Kenyan AIDS activists are demanding a full apology from a Kenyan cabinet minister who recently suggested that isolating HIV-positive people may be the way to eradicate the pandemic. At a 28 January 2011 meeting with members of parliament on HIV and AIDS, Esther Murugi, Minister for Special Programmes, put forward the option of permanently ‘locking up’ positive people to keep them out of general society. Kenya's National AIDS Control Council falls under the Ministry of Special Programmes. Nelson Otwoma, coordinator of the Network of People living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya, said her comments were highly irresponsible and only contributed to stigma surrounding the disease. She believed that the minister’s comments could prompt a wave of hatred against HIV positive people among ‘people who might hold a view like hers and who were simply waiting for a trigger’. Jacqueline Sewe, a member of local NGO, Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya (WOFAK), has called on the minister to either publicly apologise to people living with HIV or resign, highlighting the fact that HIV is not a contagious disease.
Values, Policies and Rights
This report is the fourth in a series of annual reports published by Plan examining the rights of girls around the world throughout their childhood, adolescence and as young women. The short section regarding the health of girls is based on Plan’s cohort studies in Togo, Benin and Uganda. Their research find that nutritional deficiencies in early childhood are linked to learning difficulties and lower educational attainment. Girls not only faced a daily challenge of poor nutrition, but were more vulnerable to illness and disease. Despite immunisation coverage rates of above 90% of girls, many still face persistent illness. Malaria, for example, continues to affect many girls in Uganda, with the children treated at various times over the year either at the local health centre or the nearest hospital. Plan calls for governments to increase their investment in prevention and treatment of the range ofillnesses that affect girls, like malaria.
As part of the 11th edition of the World Social Forum (WSF) in Dakar, African civil society presented the draft of an African Consensus, to spur endogenous development of the continent. The WSF is an initiative of civil society and a democratic meeting place that aims to stimulate debate and deepen the collective thinking. This is a space where all types of social movements come to discuss world problems in a democratic way. Members of the International Committee of the Forum discussed the prospects for social movements to make proposals and alternatives to "a neoliberal system that is currently going through deep crisis". Inspired by that of the Himalayas, an innovative approach to development, the "African Consensus" refers to the implementation of economic platforms and autonomous enterprises programmes based on local realities, through skills transfer that give a sense of responsibility. Unlike the "Washington Consensus", which enhances the immediate liberalization of markets, privatization of enterprises, the elimination of subsidies, the "African Consensus" is based on the fact that Africa is not poor, but that it enjoys great wealth and the mosaic of cultures and ethnicity.
This paper deals specifically with the gender issues that arise in the role of faith-based organisations (FBOs) in service delivery. The author analysed secondary sources on FBOs affiliated to organised religion and other faith movements. The FBO services reviewed were in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the United States. The author presents no generic conclusions about this diverse group of actors but raises questions about the implications of FBOs as service providers for the advancement of gender equality. She raises questions on the nature of an FBO’s gender agenda, especially because a single organisation often takes different standpoints on various gender issues. Secondly, she questions the way the spiritual and social activities often provided relate to the way FBOs often delineate how women are expected to exercise their agency. She observes that while many FBOs work successfully at grassroots level, this does not necessarily mean that they all emerge from within the community or that they are necessarily ‘indigenous’. She notes the dilemma women face when the extension of services and assistance is conditional on their conforming to the FBOs’ interpretation of religiously appropriate gender roles and behaviour. Referring to ethnographic studies, she suggests that services may sometimes be used overtly or more subtly to inculcate religious values and ideologies. The complexity and variation in FBOs means that one needs to be cautious about drawing policy conclusions that re applicable to all faith-based actors engaged in service delivery. She rather argues for measures to engage with faith leaders on their gender agendas and the manner in which services take into account embedded partriarchal and other power relations.
Human Rights Watch has urged the Uganda Police Force to urgently investigate the murder of David Kato, a prominent gay activist who opposed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill submitted to parliament in 2009. ‘The government should ensure that members of Uganda's LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community have adequate protection from violence and take prompt action against all threats or hate speech likely to incite violence, discrimination, or hostility toward them,’ the group said in its statement. Police are investigating the matter and called for gay people who are being harassed to come forward and report these incidents - otherwise the police are not in a position to protect them. However, homosexuality is a criminal offence in Uganda, and reporting harassment to the police is a risk few are willing to take. Only a handful of gay Ugandans are ‘out of the closet’, with most preferring to live anonymously in a society where homosexuality is taboo. The criminalisation of homosexuality is predicted to have a negative effect on the transmission of HIV in the country, as gay men are unlikely to use health facilities for fear of discrimination and possible legal prosecution.
