Muslim Women Preachers in the Fight against HIV/AIDS

INDONESIA: RIGHTS/ /06/07/02 Sabanews

JAKARTA – INDONESIA is using Muslim women preachers in the fight against HIV/AIDS, a report by Inter Press Service (IPS) says.

“We believe it is our obligation to warn the people about HIV/AIDS,'' the women preachers say. HIV/AIDS is spreading in INDONESIA at an alarming rate.

Women preachers are in a unique position to address women's concerns on HIV/AIDS. “The people believe whatever they tell them because they are giving God’s orders,” observes the chairperson of an Indonesia women’s organisation.

“It is our hope that women can make a difference in this patriarchal society,” INDONESIA’s Minister for Women’s Empowerment is quoted in the IPS report.

Indonesian men are indifferent to the anti-AIDS efforts, although one study by a popular medical practitioner has revealed that 70 percent of women with HIV in Indonesia are ''good housewives''.

Women who have contracted HIV/AIDS are seen as ''sinners'' and sex workers.

Some 120,000 Indonesians are HIV-positive. The majority of new HIV/AIDS infections in INDONESIA are among young people between the ages of 20 and 24. Sabanews/an/

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HIV Testing Seen to Target Africans

CANADA: RIGHTS/ /06/07/02 Sabanews

TORONTO – A new Canadian immigration rule discriminates against HIV/AIDS affected countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, activists say.

CANADA has singled out refugees and immigrants for mandatory HIV testing, a report from Inter Press Service (IPS) says. Until January this year HIV testing was an optional component of the official medical examination that each person seeking permanent residence in CANADA had to take.

Compulsory HIV testing will “disproportionally affect black Africans”, charges Philip Berger, chief of the department of family and community medicine at St Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

Immigration authorities claim the new rule is intended to reduce excessive demand on the universal health system in CANADA.

“Why aren’t they testing for illnesses that affect white Europeans, like cholesterol levels? What about smoking?” asks Berger.

The criteria fails to take into account the skills and talents that an immigrant who is HIV-positive can offer, according to Darrel Kloeze, a lawyer with the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic of Ontario.

”What irks me is the automatic assumption that anybody with HIV is going to be a hugely excessive burden on our social system, without looking at other considerations,” Kloeze told IPS. /Sabanews/an

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Rape Exposes Women to HIV

KENYA: RIGHTS/ /06/07/02 Sabanews

NAIROBI – Marital rape exposes women to opportunistic infections including HIV, UNIFEM, the UN fund for women, is warning in a report from Inter Press Service (IPS).

Violence against women is endemic in KENYA, according to Amnesty International. The international human rights watchdog is putting pressure on the Kenyan government to protect its female citizens

KENYA’s Penal Code does not recognise domestic rape as a criminal offence. It is seen as private and a family matter.

HIV/AIDS and its implications in the context of domestic violence and rape is a critical issue to address at this moment, UNIFEM is pointing out in the IPS report.

Says Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, regional director for the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), ''In KENYA we continue to have traditional cultural practices like wife inheritance and polygamy. One cannot talk about real consent (to sex) in these instances.'' /Sabanews/an

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