Kenya's HIV Challenge: Easing Stigma For Gay Men

via NPR, by Jason Beaubien

Health officials in Kenya say reducing the transmission of HIV among gay men is a central part of their national AIDS strategy. But they face serious challenges, including the fact that homosexuality is still a crime in the East African nation.

HIV rates among gay and bisexual men in Kenya are far higher than the national average.

Mutisiya Leonard, who runs an HIV prevention, treatment and support program for men who have sex with men in northwestern Kenya, says homosexuality is so stigmatized in Africa that many men don't want to refer to themselves as gay. This makes reaching them with safe-sex messages and HIV-prevention campaigns difficult. These men are reluctant to seek medical care for sexually transmitted diseases, he says, and they don't want to get tested for HIV.

Nationwide, roughly 6 percent of adults in Kenya are infected with HIV. But the rate among men who have gay sex is more than three times the national average. Among male prostitutes in the capital, Nairobi, 41 percent are infected.

In order to address HIV in any community, health workers need to be able to get people to talk frankly and honestly about their sex lives. But Leonard says gay men in Kenya face stigma, discrimination, violence and even jail if they come out of the closet. "The fear of the law, the fear of arrest makes it difficult for people to be open about it," he says.

Read the rest.


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The Impact 'Harm Reduction Strategies' Has on Sex Workers

via The Jurist, by Elizabeth Hand

Shohagi was only fourteen when her father arranged her marriage. Sent away from her home, family and friends to marry an unknown man who was much older, she quickly discovered her partner's violent nature. The abuse sent her fleeing back home to a family that rejected her for disobeying her father, threatening her with death. No longer possessing any support system or income, she was shepherded into a brothel in Calcutta. Western perspectives on sex work require such a tale to be met with horror and sympathy. However, Shohagi describes her experience as a sex worker with hope and empowerment. Working in a brothel gives her the chance to earn an income and support herself. Distanced from the violence of both her husband and family, she prefers her life of autonomy.

Shohagi's story is far from unusual, yet it does not conform to the usual cautionary tale that accompanies debates about sex work. Too often the narrative is one of woe and misfortune that leaves a woman with no choice but to become a prostitute, and her life rapidly decays. Adopting this typical western, feminist criticism of prostitution leaves no room for the possibility that a person chooses sex work, and is also pursuing his or her best interests. While many second-wave academics, like Catharine MacKinnon in her article Prostitution and Civil Rights, draw a distinction between indentured servitude and sex work by making the argument that a condition entered into voluntarily, prostitution, is different than one entered into involuntarily, servitude. However, functionally they are both treated as a type of slavery. This approach fails to validate a person's choice to work as a sex worker. In the name of protecting women, MacKinnon fails to acknowledge the agency of women who choose sex work. A viewpoint like this highlights the shortcomings of western ideologies that tend to equate morality with legality. To the contrary, harm reduction strategies can offer protection to sex workers, who are at a high-risk of contracting HIV or facing sex-related violence. However, rather than focusing on harm reduction, generally criminalization is preferred, which strips sex workers of valuable protections and condemns them as immoral.

While no federal law exists that bans all prostitution across the board, Nevada is the only state that, in a few counties, has legalized some forms of prostitution. Many states enforce punishments exceeding a year in prison for this line of sex work. In essence, with the exception of a few counties in Nevada, prostitution is illegal in the US. The reasons cited for why prostitution should remain illegal range from the argument that it is degrading and base to the idea that it is a form of violence against women, or that banning it deters violence against women. Are these compelling enough reasons to justify the continued criminalization of many forms of sex work? Looking to other countries' approaches to monitoring sex work, the US has a lot to gain from legalizing prostitution as a means to ensure sex workers' safety, health and protection from abuse. If the US were to legalize prostitution, the government could more closely regulate it, implementing harm reduction strategies that could be pivotal in tackling HIV/AIDS, STIs, and violence towards sex workers.

