, if it doesn’t result in a legally binding decision against the government of Jamaica?
24. What does this case mean for other countries in the Americas (and is the IACHR’s decision binding upon them)?
25. Why is this case important?

The IACHR Petition Process
26. How long does a petition take to be processed?
27. What is the process by which the IACHR decides upon a petition?
28. What will happen to the Petitioners in the meantime?
29. Whom do I contact for more information about this petition?

What Jamaica’s Anti-Sodomy Law Is And What It Does

1. Why does AIDS-Free World care about Jamaica?

Jamaica has the reputation as the most homophobic place on earth. Horrendous violations of the human rights of gay, lesbian, transgender, intersex, and other gender non-conforming Jamaicans have been documented, ranging from bullying to extortion to brutal attacks to home invasions to murder, and everything in between. The homophobia in Jamaica is palpable; every day, the average Jamaican might witness (or participate in) incidents where gay men are verbally or physically assaulted on the street. This homophobia also drives men who have sex with men (MSM) deep underground, away from effective HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care, and support interventions. The result is that the HIV prevalence rate amongst Jamaican MSM is about 32% as compared to a rate of 1.6% in the general population. That means that nearly one out of every three Jamaican males who has sex with men is HIV positive, a deeply shocking and completely unacceptable statistic that translates into a serious public health crisis.

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2. What is Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law?

Jamaica has a law that criminalizes consensual sexual conduct (actual or attempted) between men, as well as the “abominable crime of buggery” (anal sex) between any people of any sex. This law is called the “Offenses Against the Person Act,” and while it is a comprehensive law dealing with all sorts of crimes, three of its sections (76, 77, and 79) specifically make male homosexual sex and “buggery” illegal. This law has existed since 1864, when Jamaica was under British colonial law, and has endured since then despite the fact that Jamaica achieved independence in 1962.

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3. What punishment does the anti-sodomy law prescribe?

The law requires that anyone convicted of “buggery” will be sentenced to up to ten years of imprisonment with hard labor; those convicted of “attempted buggery” or “any indecent assault upon any male person” will be sentenced to up to seven years in prison, with or without hard labor; and any male who commits or tries to commit an “act of gross indecency” with another male will be sentenced to as much as two years in prison, with or without hard labor. While very few cases have been documented in which the police or prosecutors in Jamaica have tried to charge individuals with these crimes, so long as the law exists, so, too, does the possibility of prosecution. This means that homosexuals live in fear that anything two men do, no matter how unremarkable—such as sitting in a car talking, or going to the beach together—might be perceived as a violation of the anti-sodomy law, and possibly will subject them to criminal prosecution.

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4. What does the anti-sodomy law have to do with homophobia in Jamaica?

The law criminalizes three specific acts: “buggery,” “attempted buggery,” and “acts of gross indecency.” However, AIDS-Free World and many other organizations have documented the fact that politicians, elected officials, police officers, church leaders, and the average person on the street— members of the general population of Jamaica—universally understand the law to make homosexuality itself illegal. This means that the law effectively turns people into criminals if they are homosexual or are believed to be homosexual, or if they diverge in any way from commonly accepted notions of heterosexuality. Because under the law, anyone who performs or tries to perform a sexual act with a person of the same sex is a criminal, Jamaica’s law gives permission to people in the society at large to view homosexuals (actual or perceived) as criminals. Jamaica is a country in which vigilante justice against criminals is quite common. The anti-sodomy law encourages violence against homosexuals by essentially proclaiming, “these people are ‘unapprehended criminals,’ and therefore should be treated as such.”

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5. What does the anti-sodomy law have to do with the fight against HIV and AIDS?

Laws that directly or indirectly criminalize homosexual acts, homosexual identity, and men who have sex with men (MSM) form barriers to effective responses to HIV in the countries that retain those laws. The laws create apprehension amongst homosexuals and MSM, who fear that even the mundane activities of daily life will lead to accusations that they are involved in criminal acts. For example, if a gay male goes to the doctor for an annual health check-up, that doctor may ask him if he is sexually active. If he answers truthfully, he has just confessed to a crime. If he lies and says he is not sexually active, or says he has sex with women, he will be depriving the doctor of accurate information about risks to his health.

