ULAN
BATOR — When Zaya told her sisters five years ago that she was a lesbian, they
berated her and asked her what was wrong with her. When her father found out, he
responded with brutal violence.News (Updated April
17, 2011)
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Apr 11, 2011
BRUSSELS, April 11
(Reuters) - Donors' decision to suspend $180 million of aid to the Global Fund
to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria could hit efforts to combat the
diseases, the fund's chief said on Monday.
The Global Fund said
health authorities in recipient countries might fear donations were running out
and rein in disease-fighting programmes.
"I think the money
will be paid, but there will be a psychological effect," the fund's
executive director Michel Kazatchkine told reporters in
"If you are a health
minister in a developing country, it will make you hesitate," he added
before meeting European Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs at the European
Parliament.
The Global Fund has said
$34 million is unaccounted for in four countries --
It has suspended further
payments to those countries and set up an independent panel to review its
financial controls.
The fund accounts for
about a quarter of international financing to fight HIV and AIDS and the
majority of global money to fight tuberculosis and malaria. (Reporting by Philip
Blenkinsop, editing by Andrew Heavens)
By Kitty Hamilton (AFP) 12
April, 2011
ULAN
BATOR — When Zaya told her sisters five years ago that she was a lesbian, they
berated her and asked her what was wrong with her. When her father found out, he
responded with brutal violence.
"He came to me and
beat me pretty bad. He asked if I was gay, if I was a lesbian. I was so scared I
told him I wasn't," explains the 25-year-old with cropped black hair, who
like many people in
Zaya, who lives in the
capital
"We're scared of what
will happen. He's an aggressive man, he just wouldn't understand," says
Zaya, who wears a T-shirt with the slogan 'Let peace begin with me' on the back.
Zaya is not alone in her
fear. Discrimination and abuse toward sexual minorities in
"Every aspect of
their life is filled with discrimination," said Robyn Garner, executive
director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Centre in
"There are very few
people that don't have a tale to tell of discrimination and violence," said
Garner, an Australian who has worked for gay rights in
There are no reliable data
on the number of homosexuals in the country, which has a population of roughly
2.7 million, as many remain in the closet due to the social stigma associated
with a gay lifestyle.
That mentality took root
during the decades
Several gay men have been
brutally murdered in recent months, and the cases remain unsolved. Other
homosexuals recount tales of abduction and sexual assault. Workplace violence
and discrimination is also common, Garner says.
Language used in the
Mongolian media adds to the prevailing social mindset, says Otgonbaatar
Tsedendemberel, a veteran activist for LGBT rights.
"It commonly portrays
us as sexual perverts and crazies. Most terminology is sensationalised," he
said.
In 2009, the
The LGBT centre recently
released a media style guide -- one aspect of their fight for social justice for
sexual minorities.
But the group itself has
faced an uphill battle. It took three years before the government accepted its
official registration in December 2009.
One rejection letter from
the justice ministry said the group's name "conflicts with Mongolian
customs and traditions and has the potential to set the wrong example for youth
and adolescents".
The group only gained
acceptance when the human rights advisor to President Tsakhia Elbegdorj
personally intervened.
Otgonbaatar says he is
hopeful that things can change in
Last month, more than 80
countries including
But Garner -- whose group
has recently launched a nationwide anti-discrimination awareness campaign --
says she knows that prevailing attitudes towards gays will not change overnight.
"Even if we get
anti-discrimination law, we still need to see a change in the existing societal
mindset," she said.
The attitude that
homosexuality is largely a Western phenomenon is still prevalent, Otgonbaatar
adds, laughing as he recalls someone telling him: "I thought it only
existed in
"We want to keep LGBT
rights in people's faces. I call it queer saturation," Garner said.
Zaya -- who spoke to AFP
at the LGBT Centre, decorated with a large banner with a pink triangle and the
word PRIDE -- says despite improved tolerance among Mongolians, especially in
Copyright © 2011 AFP.
By Rob Bryan (AFP) – 17
April, 2011
YANGON — Tin Soe was
just four when he realised he was different to other boys in his neighbourhood,
but growing up in conservative and army-ruled
"My granddad's sister
said that if I became a monk my sexuality would change. So I was a monk for
three months, but my sexuality never changed," the 30-year-old said, asking
for his real name to be withheld.
A repressive mix of
totalitarian politics, religious views and reserved social mores has kept many
gay people in the closet in
Gay men have developed
their own language as a "gaylingual" code to both signify and conceal
their sexuality, said Tin Soe, who now works on HIV/AIDs prevention in Yangon.
"We want to be secret
and we don't want to let other people know what we are saying. We twist the
pronunciation."
It's a world away from
neighbouring
"More Burmese are
travelling to
Homosexuality is often
linked to local religious beliefs about karma in
Many believe "we're
gay because we did something in a past life, that in a past life I committed
adultery or raped a woman. But I don't believe in that," he explained.
"It's not like
Traditionally, the only
area where non-heterosexuality has been openly embraced is the realm of "nat"
or spirit worship, a form of animism that is intertwined with
Flamboyant and effeminate
spirit mediums take centre stage at popular "nat" festivals throughout
the year, but their acceptance here has also served to reinforce certain
stereotypes of gay people in
Same-sex relations are
technically criminalised by a colonial penal code, and while this is no longer
strictly enforced, activists say it is still used by authorities to discriminate
and extort.
"They use it as an
excuse to make money and harass people but they don't bring the cases to
court," said Aung Myo Min, an openly gay
He said there were
numerous instances of sexual violence and humiliation of gay people in public.
"Many cases are not
reported because the victims keep silent out of shame and fear of
repercussions."
In a country under army
control for nearly five decades, broaching any kind of anti-discrimination or
human rights issue is hugely sensitive.
"The man who starts
to ask for rights in the gay community will be sent to prison," said
another Yangon-based HIV/AIDS activist in his fifties.
The Internet offers a
forum for gay men to meet, deemed safer than public cruising: Tin Soe met his
boyfriend on Facebook, for example, but he said many were afraid to put their
photos on gay websites.
In light of such
discretion, raising public health awareness isn't easy.
In some areas, such as the
big cities of Yangon and Mandalay, as many as 29 percent of men having sex with
men are HIV positive, according to a 2010 report by the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS.
"We have a lot of
activists in this country but we can't campaign very openly. We will have a
workshop in a hotel but without big posters and loudspeakers. We do it low
profile," said Tin Soe.
While lesbianism is also
largely hidden in
"The woman who wants
to be a man is excusable," he said.
A 52-year-old in Yangon
said things had improved since his teenage years, when "people would use
sling shots against us," but he warned there was still a long road ahead to
a truly tolerant
"We want to be like
Copyright © 2011 AFP.
(AP) – 17 April, 2011
LOS ANGELES (AP) —
Health officials say porn producers are dodging questions and slowing down an
investigation into a case of HIV that shuttered production at several companies
last year.
The Los Angeles Times
reports that health officials are struggling to make headway on a probe, a
process that is usually much more efficient when there is a disease outbreak.
In a report obtained by
the newspaper, Dr. Francisco Meza says adult film companies refuse to cooperate
with the investigation, and stage names for performers make it difficult to
track down partners.
Adult film performer
Derrick Burts came forward about his HIV diagnosis in October and says he had
sex with 16 men and women.
Investigators are having
trouble figuring out who those people are because production companies haven't
provided identifying information.
Copyright © 2011 The
Associated Press.
Lifting of ban would save
lives of HIV-infected candidates as well as all patients waiting for organs,
some health professionals argue
By Meredith Cohn, The
April 11, 2011
The nation has a huge need
for kidneys, livers and other organs for transplant, but federal law has one
absolute rule for donors: no HIV infections.
Some Johns Hopkins doctors
now argue that HIV should not disqualify the organs from transplant into
recipients who also are already infected with the virus.
"If this legal ban
were lifted, we could potentially provide organ transplants to every single
HIV-infected transplant candidate on the waiting list," says Dr. Dorry L.
Segev, an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine whose recent study concluded that there are 500 potential donors
disqualified every year.
The ban was included in
the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, a time when the AIDS epidemic was new
and the disease unknown, Segev said.
But now that HIV has
become a chronic treatable disease rather than a death sentence, there appears
to be growing consensus in the medical field that infected organs should be
considered. Even some practitioners who have expressed concerns that HIV
patients could become sicker are still calling for studies, and at least one set
of
Segev and others say that
lifting the ban wouldn't just benefit those with HIV, but everyone waiting for a
transplant. More than 100,000 people are in need of organs, and up to 20 people
a day die waiting for them, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing,
the nonprofit that manages the nation's organ transplant system for the federal
government.
Further, HIV-positive
patients have for about a decade been successfully receiving healthy organs –
about 130 kidneys and 40 livers in 2010. Doctors say that new livers are often
needed by HIV-infected patients who also have hepatitis, and kidneys are needed
by those who also have hypertension and diabetes or have complications from HIV
or the antiretroviral drugs that control the virus.
A large study of HIV
patients who receive uninfected organs is ongoing but doctors say early data
show success similar to transplants in non-HIV infected patients.
Segev and other
researchers found the 500 potential new donors blocked by the ban through data
included in two national registries. The Nationwide Inpatient Study found an
average of 534 each year between 2005 and 2008 and the HIV Research Network
found and average of 494 each year between 2000 and 2008. Segev's findings were
published online March 28 in the American Journal of Transplantation.
Many other doctors,
bioethicists and lawmakers agree that the ban should be lifted.
To be sure, some
practitioners have questions about using infected organs. They want to know if
the organs would be healthy enough, if patients with well-controlled HIV would
be infected with new, potentially aggressive strains of the virus and if there
are safeguards for those without HIV.
Advising a slow approach
is the HIV Medicine Association, which represents doctors and other health care
professionals who focus on HIV. The group supports clinical trials to collect
data before there is widespread use of infected organs.
Dr. Kathleen Squires,
chairwoman of the group, said the ban should be lifted so the organs can be used
in such trials.
The only information
practitioners have now comes from
She said she believes
there is broad support for more research, especially among those who work in the
HIV field and see how medicine has turned the disease into a chronic condition.
Those with HIV now have normal life spans, she said.
"The whole concept
needs to be studied to see if the transplants can be done safely and
effectively," said Squires, also director of the Division of Infectious
Diseases at
But others disagree that
trials are necessary, including Dr. Gregory W. Rutecki, a bioethicist and kidney
disease specialist at the University of South Alabama Medical School. He said
patients who are facing death should be given the choice now.
He said those with
hepatitis have a choice. Transplants from those with hepatitis to others with
that disease have been done successfully for years, and he said similar steps
and precautions could be taken with HIV donors and patients.
"Times have
changed," he said. "Those with HIV are living long and very productive
lives, and those that have received a transplanted organ are doing very well.
Changing this rule would be a phenomenal decision ... and would only be
controversial among lay persons who don't keep up with treatment of HIV."
In
Abecassis, also the
president of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, said when the governor
asked who might oppose the change, "We said nobody. This wasn't a struggle
at all."
After consultation with
HIV specialists, he said that he believes existing antiretroviral medications
would be effective against any strain introduced through an infected organ, and
anyone who had developed drug resistance would be disqualified from donating
organs. New clinical trials wouldn't be necessary, he said.
"It occurred to me
that we waste a number of organs every year in this country," said
Abecassis on the origins of the
But a change in the
statute is needed. A spokesman for the Health Resources and Services
Administration, the government agency that oversees the organ donation system,
said he was unaware of any lawmaker taking up the HIV ban. No other diseased
donors, including those with cancer, are absolutely barred from donation if the
organs are deemed suitable.
Segev said he'd like to
take the issue to Capitol Hill. And at least one advocacy group is evaluating
the next steps. That's the civil rights group Lamda Legal, which fought a decade
ago for the rights of those with HIV to get transplants of healthy organs and
still battles with states that continue to deny public funding for such
transplants.
Scott A. Schoettes, the
group's HIV Project director, said the group recently began learning about the
federal ban and hasn't decided on measures — or even how hard such an effort
would be.
"It wasn't a slam
dunk at the beginning," he said about the original transplants in HIV
patients. "And it lingers a decade from when the first transplant
occurred."
But one thing is certain,
said Schoettes, who is HIV positive. He would like to again register as an organ
donor. "I don't have that option anymore and I welcome the possibility. I
imagine others do, too."
Meredith.cohn@baltsun.com