Although HIV and tuberculosis (TB) prevalence are high in prisons throughout sub-Saharan Africa, little research has been conducted on factors related to prevention, testing and treatment services. To better understand the relationship between prison conditions, the criminal justice system, and HIV and TB in Zambian prisons, the authors of this study conducted facility assessments and in-depth interviews with 246 prisoners and 30 prison officers at six Zambian prisons, as well as 46 key informant interviews with government and non-governmental organisation officials and representatives of international agencies and external funders. A review of Zambian legislation and policy governing prisons and the criminal justice system was also conducted. The findings indicated serious barriers to HIV and TB prevention and treatment, and extended pre-trial detention that contributed to overcrowded conditions. Disparities both between prisons and among different categories of prisoners within prisons were noted, with juveniles, women, pre-trial detainees and immigration detainees significantly less likely to access health services. The authors call on the government to make immediate improvements to the situation and they recommend that external funders to co-operate with the Zambian government to ensure that funding in such areas as health services respect human rights standards.
Maternity protection for women workers is essential for ensuring women's access to equality of opportunity and treatment in the workplace, the International Labour Organization (ILO) argues in this review. Maternity protection also contributes to the health and well-being of mothers and their babies, and may thereby be linked to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal 3 (promoting gender equality and women's empowerment) and Goals 4 and 5 on the reduction of child mortality and improvement of the health of mothers. This updated review of national legislative provisions for maternity protection in 167 ILO member states assesses how well countries’ provisions conform to the ILO Maternity Protection Convention of 2000 and its accompanying recommendation no. 191. The review shows that, over the last 15 years, there have been noticeable improvements in maternity protection legislation around the world, with a shift towards longer rest periods at the time of childbirth, and movement away from employer liability systems of financing maternity leaves. The report focuses on the key aspects of maternity leave provisions: the duration, the benefit paid and the source of the funding, as well as other kinds of leave provision, safeguards on employment, health and safety, and breastfeeding. There are also annexes containing information on maternity provisions by region and country.
This article reports the findings of research conducted with a randomly selected sample of men aged 18–49 years from the general population of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, who were asked in an anonymously conducted survey about their rape perpetration practices, motivations, and consequences thereof. Overall 27.6% of men had forced a woman to have sex with them against her will, whether an intimate partner, stranger or acquaintance. Some perpetrated alone, others with accomplices. Most men who had raped had done so more than once, started as teenagers, and often had different types of victims. Asked about motivations, men indicated that rape most commonly stemmed from a sense of sexual entitlement, and it was often an act of bored men (alone or in groups) seeking entertainment. Rape was often also a punishment directed against girlfriends and other women, and alcohol was often part of the context. A third of men had experienced no consequences from their acts, not even feelings of guilt. More commonly there was remorse and worry about consequences, and in a third of cases there had been action against them from their family, that of the victims, or respected community members, and about one in five had been arrested for rape. This research confirms that rape is prevalent in South Africa, with only a small proportion of incidents reported to the police. Many of the roots of the problem lie in an accentuated gender hierarchy. This highlights the importance of interventions and policies that start in childhood and seek to change the way in which boys are socialised into men, building ideas of gender equity and respect for women.
In 2008 WHO analysed 186 national constitutions and found that 135 (73%) include provisions on health or the right to health. Of these, 95 (51%) constitutions mention the right to access health facilities, goods and services, which includes medicines. Only four national constitutions (2%) specifically mention universal access to medicines. There are at least three different routes, the study argues, through which the right to health – and essential medicines – can be recognised in national legal frameworks. The strongest government commitment is created by including the right to essential goods and services in the national constitution. The second approach is constitutional recognition that international treaties ratified by the State override or acquire the status of national law. The third option, inclusion of health rights in other national legislation, is easier to create but also easier to change or cancel. The full range of strategies should be used to promote universal access to essential medicines through rational selection, affordable prices, sustainable financing and reliable health systems, the article argues. Constitutional recognition of the right to access essential medicines is an important sign of national values and commitment, but is neither a guarantee nor an essential step – as shown by those countries that have failing health systems despite good constitutional language, and those that have good access without it. Yet constitutional recognition creates an important supportive environment, especially in middle-income countries where health insurance systems are being created and patients are becoming more aware of their rights and are more vocal in demanding them.
In light of the World Health Organization's declaration that non-dependent drinking contributes more to the global burden of alcohol-related disease than does drinking by those who meet diagnostic criteria for dependence, this article argues that clinicians, researchers and decision-makers need to consider microsocial and macrosocial impacts of alcohol use, not just addiction and clinical effects on individuals meeting diagnostic criteria at the extreme high end of the alcohol-use spectrum. It suggests some qualitative dimensions to further define social or low-risk drinking and proposes that all drinking beyond that be described as harmful, because of its impacts on personal, community and population health.