Laws that criminalize homosexuals and homosexuality drive underground people who are in need of health and other services related to HIV and AIDS, and who are at risk of contracting the virus. Because the anti-sodomy law is perceived to criminalize homosexuality as a whole, men who have sex with men are deeply unpopular in Jamaica, and the government is not anxious to be seen as providing “special” services to them. Consequently, the Jamaican government uses the anti-sodomy law as an excuse for not creating adequate HIV-related health programs (outreach, testing, support, treatment, care) that target MSM. This combination of governmental inaction and legitimate fear amongst MSM creates enormous barriers to effective HIV and AIDS health programs.

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The Legal Challenge To The Anti-Sodomy Law

6. Why is AIDS-Free World challenging the Jamaican anti-sodomy law?

AIDS-Free World’s mission is to challenge the laws, practices, programs, and actions (or inaction) that obstruct effective, comprehensive responses to the global HIV and AIDS pandemic. So long as the anti-sodomy law exists, a truly effective AIDS response in Jamaica will be impossible. The law, in essence, makes it legal to treat homosexuals and MSM as criminals. It makes Jamaica a hostile place for homosexuals and MSM, particularly those who seek any kind of health services. It drives underground homosexuals and MSM and prevents them from seeking critical HIV and AIDS prevention, testing, treatment, care, and support services. Jamaica is in the midst of an HIV crisis; 32% of all men who have sex with men are HIV positive. The anti-sodomy law makes it impossible to reach those people. Therefore, it must be changed.

AIDS-Free World, through its advocacy, seeks to address the underlying discrimination and injustice that enable HIV and AIDS to flourish. The Jamaican anti-sodomy law legalizes homophobic violence and discrimination against anyone in Jamaica who does not fit mainstream notions about sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Because the anti-sodomy law turns homosexuals into “unapprehended criminals,” the law enables people—government employees and private individuals alike—to commit human rights abuses against those who are homosexual or thought to be homosexual.

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7. Why is AIDS-Free World challenging the anti-sodomy law NOW?

It is impossible to challenge a law of this kind without evidence that the law is leading to abuses. AIDS-Free World has been collaborating with organizations in Jamaica to gather the evidence necessary to prove the link between the anti-sodomy law and violations of human rights. Jamaican groups and activists are leading a movement that seeks to challenge human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and MSM communities, but building movements takes time. AIDS-Free World also has been working with Jamaican organizations to document abuses against LGBT and MSM, and it has taken some time for these communities to feel safe enough to come forward and tell their stories.

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8. Where is AIDS-Free World challenging this law?

AIDS-Free World is challenging the anti-sodomy law before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), one of two institutions in the 35-country Americas region that exist to promote and protect human rights. (The other is the Inter-American Court on Human Rights.) The regional umbrella organization that brings together these 35 countries to discuss a wide range of issues, including democracy, human rights, security, and development, is called the Organization of American States (OAS). The IACHR and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights fall under the authority of the OAS. Their activities are focused on the human rights situation in the 35 countries that make up the Americas region. (More on the IACHR in question #15, below).

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9. Why isn’t AIDS-Free World challenging this Jamaican law in Jamaican courts?

The Jamaican constitution has a relatively unusual clause in it called the “savings law clause,” which protects Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law from being contested in Jamaican courts. When the new Jamaican Charter of Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was passed in April 2011, it contained a provision stating that any pre-existing laws relating to sexual offenses (such as the anti-sodomy law), pornography, or abortion were “saved” from constitutional review. This legal protection immunizes the anti-sodomy law from challenge in Jamaican courts, and made it impossible for AIDS-Free World to assist Jamaican lawyers to bring a case in Jamaica. Consequently, our only recourse for challenging the law was to go to the IACHR.

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10. What is AIDS-Free World’s role in this legal challenge?

As part of its broader efforts to abolish anti-gay laws that have survived from previous centuries in dozens of countries, and that violate human rights and exacerbate HIV transmission, AIDS-Free World and its legal team have filed a document—a “Petition”—on behalf of two Jamaicans to challenge the so-called “anti-sodomy law” that violates their human rights.

