Pubdate: Thu, 20 Jul 2006
Source: Guelph Mercury (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 Guelph Mercury Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guelphmercury.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1418
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/women.htm (Women)

BATTLING ON BOTH FRONTS

People With HIV/AIDS Still Face Human Rights Violations

A Mexican AIDS activist is stabbed to death in his  condom shop. In 
China, 23 people infected with the AIDS  virus are put under house 
arrest. A Ugandan woman is  murdered by her lover after she tells him 
she has the  disease. An HIV-positive 15-year-old Kenyan boy is 
killed by a pitchfork wielded by his uncle as  villagers, fearing 
infection, stand idly by.

These are just a few of the "outrageous abuses"  suffered by people 
with HIV/AIDS in the last year --  and such acts of violence and 
government repression are  undermining efforts to fight the global 
epidemic, Human  Rights Watch told a Toronto news conference recently.

"Twenty-five years into the epidemic, people living  with HIV or AIDS 
are still feared and stigmatized,"  said Joe Amon, the New York-based 
organization's  director of HIV/AIDS. "We can't defeat AIDS unless we 
end outrageous abuses against activists, outreach  workers, people 
living with AIDS and those most  vulnerable to infection."

It is a message that Human Rights Watch will speak  about loudly and 
often at the International AIDS  Conference, to be held next month in Toronto.

While human rights issues have been widely discussed at  previous 
meetings of the biennial conference, "little  concrete actions are 
put behind the words," said Amon.

"We know everything that we need right now to fight the  epidemic," 
he said. "We need resources. We need  governments to have a political 
commitment, to show a  will and to protect those who are vulnerable.

"Governments are specifically failing to apply the  lessons that have 
been learned from the epidemic over  the last 25 years."

For example, countries like Ukraine that prohibit and  crack down on 
needle-exchange and methadone programs in  a bid to reduce 
intravenous drug abuse are only  fuelling the HIV/AIDS epidemic, said Amon.

"If you take a hardline, police approach, what you do  is drive users 
underground, further away from services  that protect them from HIV, 
and you'll spread the  disease further."

Other countries whose AIDS-prevention policies were  paying off in 
lower rates of new cases have begun to  lose ground with a shift in 
political and social  attitudes. Uganda, for instance, had a sharp 
decrease  in HIV prevalence rates, which levelled off at about  six 
per cent of the adult population in 2002. But  recently, the 
infection rate has started to climb, Amon  said.

The Ugandan government, backed by evangelical groups,  has switched 
its policy of providing comprehensive  education on AIDS prevention 
to its populace and --  following the U.S. lead -- is now emphasizing 
sexual  abstinence until marriage and abandoning the promotion  of 
condoms, he said.

In many African countries with high HIV rates, women  have infection 
rates up to 10 times higher than men,  Amon said. But gender 
inequalities can make them more  vulnerable to the disease: their 
homes and other  property may be seized upon divorce or death of 
their husband, leaving them homeless and impoverished. Many  women, 
especially in rural areas, have no access to  health care, including 
anti-AIDS drugs.

In most African countries overall, only about 10 per  cent of men, 
women and children who need anti-AIDS  drugs are receiving them, said 
Amon. "Without them,  they die within about two years."

Georgette Gagnon, the organization's deputy director  for Africa, 
said government policies in Zimbabwe are  also starting to erode the 
progress that country has  made against HIV/AIDS.

In an action last year dubbed Operation Cleanse the  Filth, thousands 
of people were evicted from their  homes in low-income neighbourhoods 
of many Zimbabwean  cities. An estimated one-fifth had HIV and were 
no longer able to access treatment, said Gagnon.

"These people are still destitute and homeless," she  said. "Many 
have been forced to move to rural areas  where they have no access to 
food or medical treatment.

"So this is a very clear example of where very  outrageous human 
rights violations have exacerbated the  epidemic . . . More people 
became vulnerable to getting  the infection because of the lack of services."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman