Gender-AIDS posting on MSM response to HIV/AIDS

[Guest guest]

[Moderators Note: This posting refer to a message appeared on " GENDER-AIDS "

<gender-aids@...> on July 13, 2005. Sub 7th ICAAP: MSM off the

HIV prevention radar in Asia? by the HDN Key Correspondent Team. Mr. Ashok Row

Kavi of Humsafar Trust feels that this posting is " divorced from all reality in

the usual asinine insensitiive Western fashion? " and such an analyis is " from an

ignorant neo-imperial idiot "

The orignial message from the 7th ICAAP HDN Key Correspondent team and Mr. Ashok

Row Kavi's rejoinder to the message follows the posting from Pawan Dhall. This,

rather long posting is allowed by the moderator because, it is important to

understand who's world view is presented as 'AIDS analysis']

Dear Friends

The Gender-AIDS posting is disappointing indeed, at least in parts. Portions

like " Members of Asia's gay community have largely been absent in the region's

AIDS response " and " Over the past few years the Nepal-based Blue Diamond Society

(BDS) has

documented . . . " Sorry, but there is nothing we can do. "

What are the parameters for the response that is desired? On what grounds does

the writer decide that Asia's gay organisations have been " absent " ? There is no

analysis in the report and no content about the work that has been undertaken in

the region since the early 1990s. How does one draw inferences of the kind drawn

in the article!

Then again, if the UNAIDS report fails to include MSM as a particularly

vulnerable community in Asia, should the onus be entirely on gay organizations?

Regarding help to Blue Diamond Society, the quote attributed to them has not be

assigned to any particular individual from that organization. It is difficult to

take this quote seriously. At least from the region of Asia where I'm located,

help and support for BDS has always been extended readily, as much as is

possible across borders.

Members of BDS also participated in one of the largest LGBT rights events in

Asia (Rainbow Pride Week from June 20 to 26, 2005) held in Calcutta and its

neighbourhood only a week before the 7th ICAAP started.

India's national AIDS programme now recognizes MSM as one of the populations

that needs focussed attention. West Bengal has one of the largest STI/HIV/AIDS

interventions running for MSM - through a statewide network of CBOs of MSM.

India's courts of law are listening to a petition around Section 377, IPC, and

courts in other parts of the country are being engaged in cases involving

discrimination and violence against MSM. All this can't possibly be surmised as

" absence of leadership " .

With best wishes

Pawan Dhall

Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India (SAATHII)

Calcutta Office

Note: SAATHII is not a gay organization, but works extensively with LGBT

individuals, groups and networks in India in the context of AIDS to build their

capacities through information, networking, advocacy and technical assistance

services

-----------------------------------

To somebody like me who was very much present at the 7th ICAAP. this report is a

travesty of truth and I object strenously about the nonsense written so

blatantly propagating incredible disinformation like:

" Members of Asia's gay community have largely been absent in the region's AIDS

response. While some gay organisation's, such as Japan's OCCUR, Hong Kong's Chi

Heng and India's NAZ Foundation International, are evolving into effective

HIV/AIDS prevention and gay advocacy organisations within their own geographic

areas, a large number of gay organisations are only a token component of larger

internationally funded prevention programmes, of which

many are pilot projects and lack sustainability "

The 7th ICAAP had a host of representatives of MSM organisations from India,

starting with Humsafar Trust in Mumbai, Lakshya Trust from Surat,Baroda and

Rajkot in Gujarat, Swikriti in Kolkata to Naz India Trust, Delhi, (not to be

confused with Naz Foundation International (NFI) which is London based with a

liason office in Lucknow; Swabhava Trust, Bangalore, PLUS,Kolkata etc.

Each has been making not only a vociferous and visible presence in India but has

gate-crashed into the Indian HIV/AIDS prevention field through their strenous

efforts.Therefore,may I strongly object to the sheer rubbish that

" More disturbingly was the absence of any response of regional gay

organisations. An appropriate response might have been to petition

conference officials to deny registration of any representative from Nepal's

Home Ministry. Secondly, gay organisations could have voiced their support for

BDS during the two individual sessions involving the Nepal police force " .

Both at the regional meet of the International Lesbian and Gay Association

(ILGA) in Mumbai,India, in 2004 and in subsequent meetings with the Indian Home

Ministry officials, the persecution of the Blue Diamond Society has been

stressed by people like me. However, isn't it asinine that you wish to point to

the persecution of homosexuals in a society where the democratic rights of ALL

people have been curtailed so dramatically by the King? Or are

you so divorced from all reality in the usual asinine insensitiive Western

fashion?

Dear sir, it has taken us in Humsafar Trust over 10 years to get MSM and gay men

recognised as the " core groups vulnerable to HIV/AIDS " into the National AIDS

Control Organisation (NACO) of India. Please refer to the new budgetary

guidelines in the National AIDS Control Program (NACP) of India before you jump

to your stupid conclusions which can only come from an ignorant neo-imperial

idiot.

As a journalist who has worked with most of India's premier media

organisations, let me congratulate you on hiring a third rate writer to do his

breast beating on this list.

Next time hire the right people before you write rubbish like what was posted on

this list. It is not only Blue Diamiond Society which is fighting the good

fight. There are scores of LGBT groups like the lesbian organisations Sangini

and Aanchal in Delhi and Mumbai, Integration and Saathi in Kolkata, Swabhava

Trust, Sanghama and the Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore (very much present in

Kobe's 7th ICAAP), SWAM and Sahodharan in Chennai, TRUST from Vellore, all

making their presence felt in Kobe.