AIDS-Free World has been guided by its Legal Advisor on Marginalized Groups, Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican lawyer and activist, and supported financially by the MAC AIDS Foundation. The organization has worked for over two years in support of Jamaican human rights, LGBT, and AIDS advocacy groups’ multi-pronged efforts to promote tolerance and end discrimination in the country. At the activists’ request, AIDS-Free World developed a legal strategy to complement their efforts, beginning with training Jamaican advocates and lawyers to collect and document evidence of human rights violations. The organization’s Legal Director, Betsy Apple, assembled a team of contract and pro bono attorneys to support AIDS-Free World’s role as lead counsel, working in conjunction with Mr. Tomlinson. AIDS-Free World will be joined by Jamaican/British barrister Anthony Gifford in its role as lead counsel presenting the petitioners’ case to the IACHR when the hearing occurs. Ultimately, however, it is the two young gay men from Jamaica, the “petitioners,” who are actually challenging their country’s “anti-sodomy law.” AIDS-Free World’s legal team also comprises attorneys from the US law firm of Thompson Hine (David Schwartz, Samir Varma, Jaelyn Edwards, David Townsend, and Kirstin Keefe), and Professor James Wilets of Florida’s Nova Southeastern University Law Center, which also provided student assistance.

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11. Who, exactly, are the Petitioners?

The Petitioners in this case are two young gay men from Jamaica who will challenge the Jamaican anti-sodomy law on behalf of themselves and other LGBT. They have experienced constant and serious human rights abuses because of their sexual orientation, and believe that these violations stem from the legalized violence and discrimination against them (and people like them), as authorized by the anti- gay law. Their names and identities are being withheld from all documents relating to this challenge that are publicly available.

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12. Why are the Petitioners’ names and identities kept secret?

The Petitioners have courageously come forward to challenge the law, understanding the risk that if their role in this legal challenge were to become public, they and possibly their families could be subjected to even more harassment, abuse, violence, and discrimination than before. To be homosexual in Jamaica is dangerous, and to be openly and publicly homosexual is to live under constant threat. Consequently, the Petitioners have requested that the IACHR keep their identities anonymous for all public purposes.

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13. What has AIDS-Free World done to help the Petitioners (besides representing them in this
legal challenge)?

AIDS-Free World has worked closely with the Petitioners and with others in their position to try to get the government of Jamaica to redress abuses they have experienced in the past and to prevent future abuses. AIDS-Free World has helped the Petitioners to report the violations they have experienced to the Jamaican government, when they chose to do so.

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14. If the Petitioners fear for their safety, what has AIDS-Free World done to protect them?

AIDS-Free World has informed the IACHR about the serious safety risks the Petitioners face, and has asked the IACHR to contact the government of Jamaica directly and urge officials there to take measures to protect the petitioners. This formal process, applied in cases of extreme threat, is known as a request to grant “precautionary measures.” The IACHR responded positively to AIDS-Free World’s request, and in turn requested that the Jamaican government adopt precautionary measures on behalf of the Petitioners. Unfortunately, the government of Jamaica has yet to respond to the IACHR. AIDS-Free World periodically asks the IACHR to renew its request that the Jamaican government protect the Petitioners, and the organization will continue to ask until the government responds.

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15. What exactly is the IACHR authorized to do?

The IACHR promotes and protects human rights in the Americas region. It does this through various activities, including:
•   Undertaking site visits either to examine the general human rights situation or to investigate specific instances of human rights abuses in a country;
•   Publishing reports and studies about human rights issues in particular countries;
•   Convening meetings, seminars and conferences to discuss a range of human rights topics;
•   Suggesting that countries adopt particular measures to promote human rights;
•   Urging governments to take precautionary measures to protect specific individuals who are at risk;
•   Receiving and reviewing individual complaints (petitions) regarding human rights abuses occurring in countries in the region; and,
•   Interacting with the Inter-American Court on Human Rights by referring cases to the Court, if warranted, and by seeking advisory opinions from the Court on questions of interpretation of the American Convention on Human Rights (see question #18, below).

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16. What is a “petition” filed at the IACHR?

