Interview: Securing gay rights in Jamaica is vital to AIDS struggle

Gareth Thomas is a minister at DFID

via PinkNews.co.uk

"During those visits I have been struck by the extent to which homophobia and the anti-gay legislation impact the effort to fight the surge of HIV infections."

By an stretch of the imagination, the treatment of lesbian and gay people in Jamaica is disgrace, says DFID minister Gareth Thomas.

The Church condemns them as sinful and the Prime Minister is unashamed to say he would not have a gay person in his Cabinet.

The wildly-popular dancehall culture is viciously homophobic, with many lyrics calling for lesbians and gays to be burned, beaten and shot. Reggae is little better.

PinkNews.co.uk has reported many incidents of homophobic violence in the former colony over the last three years.

In February an attack on a group of men alleged to be homosexual left one man seriously injured and another missing feared dead.


Read the rest.

UK Campaign for Microbicides Springs into Action!

The UK Campaign for Microbicides has recently sent a letter to the UK Department for International Development (DfID).

The letter does an excellent job at balancing praise for the government’s recent announcement, expressing concern on certain aspects of this announcement, and offering to become involved in the process.

Namely, the UK Campaign has expressed:

* Support for the commitment to increase by 50 per cent funding available for the research and development of vaccines and microbicides from 2008 to 2015

* Interest in working with partners to take forward this commitment

* Concern on two fronts:

- The restrictive definition of microbicides used by DfID, which fails to recognize that both vaginal and rectal microbicides development require support, and that microbicides are needed for women and men

- The need for social and behavioural research

Congratulations to UK advocates for your work over the years, which undoubtedly led to the commitment to increased funding, as well as for your well-crafted letter. We await DfID’s response with great anticipation!