Evelyn Leopold, United Nations | Monday
A WEEK before a major U.N. Aids conference, delegates are still embroiled on what to say about sex — among prostitutes, homosexuals and outside of marriage in general, according to a frank document on combating the killer disease.
The negotiations, says Iranian Ambassador Bagher Asadi, should not turn into “an opportunity by certain forces in the Western world to push the envelope in areas where there is cultural sensitivity, ideological sensitivity, ethical sensitivity.”
The envelope, conservative Islamic countries say, is an explicit mention of homosexuality, prostitution, prisoners or needle-injecting drug addicts in a section of the conference document on how to reach “vulnerable groups.”
Muslim countries view homosexuality as a sin and in some it is punishable by death. In contrast Brazil, which has the world’s most successful Aids program, has reduced the virus among gays and drug addicts but finds an increase among housewives whose philandering husbands visit prostitutes.
The Aids conference, from June 25-27, the first of its kind, is to close with a declaration that sets measurable goals for each nation and guidelines for the myriad of U.N. agencies and programs dealing with the issue.
Egypt has proposed that factors leading to the spread of Aids include “homosexuality among men, prostitution and other forms of irresponsible sexual behaviour.” And Libya wants to cut out references to drug users.
The United States and others have suggested “vulnerable groups” be put in the document without definition, which may turn out to be the final wording after weeks of negotiating among 100 delegations in large and small groups.
But such proposals have drawn an outcry from major Latin Americans nations as well as Europeans and most Africans. They say the object is to have prostitutes, for example, educate other prostitutes on Aids without stigmatising them first.
Egypt’s language “is unacceptable to most of us and only increases the stigma of Aids,” said Giles Raguin, who had served on the French delegation.
Women’s rights are another problem. Several Islamic nations object to women making their own decisions on sex as well as having access to “reproductive services,” a buzzword, which the Bush administration also wants reduced to “reproductive care,” lest it imply abortion counseling.
The conference is taking place against a background of a dispute on how to treat Aids, with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan estimating it would take $7-billion to $10-billion a year, which the document sets at a target for 2005
Some 36 million people worldwide are afflicted with Aids or HIV, the virus that causes it, 25 million of them in Africa alone, with the disease spreading rapidly in India, China and other Asian countries as well as Eastern Europe.
In Africa, only about 10,000 are getting sophisticated treatment while the rest are left to die.
The U.N. document, however, contains more references to treatment that delegates first thought, saying it was urgent to aim for a high standard of sophisticated care by 2003. And it advocates access to male and female condoms.
“The reason we are having a special session is because this pandemic is spreading rapidly, which is why we have to focus as much on prevention as we do on treatment,” said Australian Ambassador Penny Wensley.
Wensley, along with Senegal’s U.N. ambassador, Ibra Deguene Ka, wrote the original 12-page document that has now expanded to 19 pages and lost some clarity in the process.
On treatment, the U.S. delegation tweaked language making health care a right of all peoples as well as anything that would dilute intellectual property rights for drug firms.
Nevertheless, Western delegates hope efforts in Congress and the Bush administration to increase spending on Aids abroad will drown out comments this month from Andrew Natsios, the new chief of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
He told the Boston Globe one major problem lies with African Aids patients who “don’t know what Western time is” and thus cannot take antiretroviral drugs on the proper schedule.
Brazil contends its free antiretroviral programs show that street people and peasants in remote areas can keep to a complicated regime of taking pills if money is there for simple clinics.
Harvard physicians conducting pilot projects in Haiti, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Uganda agree.
Treatment, Brazilian U.N. envoy Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti insists “is a human right, an imperative.”
“Since you have the possibility of treating people, you should do it. There are resources available. it is a matter of organising them,” she said. – Reuters
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