Citizenship: Anti-Gay Discrimination Fuels HIV/AIDS Crisis in Africa

IGLHRC’s new study reveals how anti-gay discrimination fuels HIV/AIDS Crisis in Africa

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) is a leading human rights organization, based in New York, solely devoted to improving the rights of people around the world who are targeted for imprisonment, abuse or death because of their sexuality, gender identity or HIV/AIDS status.

The new study "Off the Map", reveals for the first time how African governments and the global HIV/AIDS policy and funding community are denying basic human rights to same-sex practicing people in Africa. The report documents some shocking examples of how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are denied access to effective HIV prevention, counseling and testing, treatment, and care. The study is the result of a year-long research project conducted through interviews with leaders of African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) organizations, international aid officials, HIV/AIDS project managers, and health care providers. The report highlights the fact that,
“Africa, a continent with slightly more than ten percent of the world’s population, is home to 60 percent, or more than 25 million people, of those living with HIV…[the disease] is having a decidedly harsh effect on same-sex practicing people. But nearly a quarter of a century into the epidemic, there is a wall of silence that surrounds AIDS and same-sex practices that may prove to be a significant obstacle to conquering the disease.”

Multiple testimonies in the report demonstrate how homophobia limits the access of African gays to HIV/AIDS programs. For instance, K.S., a 23-year-old gay man in Mombasa, Kenya reported that he was chased out of a public health clinic when he asked to be examined for an anal STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection). Romeo Tshuma, a Zimbabwean human rights activist, remembers accompanying a gay friend to a health care centre in Harare to seek treatment for HIV and STI, where, “the nurses were not helpful.... They embarrassed him, after that he wouldn’t go to a hospital because of the embarrassment. He died in part, I think, because he had no place to go.”

Cary Alan Johnson, IGLHRC’s Senior Specialist for Africa and the author of the reports believes that the widespread denial of homosexuality in Africa contributes to human rights violations against African LGBT and increases the HIV vulnerabilities of gay people, “Homophobic stigma, the denial of homosexuality, and legislation that criminalizes same-sex behaviour, all serve to push the issue of same-sex HIV transmission further underground, and drastically limit HIV services.”

IGLHRC’s new publication calls for specific actions by the U.S. government (namely to stop promoting prevention programmes based on abstinence until marriage…) and other major international donors, international AIDS service organizations, private volunteer groups, and national and local African authorities to improve the access of LGBT in Africa to HIV prevention, treatment, and care services.

[thanks to Philippe for the info]