The US has traditionally disfavored the implementation harm reduction strategies, preferring to take the moral high road. From needle exchanges to the regulation of sex work, the US chooses hardline stances against these activities at the cost of abandoning citizens that could be offered partial protection. Needless to say, HIV and AIDS are significant concerns when it comes to sex work, and US policy continually uses HIV/AIDS as a guise for providing a motive for eradicating sex work, specifically prostitution. However, when the government steps in to monitor and regulate commercial sex, as opposed to prohibiting it, HIV incidence is likely to go down. Without the government stepping in to police the sex trade, sex workers will continue to be at high risk of infection, while also lacking access to health care and prophylactic resources. Policies aimed at regulating brothels for public health reasons have had tremendous success in lowering not only the incidence of HIV infections in sex workers, but also the overall incidence in the population by altering behavior when it comes to practicing safer sex methods. A UNAIDS case study evaluated Thailand's 100 percent condom use program and found that the government's mandate of condom use within brothels, a policy aimed at combating rapidly rising HIV at the onset of the global AIDS epidemic, made sex work safer and altered cultural norms surrounding sexual practices for the entire nation.

Read the Rest.



[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.]

AIDS advocates inaugurate Obama as the President who will finally change the way the US fights AIDS

(Check out the full press release.)

On November 20, one thousand people living with HIV and allies from across the United States rallied in front of the White House to hold an "inauguration ceremony" for Barack Obama as the president who, during his first one hundred days, will prioritize policies to end the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. and worldwide...

President-elect Obama has made historically bold commitments to reform and expand U.S. AIDS policies. His campaign promised to develop a National AIDS Strategy that includes guaranteed treatment and care for all people with HIV in the US. The campaign pledge goes on to detail a commitment to housing as an integral part of HIV services, an end to the federal ban on funding for syringe exchange, and a call to redirect abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education funding into honest and accurate programs like comprehensive HIV prevention programs.

Internationally, Obama has promised to build on President Bush's global AIDS plan by removing the ideological strings the Bush administration attached to prevention funding. Specifically, Obama has committed to end the Prostitution Loyalty Oath and to support an evidence-based approach to HIV prevention that doesn't overly emphasize abstinence and fidelity at the expense of condoms. He has also pledged to increase funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, a multilateral program which fights the three killer diseases in over 170 countries and which is facing a major funding shortfall...

Gerald LeMelle, Executive Director, Africa Action: "Over the past five years, the U.S. has made great strides in fighting AIDS around the world, yet 33 million people remain infected with the virus, and HIV/AIDS is still the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. Barack Obama has made bold pledges to build on President Bush's global AIDS plan by removing ideological restrictions on comprehensive prevention programs and increasing support for the multilateral Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Starting to implement these promises during his first 100 days would go a long way toward reasserting U.S. moral leadership in the world. Amid international economic turmoil, evidence-driven programs to combat AIDS abroad remain a smart and strategic investment in human security."

For more information, check the 100 Days to Fight AIDS web site.

Revealed: the truth about brothels

A survey into London's off-street sex industry has exposed just how widespread it is - and documents in disturbing detail the plight of the women trapped in it.

Via The Guardian

The men were undertaking research for Big Brothel: a Survey of the Off-Street Sex Industry in London, the most comprehensive study ever conducted into brothels in the UK. The project, which gathered information from 921 brothels in the capital, was commissioned by the Poppy Project, the only British organisation that offers support for women trafficked into prostitution.

My co-author Helen Atkins and I recruited male friends and colleagues to help with the research, and warned them that the work might be upsetting. They were to telephone brothels, posing as potential punters, with a list of questions including "What nationalities are on offer tonight?", "Do the girls do anal?", "How about oral without a condom?", and "What age are they?" We wanted to look at what really goes on in brothels - how much control the women really have; whether there is evidence of trafficking; if local councils are giving licences for saunas and massage parlours when it is clear that they are brothels; and how the sex industry is growing and evolving.

During 120 hours of telephone calls, we established the following: at least 1,933 women are currently at work in London's brothels; ages range from 18 to 55 (with a number of premises offering "very, very young girls"); prices for full sex start at £15, and go up to £250; and more than a third of the brothels offer unprotected sex - including, in some cases, anal penetration. The lowest price quoted for anal sex was £15. "Come along and bring your mates," said one brothel owner. "We have a Greek girl who is very, very young." While kissing used to be off-limits for women selling sex, it can now be bought for an extra tenner.

Read the rest.