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1 Zambians Drop Ties with USA Episcopal Church Over Gay Bishop 12/03

2 AIDS Now Compels Africa to Challenge Widows' 'Cleansing' 5/05

2a Prison sex abuse slammer 5/07

2b New Study of MSM to be Conducted in Zambia 7/07

2c Homosexuality at University of Zambia 12/07

3 Human Rights Watch Highlights Obstacles to AIDS Drugs for Zambian Women 12/07

4 African lesbian conference demands equal rights 2/08

5 Homosexuality: The African Perspective 2/08

6 Call for action against bogus AIDS cures 3/08

365Gay.com,
http://www.365gay.com/newscontent/122903zambAng.htm

December 31, 2003

1
Zambians Drop Ties with USA Episcopal Church Over Gay Bishop

by Malcolm Thornberry, 365Gay.com Newscenter, European Bureau Chief

Lusaka, Zambia

The Anglican Church in Zambia is the latest African church to cut ties with the Episcopal Church USA over the consecration of an openly gay bishop but it has also gone step further. The Zambian Church is also severing its relationship with the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the worldwide faith, because a sizable number of Church of England bishops support Bishop Gene Robinson the American bishop of New Hampshire.

Zambian bishop Derek Kamukwamba called Robinson's consecration "appalling" adding that homosexual relations were unbiblical in that God created man and woman so that they could get married. Kamukwamba said the Zambian Church would only maintain ties with Anglican churches opposed to Robinson's appointment.

Besides the Zambian church, others that have cut ties with U.S. Anglicans include the Anglican Church in South East Asia, the Church of Uganda and the Church of Nigeria, the continent's largest Anglican church. Together they represent nearly half of the worldwide Anglican communion.

New York Times

May 11, 2005

2
AIDS Now Compels Africa to Challenge Widows' 'Cleansing'--(Malawi, Zambia, Kenya)

by Sharon LaFranieremchinji, Malawi - In the hours after James Mbewe was laid to rest three years ago, in an unmarked grave not far from here, his 23-year-old wife, Fanny, neither mourned him nor accepted visits from sympathizers. Instead, she hid in his sister's hut, hoping that the rest of her in-laws would not find her.

But they hunted her down, she said, and insisted that if she refused to exorcise her dead husband's spirit, she would be blamed every time a villager died. So she put her two small children to bed and then forced herself to have sex with James's cousin.
" I cried, remembering my husband," she said. "When he was finished, I went outside and washed myself because I was very afraid. I was so worried I would contract AIDS and die and leave my children to suffer."

Here and in a number of nearby nations including Zambia and Kenya, a husband's funeral has long concluded with a final ritual: sex between the widow and one of her husband's relatives, to break the bond with his spirit and, it is said, save her and the rest of the village from insanity or disease. Widows have long tolerated it, and traditional leaders have endorsed it, as an unchallenged tradition of rural African life.

Now AIDS is changing that. Political and tribal leaders are starting to speak out publicly against so-called sexual cleansing, condemning it as one reason H.I.V. has spread to 25 million sub-Saharan Africans, killing 2.3 million last year alone. They are being prodded by leaders of the region's fledging women's rights movement, who contend that lack of control over their sex lives is a major reason 6 in 10 of those infected in sub-Saharan Africa are women.

But change is coming slowly, village by village, hut by hut. In a region where belief in witchcraft is widespread and many women are taught from childhood not to challenge tribal leaders or the prerogatives of men, the fear of flouting tradition often outweighs even the fear of AIDS.

" It is very difficult to end something that was done for so long," said Monica Nsofu, a nurse and AIDS organizer in the Monze district in southern Zambia, about 200 miles south of the capital, Lusaka. "We learned this when we were born. People ask, Why should we change?"

In Zambia, where one out of five adults is now infected with the virus, the National AIDS Council reported in 2000 that this practice was very common. Since then, President Levy Mwanawasa has declared that forcing new widows into sex or marriage with their husband's relatives should be discouraged, and the nation's tribal chiefs have decided not to enforce either tradition, their spokesman said.