None of them is foreign funded like NFI, which is not even an Indian

organisation but is a branch of a Lonson registered British charity.

Your correspondent is completelely lacking in both fair journalism or even a

modicum of objectivity in such biased reporting regarding the struggle of the

rising sexual minorities in Asia.

I am posting it to all the requisite Asian LGBT lists for their proper response

to your disgusting posting

Ashok Row Kavi

Humsafar Trust

Mumbai Metro

India

____________________________________

From: " GENDER-AIDS " <gender-aids@...>

Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 12:29 PM

Subject: [gender-aids] 7th ICAAP: MSM off the HIV prevention radar in Asia? HDN

Key Correspondent Team

***************************

A report from the 7th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the

Pacific, Kobe, Japan, 1-5 July 2005

GREATER COOPERATION WOULD ANCHOR MSM-RELATED ISSUES IN REGIONAL HIV/AIDS CONTROL

EFFORTS AND CONTRIBUTE SIGNIFICANTLY TO ASIA'S LONG-TERM FIGHT AGAINST AIDS

During the course of the 7th ICAAP conference in Kobe it became apparent to many

MSM (men who have sex with men) organisations that their role in HIV/AIDS

prevention efforts throughout the Asia-Pacific region is becoming increasingly

marginalised. This fact became painfully apparent when the UNAIDS report " A

Scaled-up Response to AIDS in Asia and the Pacific " failed to identify MSM in

Asia as being an especially vulnerable population. This omission comes at a time

when Japan's gay community represents 55% of the county's new HIV cases in 2004,

and Nepalese gay men are facing human rights abuses at the hands Nepal's police

force.

According to the recent MAP (Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic) report,

although many of Asia's first AIDS cases involved MSMs, this group has been

largely ignored in many country's AIDS prevention efforts as prevalence rates

among injecting drug users (IDUs), commercial sex workers and former plasma

donors rose. For example, although China's first reported domestic transmission

of HIV occurred in 1989 through homosexual sex, Chinese health officials did not

define MSM as high risk group until December 2004. Gay men now officially

account for 11.1% of all estimated HIV/AIDS cases in China. The unofficial HIV

prevalence rate among Asian MSM is over 5 percent.

Current individual HIV prevention programmes are insufficient to prevent

large-scale HIV outbreaks among gay men in Asia. According to UNAIDS " not more

than 2% of men who have sex with men have access to such programmes. "

Steve Wignall, of Family Health International, stated in his ICAAP

presentation, " Recent studies show a picture of extensive behavioural risk and a

real HIV epidemic among MSM in Asia. "

Members of Asia's gay community have largely been absent in the region's AIDS

response. While some gay organisation's, such as Japan's OCCUR, Hong Kong's Chi

Heng and India's NAZ Foundation International, are evolving into effective

HIV/AIDS prevention and gay advocacy organisations within their own geographic

areas, a large number of gay organisations are only a token component of larger

internationally funded prevention programmes, of which many are pilot projects

and lack sustainability.

Over the course of the ICAAP conference in Kobe, there were satellite

sessions, discussion sessions and numerous research papers and poster

displays focusing on the cultural, political and legal challenges to

HIV/AIDS prevention that gay men face in individual countries. However, missing

from these discussions was the lack of gay leadership and regional coordination

on these issues.

Case in point: Over the past few years the Nepal-based Blue Diamond

Society (BDS) has documented targeted physical and sexual abuse of gay men and

peer educators by members of Nepal's police force. On numerous occasions, BDS

has unsuccessfully tried to obtain support from international organisations,

governments and regional gay organisations.

The response was always the same, " Sorry, but there is nothing we can do. "

Conference organisers are well aware of the unacceptable level of violence in

Nepal, but still allowed representatives from the Nepal police force to give a

presentation on " Nepal Police Response to HIV/AIDS, " and " Awareness in Armed

Force/Police through Peer Education. " The lack of influence that foreign

organisations have within the borders of Nepal is understandable, but to accept

members of the Nepal Police force, which has done absolutely nothing to stop the

violence against gay men in Nepal, into the conference, is unjustifiable.

" Conference organisers permitting members Nepal's police force to give

presentations on HIV prevention is like UNHRC [uN High Commission for Refugees]

inviting Zimbabwean President Mugabe to speak on urban planning, "

commented a delegate from northeast Asia.

More disturbingly was the absence of any response of regional gay

organisations. An appropriate response might have been to petition

conference officials to deny registration of any representative from

Nepal's Home Ministry. Secondly, gay organisations could have voiced their

support for BDS during the two individual sessions involving the Nepal police

force.

The potential of Asia's gay organisations, as truly influential and

effective advocacy bodies, could be tested in how they cooperate and

coordinate on regional issues, such as a unified response to the assault and

detention of gay men in Nepal, the spread of HIV across borders as Asia's gay

population becomes more mobile, promotion of the female condom among male sex

workers (MSW) and the facilitation of comprehensive, regional prevention and

research projects. Greater cooperation would anchor MSM-related issues in

regional HIV/AIDS control efforts and contribute significantly to Asia's

long-term fight against AIDS.

HDN Key Correspondent Team

Email: correspondents@...

Web: www.hdnet.org

Cross-posted from SEA-AIDS - sea-aids@...

Full listing of all the 7th ICAAP HDN KC reports available at:

http://www.healthdev.org/eforums/cms/sea-aids