Series of Policy Briefs Summarize the Impact Legal Environments Have on Equality

via Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health

On this day, to commemorate the International Day Against Homo and Trans phobia (IDAHO), the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Asia-Pacific Regional Centre launch a series of policy briefs to provide a summary of how legal environments can actually be barriers to equality for men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people. A recent joint collaboration by APCOM and UNDP resulted in the ground-breaking study, Legal environments, human rights and HIV responses among men who sex with men and transgender people in Asia and the Pacific: An agenda for action, which looks at the impact of legal environments on HIV responses among MSM and transgender people in 48 countries and territories in Asia and the Pacific.

“APCOM is pleased to release these four papers today covering East Asia, Pacific, South Asia and Southeast Asia,” said Midnight Poonkasetwattana, Executive Director of APCOM, “The policy briefs highlight experiences that result in a range of negative consequences for example getting in the way of prevention work, reducing uptake and access to critical services, and increases in high-risk behaviours as well.”

The briefs detail the legality of male-to-male sex, punitive law enforcement practices, laws relating to discrimination, legality of transgender people and same sex relationships. For example, the legal environment in East Asia is generally more protective of human rights of MSM and transgender people, yet in the Pacific male-to-male sex is illegal in nine of the 24 countries and territories. Four countries in Southeast Asia (Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar and Singapore) have criminal sanctions for consensual sex between adult men due to a laws keep on the books while each were under British colonial rule; in South Asia, however, in the National Capital Territory of India (Delhi) and Nepal, courts have taken decisions to decriminalise male to male sex between consenting adults.

“UNDP and APCOM recognise that urgent action is required as MSM and transgender people are critical populations in the response to HIV in Asia and the Pacific,” noted Edmund Settle, HIV Policy Specialist, UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Centre. “Legal environments comprise not just written laws, but also the actual practices of law enforcement and legal institutions with anecdotal evidence from the briefs demonstrating incidence of police harassment, blackmail, extortion and violence. Legal environments that are protective and empowering should be promoted.”


Read the Rest.


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IRMA in Thailand to Prep for MTN 017

IRMA, the Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), AVAC, and local partners participated in two community consultations in Thailand last week on the upcoming Phase II rectal microbicide trial called MTN 17.   

Community stakeholders in Chiang Mai and Bangkok were provided updates on the field and were asked to provide feedback to the MTN about the draft MTN 017 protocol. In October, a similar consultation was held in Cape Town. Pittsburgh  held another one of these sessions recently, and more community input sessions are planned for Boston and Lima as well.

Check out some pictures of the consults...

More pictures of Chiang Mai consult on MTN 017 here.

More pictures of Bangkok consult on MTN 017 here.

[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Laws fail to protect HIV patients, says advocate

Via The Fiji Times, by Frederica Elbourne.

PACIFIC political leaders have remained silent over the protection of the rights of people vulnerable to and affected with HIV, an organisation that champions AIDS awareness said.

The Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation said laws governing those infected with the virus failed to protect their privacy.

The existing legal frameworks condemned behaviour such as anal sex, sex between men, and sex work, the PIAF report launched by Minister for Women Doctor Jiko Luveni in Nadi last month said.

Such denunciation drives these practices underground, the PIAF said in a report that highlighted the plight of HIV positive women in Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

"Public Health Acts also reflect mentalities of the colonial periods and these acts usually provide wide powers to public health authorities, impose heavy duties on infected people and others who must notify and take precautionary measures," the report pointed out.

The acts rarely gave privacy to people who are subject to these provisions, PIAF said.

"These legal frameworks are outdated and are in many instances inappropriate for HIV. Most legal systems in the Pacific lack legislation that protects the rights of people living with HIV," PIAF said.

[If an item is not written by an IRMA member, it should not be construed that IRMA has taken a position on the article's content, whether in support or in opposition.]

Discrimination hurts fight against HIV in homosexual men in Asia-Pacific - UN

Original posted by UN News May 18

More than 90 per cent of men having sex with men in the Asia-Pacific region, a group in which HIV prevalence has reached alarming levels, do not have access to prevention and care services due to an adverse legal and social environment, a United Nations-backed forum was told today.

Read the rest.

Asian gay men’s sex survey reports high levels of sex without condoms

via Aidsmap, by Gus Cairns

The world’s second-largest gay men’s sex survey, focusing mainly on men in East and Southeast Asia, has found that 46% of men who have sex with men who answered the online survey reported inconsistent condom use during anal intercourse with casual partners, and higher levels of unprotected sex with regular partners.

The survey has produced findings across a wide range of indicators that are remarkably similar to the world’s largest survey of gay men's sexual behaviour, the UK's annual Gay Men’s Sex Survey (GMSS) conducted by Sigma Research.

The success of the English-language survey, hosted by the gay Asian website www.fridae.com, has led to a larger 2010 survey in nine languages ranging from Hindi to Japanese – see below.

The 2009 survey was answered by nearly 8000 gay men. Twenty per cent of respondents were from the three non-Asian countries of the USA, Australia and the UK, and this may have influenced some results such as the HIV testing figures.

Read the rest.