Still, a recent survey by Women and Law in Southern Africa found that in at least one-third of the country's provinces, sexual "cleansing" of widows persists, said Joyce MacMillan, who heads the organization's Zambian chapter. In some areas, the practice extends to men.

Some Defy the Risk
Even some Zambian volunteers who work to curb the spread of AIDS are reluctant to disavow the tradition. Paulina Bubala, a leader of a group of H.I.V.-positive residents near Monze, counsels schoolchildren on the dangers of AIDS. But in an interview, she said she was ambivalent about whether new widows should purify themselves by having sex with male relatives.

Her husband died of what appeared to be AIDS-related symptoms in 1996. Soon after the funeral, both Ms. Bubala and her husband's second wife covered themselves in mud for three days. Then they each bathed, stripped naked with their dead husband's nephew and rubbed their bodies against his.

Weeks later, she said, the village headman told them this cleansing ritual would not suffice. Even the stools they sat on would be considered unclean, he warned, unless they had sex with the nephew.

" We felt humiliated," Ms. Bubala said, "but there was nothing we could do to resist, because we wanted to be clean in the land of the headman."

The nephew died last year. Ms. Bubala said the cause was hunger, not AIDS. Her husband's second wife now suffers symptoms of AIDS and rarely leaves her hut. Ms. Bubala herself discovered she was infected in 2000.

But even the risk of disease does not dent Ms. Bubala's belief in the need for the ritual's protective powers. "There is no way we are going to stop this practice," she said, "because we have seen a lot of men and women who have gone mad" after spouses died.
Ms. Nsofu, the nurse and AIDS organizer, argues that it is less important to convince women like Ms. Bubala than the headmen and tribal leaders who are the custodians of tradition and gatekeepers to change.

" We are telling them, 'If you continue this practice, you won't have any people left in your village,' " she said. She cites people, like herself, who have refused to be cleansed and yet seem perfectly sane. Sixteen years after her husband died, she argues, "I am still me." Ms. Nsofu said she suggested to tribal leaders that sexual cleansing most likely sprang not from fears about the vengeance of spirits, but from the lust of men who coveted their relatives' wives. She proposes substituting other rituals to protect against dead spirits, like chanting and jumping back and forth over the grave or over a cow.

Headman Is a Firm Believer
Like their counterparts in Zambia, Malawi's health authorities have spoken out against forcing widows into sex or marriage. But in the village of Ndanga, about 90 minutes from the nation's largest city, Blantyre, many remain unconvinced.

Evance Joseph Fundi, Ndanga's 40-year-old headman, is courteous, quiet-spoken and a firm believer in upholding the tradition. While some widows sleep with male relatives, he said, others ask him to summon one of the several appointed village cleansers. In the native language of Chewa, those men are known as fisis or hyenas because they are supposed to operate in stealth and at night.
Mr. Fundi said one of them died recently, probably of AIDS. Still, he said with a charming smile, "We can not abandon this because it has been for generations."

Since 1953, Amos Machika Schisoni has served as the principal village cleanser. He is uncertain of his age and it is not easily guessed at. His hair is grizzled but his arms are sinewy and his legs muscled. His hut of mud bricks, set about 50 yards from a graveyard, is even more isolated than most in a village of far-flung huts separated by towering weeds and linked by dirt paths.

What Tradition Dictates
He and the headman like to joke about the sexual demands placed upon a cleanserlike Mr. Schisoni, who already has three wives. He said tradition dictates that he sleep with the widow, then with each of his own wives, and then again with the widow, all in one night. Mr. Schisoni said that the previous headman chose him for his sexual prowess after he had impregnated three wives in quick succession.

Now, Mr. Schisoni, said he continues his role out of duty more than pleasure. Uncleansed widows suffer swollen limbs and are not free to remarry, he said. "If we don't do it, the widow will develop the swelling syndrome, get diarrhea and die and her children will get sick and die," he said, sitting under an awning of drying tobacco leaves. "The women who do this do not die."