A petition is a specific complaint lodged by an individual, a group of people, or an organization, alleging violations of human rights in a particular country. The IACHR has the authority to review petitions that claim that a government has failed to fulfill its human rights obligations described in the American Convention on Human Rights or other regional human rights treaties. A petition is similar to a “complaint” in a legal case, in that it must describe:
•   The parties who are bringing the complaint (the “petitioners”),
•   The people who are harmed by the violations (the “victims”),
•   The efforts those petitioners have made to seek redress in domestic courts,
•   The specific violations that have occurred, and
•   The reasons why the particular government is responsible for those alleged violations.

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17. On what basis are the Petitioners and AIDS-Free World challenging the Jamaican “anti-
sodomy” law?

AIDS-Free World is helping the Petitioners in this case to challenge the law on the grounds that it violates numerous rights that are protected under an international treaty called the American Convention on Human Rights. Jamaica is a party to the American Convention on Human Rights, and, therefore, it is legally required to abide by the treaty’s obligations.

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18. What is the American Convention on Human Rights?

The American Convention on Human Rights (American Convention) is an international multilateral treaty. A treaty is essentially an agreement between two or more countries, and when more than two countries sign it, it is “multilateral.” When a country’s government “ratifies” or becomes a “party” to a treaty, this means that the government has agreed to be legally bound by all of the obligations described in the treaty. Countries in the Americas region can become party to the American Convention, and if they do, the IACHR and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights are charged with assessing whether those parties have complied with the treaty.
The American Convention lists and describes the different obligations of countries that are party to it, and also describes the various rights that citizens in those countries can expect their governments to protect, respect, and fulfill. Many of the rights enumerated in the American Convention reflect the rights described in other international treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, or the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

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19. What rights in the American Convention does Jamaica’s “anti-sodomy law” violate?

Some of the rights that AIDS-Free World and its legal team have asserted are violated by Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law and contained in the American Convention are the rights to:
• Life
• Humane treatment
• Privacy
• Freedom of expression and association
• Rights of the family
• Freedom of movement and residence
• Right to participate in government
• Right to health

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20. What is the ultimate goal of this legal challenge?

With this petition, AIDS-Free World is asking the IACHR to declare the “anti-sodomy law” in violation of international human rights standards, and recommend to the Jamaican government that it reform the law so that it no longer criminalizes same-sex sexual conduct. Essentially, AIDS-Free World wants the IACHR to inform the Jamaican government that it is not acceptable to criminalize homosexual sex through its laws.
We expect that the IACHR will find that Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law directly violates or contributes to violations of rights protected under the American Convention on Human Rights. Numerous international bodies already have ruled that similar laws around the world violate human rights such as privacy, protection from cruel and inhuman treatment as well as the right to freedom of expression.

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21. Is the Jamaican government obligated to listen to the IACHR?

Although the Jamaican government is obligated to participate in the proceedings before the IACHR, it is not legally bound by the decision or recommendations that the IACHR makes. The IACHR is not a court with authority to make legal decisions that Jamaica must honor, so its decisions have less force than those of other courts.

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22. If Jamaica is not obligated to listen to the Inter-American Commission, why not go to the
Inter-American Court?

In order for the Inter-American Court to have authority (also known as jurisdiction) to hear cases complaining of specific violations in countries in the Americas, a country has to agree to the Court’s jurisdiction. Jamaica has refused to agree to the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court, which means that the Court is not authorized to hear cases of human rights violations involving Jamaica.

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23. What, then, is the purpose of the IACHR petition, if it doesn’t result in a legally binding
decision against the government of Jamaica?

Although an IACHR decision against the government of Jamaica will not be binding, it will be very embarrassing for the country internationally and, if ignored, will have immediate negative implications for Jamaica’s reputation. This is an especially serious issue for the country because Jamaica relies on international goodwill for tourism, its main foreign exchange earner. If the Jamaican government ignores the IACHR decision, it is possible for the OAS General Assembly (which is the main legislative body for that regional body, the Organization of American States) to consider whether countries in the region want to take action and sanction Jamaica. Jamaica is a highly indebted developing nation and the government depends heavily on donor funds to supplement the national budget. Sanctions would make it very challenging for the government to meet its obligations. In an earlier case before the IACHR against Jamaica, the IACHR decided that the government of Jamaica should pay compensation to victims of illegal killings by police, and Jamaica paid. The fact that the Jamaican government abided by the decision of the IACHR before suggests that it will do so again.

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24. What does this case mean for other countries in the Americas (and is the IACHR’s decision
binding upon them)?

Decisions of the IACHR do not serve as “precedent” for subsequent cases at the IACHR (even if the facts or issues are similar) in the same way that decisions from court cases often dictate the decisions in later, similar cases. Nonetheless, the IACHR regularly refers to its previous decisions when hearing matters of a similar nature. In this case, the decision will be highly persuasive for the protection of human rights of homosexuals across the Caribbean, North, Central and South America.

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25. Why is this case important?

For the Petitioners
AIDS-Free World has brought this petition to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the Petitioners (and others like them). Despite the fact that the IACHR urged the government of Jamaica to adopt precautionary measures to protect the Petitioners, the Jamaican government has so far failed to protect them from ongoing human rights violations. In addition, their access to potentially life-saving HIV and AIDS-related prevention, testing, treatment, and support services continues to be restricted by the very existence of the Jamaican law. A favorable decision in this case would provide Petitioners with more tools and greater leverage to demand that the government of Jamaica protect their safety and their health.

For the Caribbean
Eleven English-speaking countries in the Caribbean still criminalize homosexual sex, and all of them are subject to the Inter-American system for the protection of human rights. Within these countries, homosexuals like the Petitioners are regularly exposed to human rights violations as a result of their countries’ laws. Despite domestic and international pressure, the governments of these countries steadfastly have refused to repeal the laws on the grounds that they legitimately reflect local cultures and beliefs. The AIDS-Free World petition, therefore, will be crucial in determining whether the Commission believes that anti-sodomy laws violate the human rights principles articulated in the American Convention. If that determination is made, all other countries in the region in which similar laws exist will find themselves in violation of the American Convention as well, unless they eliminate those laws.

For other regions
Most regions of the world (with the exception of Asia) have regional human rights bodies similar to the IACHR and/or Inter-American Court on Human Rights. While these other regional human rights bodies, such as the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, are not bound by decisions coming out of the IACHR, they likely will look to these decisions when they are confronted with similar issues. Criminalization of same-sex sexual conduct and the abuse of the human rights of homosexuals exist in many African countries. Consequently, legal challenges to African anti-sodomy (or similar) laws in the African regional human rights bodies will benefit from a positive decision in the IACHR.

For the world
The UN Human Rights Council, which is the primary body in the UN dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights, recently asked the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to report on the state of human rights for homosexuals around the world. This petition highlights the role of law in contributing to human rights abuses against homosexuals, and therefore, will be of interest (and use) to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

For the fight against HIV
The UN Global Commission on HIV and the Law is reviewing the effects of law on the spread of HIV amongst MSM. One of the chief arguments in this case, that Jamaica’s anti-sodomy law contributes to the 32% HIV prevalence rate among Jamaican MSM as compared to 1.6% in the general population, will be a key factor for the Commission’s final report.

For the development of international law
Many national or local domestic courts regularly look to decisions from international human rights bodies when deciding human rights cases. The decision in this case, therefore, will help to build a body of law that domestic courts within the region and around the world can draw on to address current and future challenges to anti-sodomy laws. For example, in Belize, where the country’s anti-sodomy law is no longer protected in the constitution, a challenge to the law is expected to have its first hearing in December 2011. No doubt the Belizean court will note with interest the AIDS-Free World petition before the IACHR. This is especially likely since, as of January 2012, one of the new IACHR Commissioners who will hear the AIDS-Free World petition is from Belize. Other jurisdictions within the Caribbean, such as Guyana, are also hearing similar cases about laws that discriminate against homosexuals. A ruling from the IACHR certainly will factor into their decisions.

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The IACHR Petition Process

26. How long does a petition take to be processed?

The processing of a petition at the IACHR goes through various stages that allow both the petitioners and the country’s government sufficient time and opportunity to fully advise the IACHR about the human rights situation inspiring the petition. This can be a lengthy process and may take years, though something far shorter is also possible. The length of time depends on various factors, such as the number of petitions being heard by the IACHR, the responsiveness of the government and the petitioners to the IACHR’s requests for information, the seriousness of the human rights violations alleged in the Petition, and other questions that may arise.

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27. What is the process by which the IACHR decides upon a petition?

A petition will normally go through the following process:
a)   The IACHR reviews a petition and determines whether that petition actually alleges a violation of the American Convention or another treaty about which the IACHR has authority to hear complaints.
b)   The IACHR assigns a case number to that petition and begins to process it as a case.
c)   The IACHR may decide that the petition doesn’t meet procedural requirements, and decide that it will not review the petition. It is also possible that the IACHR may decide that no rights have been violated, and may dismiss the petition.
d)   When a case is opened and a number is assigned, the relevant parts of the petition are sent to the government with a request for information.
e)   Throughout the processing of the case, each party (petitioner and government) is asked to comment on the responses of the other. The IACHR also may carry out its own investigations, conduct site visits, or request specific information from the parties.
f)   The IACHR might hold a hearing, in which both parties would be present and asked to set forth their legal and factual arguments.
g)   In almost every case, the IACHR will offer to help the parties to negotiate a “friendly settlement” if they so desire. If the parties agree to a friendly settlement, the IACHR will not issue a final decision.
h)   When the parties have provided the IACHR and each other with comprehensive information, including legal briefs and supporting evidence, and when the IACHR decides that it has sufficient information, the processing of a case is completed.
i)   The IACHR then prepares a confidential report with its conclusions and general recommendations to the government.
j)   The Commission gives the government a period of time to resolve the situation and to comply with the recommendations of the IACHR.
k)   Once this time period has expired, the IACHR may prepare a second report, which is similar to the initial report, but also contains conclusions and recommendations.
l)   The IACHR may then give the government more time to resolve the situation and to comply with the recommendations of the IACHR.
m) At the end of this second period granted to the government, the IACHR usually will publish its report. This is particularly true if the government fails to comply with the IACHR’s recommendations. If the government ultimately cooperates, the IACHR may decide not to publish its report.

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28. What will happen to the Petitioners in the meantime?

On September 21, 2011, the IACHR asked the government of Jamaica, upon AIDS-Free World’s request, to adopt precautionary measures to protect the Petitioners from harm. Unfortunately, the government of Jamaica has failed to contact the Petitioners or their representatives to discuss potential protective measures. In the meantime, the Petitioners remain in danger of human rights violations and have altered their lives to avoid harassment, discrimination, and abuse.

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29. Whom do I contact for more information about this petition?

AIDS Free World:
Maurice Tomlinson, Esq.
Legal Advisor, Marginalized Groups
AIDS-Free World
Montego Bay, Jamaica W.I.
Tel: 1.876.952.3688
Email: mat@aidsfreeworld.org

Betsy Apple, Esq.
Legal Director and General Counsel
AIDS-Free World
155 Water Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Tel: 1.212.729.5084
Email: ba@aidsfreeworld.org

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View the press release about the IACHR petition here.

Download a copy of this Q&A here (PDF, 226KB)

Ending the Silence on the Rights of Homosexuals in the Commonwealth

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:55:00 -0400

With the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting set to begin on October 28, AIDS-Free World appealed to the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and Commonwealth Chairperson-in-Office, the Honorable Kamla Persad-Bissessar, MP, to end the silence on the issue of full human rights for homosexuals in the Commonwealth and place the issue on the agenda of the CHOGM.

October 10, 2011

The Honourable Kamla Persad-Bissessar, MP
Prime Minister, Trinidad and Tobago and
Commonwealth Chairperson-in-Office

Your Excellency:

We are appealing to you, in your dual capacities as Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago and outgoing Commonwealth Chair-in-Office, to apply your considerable influence to a matter of urgent concern. It is our hope that you will use your leadership to break the Commonwealth’s collective silence on the issue of state- sponsored discrimination against gays and lesbians. Because you have earned the respect of your peers, you are in a unique position to ensure that the Prime Ministers and Presidents of the Commonwealth engage in a frank and open discussion of criminalization based on sexual orientation.

We call upon you to take decisive action by placing this issue firmly on the agenda of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth, Australia. Discussion of the Commonwealth’s homophobic laws is long overdue, and the responsibilities of leadership demand that it take place at the highest levels without further delay.