MSM at ICAAP 2009 - special report and content review

Click here for A Special Report on MSM at ICAAP 9 from AIDS Projects Management Group. This content review provides detailed transcripts of speeches at main symposiums and oral presentations a well as reports on posters presented . The 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), was held in Bali, Indonesia from 9-13 August 2009. The theme for this ICAAP was 'Empowering People, Strengthening Networks".

MSM in most countries in this region are highly vulnerable. 20 of the countries here criminalize sex between men and that is a situation I grew up in, in Australia. I grew up in that situation and it makes you feel like you have second class status and it means marginalized groups can exist outside the messages of society and those messages that aim to protect them. So many will not put it [being MSM] out on the table and they will keep it to themselves. And yet by not bringing it out and by not being open about sexuality the reality is that MSM conspire in the attitudes of society toward them. If only every person who was gay identifying or MSM stood up in society – if they all stood up the whole shabby and dishonorable strategy to denigrate and put them outside the family would be over.

Read the entire post, and access related presentations.

Most gay men in Asia have no access to HIV prevention, care

More than 90 per cent of men having sex with men (MSM) in Asia and the Pacific do not have access to HIV prevention and care services. And if the situation is not urgently.

Laws across the region need a dramatic and urgent overhaul to allow public health workers to reach out to gay men, or the consequences could be dire and stretch well beyond MSM to affect the general population.

This warning came at a symposium - "Overcoming Legal Barriers to Comprehensive Prevention Among Men who have Sex with Men and Transgender People in Asia and the Pacific" - held at the 9th International Congress on Aids in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP). The event was hosted by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (Apcom).

Read the rest.

Rao - "main challenge is overcoming the whole issue of stigma and discrimination"

via AlertNet, by Tan Ee Lyn

Leading health experts on Monday called for repeal of outdated laws criminalising prostitution and homosexuality so that people suffering from HIV/AIDS or at risk from the disease could get medical treatment.

"The main challenge is overcoming the whole issue of stigma and discrimination, repealing of outdated laws and legislation that countries have got," Prasada Rao, director of UNAIDS Asia Pacific regional support team, said on the margins of an HIV/AIDS conference.

Rao and other experts, kicking off a four-day meeting, said that while progress has been made in research and getting people treated for AIDS, huge challenges lie ahead and much more needs to be done.

Read the rest.

HIV Prevention Challenges in Papua New Guinea

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Epidemic grows as funding falls

Via PlusNews

How do you roll out an effective HIV prevention programme in Papua New Guinea (PNG) where 800 languages are spoken, cultures and sexual mores differ wildly, and much of the country is inaccessible?

Read the whole article here.

IRMA pulled out some highlights from the article, of interest to rectal microbicide advocates, below:

- There are a number of high-risk sexual practices that are common across PNG, according to a National AIDS Council report. These include: "early sexual debut; multiple premarital and extramarital sex partners; unprotected anal and vaginal sex between men and women and unprotected anal sex between men; inconsistent condom use during the exchange or sale of sex by female and male youth, men and women; sexual violence including gang rape; and in some areas the use of penile inserts or products which dry the vagina".

- "The ABC model doesn't work, it's outdated. A human being needs sex; you can be faithful, but what about your partner? And condoms are just talk in rural areas, where most of the people live; they are not available," Agnes Mek of the Rebiamul voluntary counselling and testing centre in Mount Hagen, Western Highlands, told IRIN/PlusNews.

- Labels can be an uneasy fit in PNG. Indentifying commercial sex workers (CSW), a target of standard AIDS responses, presents a dilemma. "CSW are just as likely to be clerks, betel-nut sellers, collectors of firewood, struggling single mothers, girls doing Grade 8, or women trying to marry the expatriate boyfriends they meet in night-clubs," Lawrence Hammar wrote in the Papua New Guinea Medical Journal.

Sexual identity is another vague area. In a culture where initiation rituals can involve male sodomy and oral sex, same-sex activity by young men is not uncommon, and few languages have distinct terms for heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual, designing AIDS responses that target gay men, a high risk group for HIV, presents a major challenge.

- What makes all the permutations of sexual contact in PNG high risk is that condoms are not widely and consistently used. The UN system's Badcock argues that if it were merely a question of supply, then condom marketing could adopt the model used by Coca-Cola, and PNG's very own SP Breweries, who have succeeded in getting their beverages into the villages.

But condoms carry a host of associations with promiscuity - a marketing disaster. Rwabuhemba points out that condoms have received less than wholehearted support from churches and some traditional leaders also take a dim view of the intervention of latex in the sex act. Meanwhile, women typically have little power to negotiate condom use with their partners.

- Social scientists argue that to make headway against the epidemic, PNG's response must go beyond behaviour change messages drafted in Port Moresby or donor capitals, and start understanding and engaging with local communities.

Read the whole thing here.

HIV Advocacy from the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Strengthening Local Responses.

As the culmination of phase one of APCASO’s Community Advocacy Initiative, APCASO is pleased to launch its latest publication:

HIV Advocacy from the Ground Up: A Toolkit for Strengthening Local Responses.

A must-click for all advocates!