His wives support his work, he said, because they like the income: a chicken for each cleansing session. He insisted that he cannot wear a condom because "this will provoke some other unknown spirit." He is equally adamant in refusing an H.I.V. test. "I have never done it and I don't intend to do it," he said.

To protect himself, he said, he avoids widows who are clearly quite sick . Told that even widows who look perfectly healthy can transmit the virus, Mr. Schisoni shook his head. "I don't believe this," he said. At the traditional family council after James Mbewe was killed in a truck accident in August 2002, Fanny Mbewe's mother and brothers objected to a cleanser, saying the risk of AIDS was too great. But Ms. Mbewe's in-laws insisted, she said. If a villager so much as dreamed of her husband, they told her, the family would be blamed for allowing his spirit to haunt their community on the Malawi-Zambia border.

Her husband's cousin, to whom she refers only as Loimbani, showed up at her hut at 9 o'clock at night after the burial.
" I was hiding my private parts," she said in an interview in the office of Women's Voice, a Malawian human rights group. "You want to have a liking for a man to have sex, not to have someone force you. But I had no choice, knowing the whole village was against me."

Loimbani, she said, was blasé. "He said: 'Why are you running away? You know this is our culture. If I want, I could even make you my second wife." He did not. He left her only with the fear that she will die of the virus and that her children, now 8 and 10, will become orphans. She said she is too fearful to take an H.I.V. test. " I wish such things would change," she said.

news24.com
http://www.news24.com

May 09, 2007

2a
Prison sex abuse slammed

Lusaka - Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has ordered prison authorities to stop the rampant cases of sexual abuse in Zambian prisons, a state-run newspaper said on Wednesday.

Mwanawasa said violent convicts engaging in sodomy by forcing themselves on young inmates was a repugnant behaviour which must be stopped.

"This cannot be tolerated. These people are in your custody and must therefore be protected from violent criminals...," he was quoted by the Zambia Daily Mail as having told the prison authorities.

Human rights organisations in Zambia have voiced their concern over the reported increase in young prisoners who are abused by their fellow inmates.

Mwanawasa also said that sexual abuse contributed to the increase in the number of cases of HIV/Aids, which was creating problems for the country's social and economic development.

"I understand the cases of sodomy are widespread, resulting in some prisoners getting infected with HIV/Aids," he said.

Behind the Mask
http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=hivaids&id=1637

July 26, 2007

2b
New Study of MSM to be Conducted in Zambia

By Nthateng Mhlambiso (BTM Senior Reporter)

For the first time in Zambia, men having sex with other men (MSM) will have a government endorsed assessment aimed at identifying their existence and sexual behaviours in relation to HIV and Aids.

This is done to draw the government’s attention to health issues faced by MSM in that country.
Spearheaded by US-based Centre for Disease Control (CDC) together with the Zambian Ministry of Health and the Society for Family Health International, the assessment “is exciting and will give some sort of identity for MSM in Zambia” according to Riva Ukwimi, who is the project coordinator of Friends of Rainka (FORP) at the Society for Family Health.

Elucidating the implementation of the assessment, Ukwimi said; “We will use a referral system, starting by giving a certain number of MSM cards to pass them to their friends. We are still going to meet to decide what is to be written on those cards but it has to be something that will not perpetuate stigmatization but at the same time be recognized as an MSM assessment.”

He added that they will also have tollfree numbers where people can call in. “There will also be a screening process where people will be asked questions from questionnaires, and from their responses we will be able to know whether they qualify to visit our offices as MSM.”

Expected to begin on 1 September, coordinators are presently training counselors who will advice these MSM. The project will run from September to January 2008.

Ukwimi pointed out that this assessment is not only important to MSM but to the whole Zambian society. “There are MSM who lure young boys who are not necessarily MSM to have sex with them for money. These boys might be having their girlfriends and if they contract STIs or HIV and Aids they can spread it to the whole society.”
BTM questioned if this assessment is not exclusive as it only targets MSM only and not women having sex with women. In responding, Ukwimi said that there must be reasons for CDC to target MSM only for now. “Some of the reasons might be that MSM are at a very high risk of contracting HIV and Aids and STIs because they perform anal sex that is said to be very risky.”

Asked whether the fact that homosexuality is illegal in Zambia will not hinder this assessment, Ukwimi said; “This is a government endorsed project, so it should not be a problem.”
He also highlighted that homosexuality is not a problem per se in Zambia, “Conflicts begin only when we want it to be constitutionalised. So far I have not heard of any cases of hate crimes or any bashing of gay people”, he said.
“ It is a good start by the Ministry of Health of the republic of Zambia”, Ukwimi concluded.

Lusaka Post

December 10, 2007

2c
Homosexuality at University of Zambia

by Sebastian Chipako
Clad in a tight black hipster jean, highlights by a matching silk skinny top popularly known among females as a ‘gypsy top’ a skinny figure walks majestically in a seductive movement of the hips from left to right, while the hands hang loose in a carefree manner. As the arms swing to and fro, one can not help but notice the evident lack of hips. What actually seems t be n view right now is a body structure that is more masculine than feminine. This is so because the person is indeed male and not female. This figure is that of one of the infamous male students with different sexual preference. To be specific, they are homosexuals. Although the culture of homosexuality is not very prominent in Zambia, it is however slowly but noticeably becoming acceptable. Recently, the University of Zambia was engrossed in a scandal involving a student was caught in the act with another significantly older white man. While this is just one incident that was brought to light, the fact is that there are activities homosexuality at UNZA.

“I have seen male students embracing and doing inappropriate things at the lovers’ lane (a road around student hostels where people in relationships take strolls at UNZA), it very disgusting and so wrong,” Melinda a second year student in the school of humanities says. Melinda says that the issue of homosexuality is more rampant among male students at the university, she however admits that there are some female student practicing homosexuality and some are evident by their male-like mannerisms and male clothes they wear.

As Melinda says this, she is evidently disturbed and slowly becoming emotional about the topic. She explains incoherently that the gays and lesbians are the ones who are fast eroding the morals and denting the image of the school. “The gay who was caught with a white man should be locked up together with the boyfriend.” She says with emphasis. And a third year student in the school of humanities Nathan Phiri explains that to other student homosexuality is just an escape from poverty and material deprivation. He claims that some male students prostitute for money. ”They look for white men with money; that is what happened with that guy who was caught and they are many. It is not just him,” Nathan says. He adds that the homosexuals at UNZA are only influenced by what they see on television.

While some people life Melinda and Nathan are upset by the homosexual topic, others are sympathetic. A third year student who declined to be named has very contrary views. He says this it is norm to have different sexual preferences and that it is simply a normal variation in the human condition just like some people are left handed, the minority is homosexual in their orientation. It is some kind of a disorder that people are born with and cannot simply get rid of. Regardless of the views of others, homosexuality is not easily acceptable in the Zambian society, however the issue that arises is whether homosexuality is genetic or just a habit people pick as they grow up. According to Mr. A. Merdinger in his article entitled ‘Homosexuality and the Truth’, he asserts that homosexuality to others is an aberration, the orientation is a disorder and the behaviour is pathological. And the opposing view is that homosexuality is a normal variant in the human condition that is determined before birth and that homosexual behavior is natural for those oriented as such.

Merdinger says that the only hard biological evidence that there is clearly indicates it is a disorder, in that homosexuality represents a tendency to want to use body parts for some purpose other than that for which they were designed. “The penis and vagina are certainly constructed for male-female intercourse. Their complimentary shapes, the location of highly sensitive nerve endings how without a doubt the divine intent,” he says. And a research carried out by Dr. Paul Cameron, chairman of the Family Research Institute of Colorado Springs in the USA, concluded that at least three explanations seemed possible in explaining the causes of homosexuality. The first possible account is that people fall into homosexuality because they are sexually permissive and experimental. This view implies that homosexuals choose their lifestyles through their unwillingness t play by the rules of society. The second view says that homosexuality is a mental illness symptomatic of arrested development. These unnatural desires are a consequence of poor familial relations or some sort of trauma.