Homosexuals in many parts of the Commonwealth including Trinidad & Tobago are under siege. As you know, that particular form of prejudice and discrimination is the legacy of British colonialism. Great Britain and most of its former colonies in high-income countries outgrew their homophobic histories long ago, having recognized that human rights apply to everyone. But across most of the English-speaking Caribbean and in several low- and middle-income former British colonies in Africa, the persecution of homosexuals is supported by law. In those countries, homophobia is spreading with frightening speed and increasing violence.

We understand that the Eminent Persons Group that was formed in Trinidad & Tobago in 2009 will table its final report this month at CHOGM. The report will point out that two related facts distinguish Commonwealth countries in deeply problematic ways: rates of HIV in the countries of the Commonwealth are twice what they are in the rest of the world, and 41 of the Commonwealth’s 54 member countries have laws that promote the systematic violation of gay and lesbian citizens’ fundamental human rights.

AIDS-Free World has written in the past to Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma asking him to reserve a place on the CHOGM agenda for a full discussion of the member countries’ anti-gay laws and practices. The Secretariat’s Human Rights Officer replied on Mr. Sharma’s behalf to explain that CHOGM’s agenda is determined by governments, and to suggest that we bring our recommendation to the attention of a supportive Head of Government.

We believe that you have the courage to raise an issue that the Commonwealth as a whole has been afraid to address. Although your own country continues to criminalize homosexuality, you have personally decried discrimination against sexual minorities. You are no doubt conscious that there are inherent contradictions when you call upon governments to honor their commitments to equity, as you did at a UN High-Level Meeting on Women’s Political Participation in September, and yet govern a country where human rights are compartmentalized, and citizens, including women, are persecuted because of their sexual orientation. This inconsistency between human rights and homophobia within and between countries must be addressed by all Commonwealth Heads of Government.

Excellency, CHOGM is imminent, and we fear that yet again, Commonwealth leaders will shy away from discussing sexual orientation and the law, despite the fact that this particular Commonwealth dilemma is of growing global concern. We ask you to exert your influence and leadership to ensure that the forum is used to debate this crucial human rights issue at the highest levels and in a civilized way.

Respectfully yours,

Stephen Lewis and Paula Donovan
Co-Directors
AIDS-Free World

In response, we received a letter from Dr. Shakiratu Sanusi, Human Rights Officer for the Commonwealth Secretariat.

21 October 2011

Dear Stephen and Paula,

The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Mr. Kamalesh Sharma, has seen your correspondence and asked me to thank you for your e-mail of 10 October 2011 under cover of which you sent to him a copy of your letter to the Honourable Kamla Persad-Bissessar, MP. I can assure you that your views have been taken carefully into account.

The Commonwealth recognises that respect for fundamental human rights is critical to promoting peace, prosperity and tolerance. The Commonwealth Secretariat endeavours always to remind the Commonwealth family that vilification and targeting on the grounds of sexual orientation are at odds with Commonwealth values.

Indeed, the 2009 Affirmation of Commonwealth Values and Principles includes a clear commitment to human rights, tolerance, respect and understanding.

We thank you for raising your concerns with us.

We remain engaged on the issue of the human rights landscape of our member countries, inclusive of LGBTI equality.

Sincerely,

Dr. Shakiratu Sanusi
Human Rights Officer

In Memory of Winstone Zulu

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:43:00 -0400

Winstone Zulu, colleague, friend and mentor to everyone at AIDS-Free World, died October 12 after a long battle with a virus that eventually defeated his body, but never managed to subdue his passion for justice, his extraordinary intellect or his boundless hope. Winstone was an enormous, affecting presence for those who had the privilege of knowing him and working with him, and his passion, intellect and charisma come through in the work that he leaves behind.

A memorial fund has been established at RESULTS, Inc., to provide financial support to Winstone's family. Winstone is survived by his wife, Vivian, and their four children, Michael, age 14; Waza, 11; Mwenda, 7; and Dan, 5. 100 percent of your generous contribution will go directly to Winstone's family in their time of need. Click here to contribute, to the memorial fund.