While people like Dr. Cameron have different views on how people end up with such sexual preferences, other students affirm the notion that most poor student are likely to be involved in homosexuality obviously for monetary gains whether this is the case remains a mystery, but the fact still remains that homosexuality is widespread at UNZA and is getting tolerated gradually. The big question to everyone then is, what has happened to our cultural values in Zambia? Are we slowly being carried away by the standards set up by the Western world of accepting the practice of homosexuality? What has happened to the fact that Zambia is a Christian nation? The nation’s moral fibre is slowly but surely deteriorating, it is up to us to correct it.

Truthout Issues
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/122007WA.shtml

18 December 2007

3
Human Rights Watch Highlights Obstacles to AIDS Drugs for Zambian Women

The Associated Press
Lusaka, Zambia - Domestic violence and poverty are preventing many Zambian women from accessing AIDS drugs, undermining the Zambian government's ambitious treatment program, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The New York-based rights watchdog released a report focused on women's treatment in Zambia, based on interviews earlier this year with 83 women in the urban centers of Lusaka and the northern Copperbelt region, as well police, health counselors, and government and non-governmental organizations.

The government has made AIDS treatment drugs free and put more than 93,000 people on them with the help of international donors in Zambia, a southern African nation of 11.5 million that is still largely poor despite recent economic growth. About 16 percent of adults are HIV-positive here. In urban areas, the prevalence rate exceeds 20 percent, with HIV infection rates higher among women. The report documented a variety of cases where HIV-positive women were prevented from taking AIDS drugs, or from adhering to their proper regimens.

"We would like to commend the way the Zambian government has actively dealt with HIV/AIDS treatment," Nada Ali, the author of the report, told journalists at a press conference. "However, for many Zambian women, receiving an HIV-positive diagnosis might still be equivalent to a death sentence."

Stigma against HIV-positive people is still common in many parts of Zambia. In some cases, the fear of violence from their husbands prevented women from getting tested for HIV or beginning or adhering properly to their treatment, according to the report. Some women would hide their medication in flower pots or holes in the ground, or be forced to come up with lies to explain their absence when they went to health clinics, the report said, adding that health counselors are not trained to deal with issues surrounding violence against women.

In other cases, women were left without money for transportation or food after divorce or their husband's death due to property laws that favor men, and the practice of "property grabbing," in which a deceased man's family seizes his widow's property, often rendering her destitute. The result, the report says, is that many women are unable to go to health clinics or keep up a proper diet, which is necessary if AIDS drugs are to be effective. Human Rights Watch urged the Zambian government to adopt legislation to prevent and deal with sexual and domestic violence, support efforts to change property law, modify health policies and ensure that health counselors can deal with the gender abuse issues, establish shelters for female victims of abuse and strengthen the government's Victim Support Unit.

Elizabeth Mataka, the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS, said that while the report was timely, community-based programs specifically giving women and girls financial and legal options are more necessary than additional high-level policies on gender. "Women's organizations must begin now to map out strategies that will address this problem," she said. "We need to move ... from talking to action. There has to be a change of mind-set at the community level."

pinknews.co.uk
http://pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6974.html

27th February 2008

4
African lesbian conference demands equal rights

by PinkNews.co.uk staff writer
Lesbians from across Africa have held a conference in Mozambique to highlight the homophobia and prejudice they face across the continent. Most nations in Africa criminalise same-sex relationships and in some countries gay people can be put to death. The Coalition of African Lesbians conference was attended by more than 100 delegates.

Women from 14 African countries gathered in Namibia's capital Windhoek in August 2004 to develop the Coalition of African Lesbians. Lesbian organisations and a number of individual women from Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia are members of the organisation. "Our main goal is that lesbian and homosexuality can no longer be seen as a criminal offence," the group's director and conference spokeswoman Fikile Vilakazi told Reuters. "You should not be arrested and charged for how you use your own body."