Winstone first gained international recognition by calling for greater attention to be paid to tuberculosis among people living with AIDS. At a time when antiretrovirals were still expensive and difficult to obtain in Africa, many people were dying for lack of access to tuberculosis drugs that cost only ten dollars. Winstone himself was able to defeat tuberculosis, but lost four brothers and two sisters-in-law to the disease. In a speech delivered in 2003 at the World Conference of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Winstone stressed the need to deal not only with HIV infection but also with the infections they caused.

We all know that antiretrovirals are ultimately what we need. There are medications that are available now that have shown they can prolong life and improve the quality of life. But for many of us the dream of getting antiretrovirals is much more farfetched than the dream of getting drugs for ten dollars that can cure you of your disease. Even to me, who has been an AIDS activist for a long time, this is a new way of looking at things. And now when I see someone living with HIV, I say, well, if you don’t have antiretrovirals now, you should go and get checked for tuberculosis. If you have tuberculosis, it can be cured.

A video of Winstone’s remarks at the HIV/TB Global Leaders Forum in 2008 displays Winstone’s skill as a speaker.

Later in his life, Winstone became an active disability rights advocate, stressing the need to provide HIV education, prevention and treatment services to people with disabilities. Winstone contracted polio as a young child, which caused him to have to use crutches to walk. In a piece written for Pambazuka News, Winstone explored the discrimination against people with disabilities.

My expectations of society for people with disabilities are basic but fundamental. I cannot speak for all people with different forms of disabilities. But generally, I just want to be treated as any other human being. I want an environment that can provide me with full access to what everyone else has a right to. That means the full range of human rights including the right to be involved and actively participate in all issues that affect the human family. I don’t want to be ignored simply because I am using a wheel chair to move from point A to point B.

In a recent op-ed written for the New York Times, Winstone attacked the prejudices that continue to increase the HIV risks faced by people with disabilities.

I spoke at an AIDS conference not long ago, and after the talk, someone asked me how I had contracted H.I.V. 'Well,' I replied, 'sexually.' Staring at my crutches, which I have used since I got polio as a child, she exclaimed, 'But how?' The assumption that all disabilities — of hands, feet, hearing, sight — somehow also affect the ability and desire to have sex is common. It would be comic if it didn’t have such serious consequences: people with disabilities are rarely exposed to sex education and are almost never considered in need of information about H.I.V. and treatment for it. As a result, although people with disabilities are just as likely to be sexually active as people without, our H.I.V. infection rate is up to three times higher.

The outpouring of loving remembrances of Winstone in the wake of his death capture the man and the effect he had on those around him.

Father Michael Kelly, who worked with Winstone at Kara Counseling in Lusaka, wrote in the Zambian newspaper The Post:

In 1990 it was unheard of for anyone to go public about their HIV status and even today very few people are willing to have their HIV positive status known. Winstone fought all his life against discrimination and stigma on behalf of People Living with HIV and AIDS. Winstone's astonishing courage as the first person to go public about his HIV status as part of Kara's AIDS outreach education campaign was immediately honoured by President Kaunda who gave a special luncheon at State House with Winstone as the guest of honour. In the early 90's, Winstone was almost daily in the media as there was no one else willing to talk personally about issues of living with HIV/AIDS at that time.

Mercedes Sayagues, a reporter who met Winstone in the early-1990s, wrote of Winstone’s dedication.

He was under no illusions — about greed, corruption, complacency and hypocrisy among politicians, donors and fellow activists — but he kept alive his dream: that treatment was a right of Africans, of the disabled, gays and sex workers. That TB is as bad as HIV and deserves as much attention and resources. That discrimination does not have a place under the African sky.

Stephen Lewis, in remarks read at a memorial service for Winstone in Zambia, expressed his amazement upon first meeting Winstone, and captures the feeling that so many had while in his presence.

My mind went back to our first meeting in 2002 when I was the UN Envoy, and Winstone headed the Association of People Living with AIDS. I remember thinking at the time: where did this incredibly articulate and intense man come from? How did he find the strength to be so critical of government; to be so unflinching in his demands for treatment and care for everyone who needed it? Where did he find the emotional and physical reserves to be so principled and uncompromising?

I was, quite simply, stunned in his presence.

Winstone's colleagues at AIDS-Free World and the countless people he assisted, influenced, and emboldened will forever be indebted to Winstone. Rest in peace, dear friend.

Read AIDS-Free World's remembrance of Winstone here.