The coalition lobbies for political, legal social, sexual, cultural and economic rights of African lesbians by engaging strategically with African and international structures and allies and to eradicate stigma and discrimination against lesbians. South Africa, one of the few countries on the continent where gay men and lesbians are allowed to marry and legally protected from discrimination, has been rocked by several murders of prominent lesbian activists.

Sizakele Sigasa, 34, an activist for HIV/AIDS and LGBT rights, and Salome Masooa, 24, were discovered dead at field in Soweto, Johannesburg, on July 8th. They had both been shot and, it is suspected, raped.

On 22nd July Thokozane Qwabe, 23, was found in a field in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal with multiple head wounds. She was naked and it is thought she was also raped.

Lusaka Sunday Post

February 27, 2008

5
Homosexuality: The African Perspective

by Masuzyo Chakwe
Some politicians have called them the ‘festering fingers’ endangering the body of the nation:while others have sasis they are worse than pigs and dogs; some churchmen say God wants them dead: and the send them to jail. The issue of homosexuality has excited deep and often extreme reactions in Africa. In Uganda, for example, the practice referred to as ‘carnal knowledge of another against the order of nature’ has been outlawed by President Museveni while Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe said homosexuals were ‘worse than pigs.’ But South Africa has the most permissive gay rights legislation in the whole world, and also hosts several successful Gay Pride marches. South African lawmakers have passed legislation recognizing gay marriages despite criticism from both traditionalists and gay activists. In Zambia, the sexual orientation however referred to is heterosexuality and the other sexual orientation is outlawed.

The formation of Lesbians, Gays and Transgender Persons Association (LEGATRA) a few years ago led to an uproar by the Zambian community. The Zambian government it would never pass a law to allow gay marriages. Home Affairs minister Ronnie Shikapwasha said last year that Zambia maintains its Christian status and would not allow sinful practices. He said homosexual marriages were a sin in the eyes of God.

But is this solving the problem?

In some western countries, homosexual has been legalized and gay men and women even allowed to marry. In Denmark, for example, homosexuality is legal and a gay couple can even have their marriage blessed if he (the priest) agrees to it. It is said that half of the people that are HIV positive are men who have sex with men and there are even organizations that have been formed to fight AIDS among them. StopAIDS executive director Jacob Haff says societies should treat homosexuals with the same respect as other individuals. Haff is gay himself and says homosexuality or being gay is like a flavour or taste.

StopAIDS is a gay men’s HIV organization with the purpose of reducing the spread of HIV among MSM (men who have sex with men) in Denmark. He says gay people (gay and lesbians) will always be a minority, which is some ways will means that they are and feel different. Homosexuality can refer to both attraction or sexual behavior between organisms of the same sex, or to a sexual orientation. “We are funded by the government, with a grant of 6 million kroner (US$1,200,000) every year. We do information. Campaigns, outreach in the gay community and group work about safe sex,” he says.

Haff says as a boy he was sensitive, intelligent, did his school homework, liked to read books and talked to grown-ups instead of playing football with other boys. “I was not a quiet and timid boy. I loved to tell stories ans make people laugh, but I liked the company of girls; they are often more mature than boys the same age. At the age of 12 I began to experiment sexually with other boys ans already as a teenager I was rather sure I preferred boys togirls. I found it difficult to accept this. But as the age of 20 I was convinced that was my way.” He says.

He says at 22 he came out in the open. “I looked up a friend, whom I knew was gay, and told him my story and he introduced me to the gay community of Copenhagen. I immediately began working as a volunteer at the gay radio station, and continued this work for many years. For me it was a good alternative to the discos and bars. It gave me friends and a network,” he says. Haff says he also told his family and friends too. He says by that time his father had already died and already, but his mother was very understanding.

Haff says being the worried mother-type though, she asked herself whether this being different would give him problems. “And of course it does, in many little ways. But most of the time being different does not worry me. I find it quite okay and sometimes even an advantage. People are different in so many ways, and this is just one of them. Some people like chicken, some like fish, some like women, some like men,” he ways. He says his friends were all very easy about it and today many of his friends and network are gay.

“Being gay also means you automatically are part of a community, or brotherhood, which goes around the world. So when traveling you can get a lot of interesting contacts and meet new friends, which I really enjoy,” he says. Haff says he has not been to Africa, but he cannot imagine homosexuality to be absent on the continent. He says denying that men have sex with men (and women with women) means suppressing these people, so that they cannot speak freely about their lives and needs.

“Especially in relation to HIV this can be--and I am sure, has been—fatal, because this is the first step in fighting the disease: acknowledging its existence and who it is that gets the virus and pass it on. It is extremely important to give information to men who have sex with men, tailored to their sexual habits and in an open and frank tone and also in a non-discriminating tone. Prevention resources, such as condoms and information should be directed at men who have sex with men, so that they can protect themselves and their partners,” he says.

Dr. Mannasseh Phiri (who writes a weekly HIV column for this newspaper) last year said debating whether homosexuality is natural or unnatural, genetic or acquired, legal or illegal, is like the old and tired argument that HIV was deliberately manufactured in a laboratory for sinister motives. He said it merely wastes valuable time and energies that could be used to dealing with real problems around HIV and AIDS today. “MSM exist amongst us They are not deranged or sick. They are people, normal gentle people, who mind their own business and, as one of them said, ‘do not harass anyone.’ They will not go away just because we many not like them or what they do. We cannot afford to ignore them and hope to tackle HIV and AIDS effectively. The enemy is the virus and not people’s sexual orientation. Men who have sex with men exist amongst society,” said Phiri.

pinknews.co.uk
http://pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-7045.html

6th March 2008

6
Call for action against bogus AIDS cures

by PinkNews.co.uk staff writer
A leading human rights group has called on the United Nations to act against the proliferation of unproven treatments for AIDS. An article published in the peer-reviewed journal Globalisation and Health, Human Rights Watch cited examples of the promotion of these remedies in countries as diverse as Zambia, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, India, and Zimbabwe.

Human Rights Watch says the UN and its member states are failing to address serious threats to life and health posed by the promotion of unproven AIDS 'cures' and by counterfeit antiretroviral drugs. "Fake cures have been promoted since AIDS was first identified," said Joseph Amon, HIV/AIDS programme director at Human Rights Watch and author of the article. "In the era of expanded antiretroviral treatment programmes, the failure of governments to monitor these false claims and ensure accurate information about life-saving antiretroviral drugs undermines global efforts to fight AIDS."

In Gambia in February 2007 President Yahya Jammeh claimed to have developed a herbal cure for AIDS that was effective in three days if people taking the treatment discontinued taking antiretroviral drugs and refrained from alcohol, caffeine, and sex. Following the announcement, Gambian journalists who criticised the so-called cure were fired, and the UN resident coordinator in Gambia, Fadzai Gwaradzimba, was permanently expelled for asking for scientific proof of the treatment’s effectiveness. Last week the Gambian government announced with much fanfare that Jammeh had been awarded an honorary degree in Herbal and Homeopathic medicine by the Brussels-based Jean Monnet European University. In accepting the degree, Jammeh announced that he had discovered cures for obesity and impotence, adding to his previously declared 'cures' for infertility, diabetes, and asthma.

Also in 2007, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced the discovery of IMOD (an abbreviation for immuno-modulator drug), a herbal AIDS treatment made from seven local Iranian herbs. The government has promoted the drug as a "therapeutic vaccine" and as the "first choice" for treatment in resource-constrained developing countries. The President's Office for Technology Cooperation has also promoted the remedy and sought partners for joint marketing, clinical trials, and manufacturing.

According to news reports in November 2007, the Iranian Minister of Health and Medical Education stated that all patients with
advanced HIV disease – more than 1,500 overall – would be treated with IMOD.

"Countries are gambling with the lives of people living with HIV by promoting unproven AIDS remedies,” said Mr Amon. "The UN should condemn this practice and work with governments and civil society groups to ensure that effective AIDS treatment and information about it are provided.