Michel Sidibé. Credit: Courtesy of UNAIDS.

By Mathieu Vaas
UNITED NATIONS, May 22 2013 (IPS)

The global fight against HIV/AIDS has seen recent hard-won breakthroughs, including the discovery of the genetic hiding place of the virus by doctors in Australia, a 50-percent drop in new infections across 25 low- and middle-income countries, and an increase of 63 percent in the number of people with access to HIV medication.

But ending stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV has proved more resistant, particularly so for those who are part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Queer (LGBTQ) community."Right now we are on the brink of reaching the response’s full potential to save lives." -- Michel Sidibé

Since its inception in 1995, UNAIDS has been a leader in strengthening the response to HIV/AIDS, as well as providing access to health care and assistance to those living with the virus and in working with grassroots communities to help them reduce their vulnerabilities.

With May 17 marking the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, IPS spoke with Michel Sidibé, executive director of UNAIDS, about how discrimination affects efforts to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS, how that fight is moving forward, and the post-2015 development agenda.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What is the impact of criminalisation of homosexuality on the policies UNAIDS is implementing?

A: UNAIDS is seeking to advance the vision of Zero new HIV infections, Zero discrimination and Zero AIDS-related deaths. To get there, we need to have universal access HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.

Some of the populations most highly affected by HIV are gay men and other men who have sex with men, as well as transgender people. If criminalised, there is virtually no way they can access the HIV information, commodities and services they need to avoid HIV infection and to stay alive and healthy if HIV positive. Nor can they mobilise their communities and support each other to avoid risky behaviour.

Furthermore, criminalisation of homosexuality is both driven by discrimination and leads to discrimination. Many gay men living with HIV face double discrimination – for being gay and for living with HIV. We will never reach the goal of zero discrimination as long as homosexuality is criminalised.

Q: With 76 countries still criminalising homosexuality, how do you plan to reach out to LGBT communities in those countries? And worldwide?

A: It is very difficult to reach LGBT communities in these countries. However, at the same time, in such places, HIV has often been an important entry point, sometimes the only entry point, for the health and human rights of LGBT people.

While laws criminalise, the public health sector has often understood how important it is to reach these populations. They have estimated their population’s size, done epidemiological studies, included them in national AIDS responses and have implemented tailored programmes. We support them to do so, regularly convening leaders of the LGBT community with government to work together on strategies to respond to HIV.

We also ask our staff to work with the ministry of justice and with police to enable these public health responses even where homosexuality is criminalised. We need a great expansion of programmes, greater protection of rights and attention to the new and younger generation of LGBT people who need access to HIV services.

Q: Do you have a specific campaign focused on the LGBT community?

A: We do not have a specific campaign, but we are working on the HIV-related rights and needs of the LGBT community from many angles. In terms of financing the AIDS response, we are asking countries to be much smarter in their HIV investments, in particular, to put resources and programmes towards populations highly affected by HIV.

In terms of access to health services, we are seeking to expand HIV prevention and treatment to all people in need and know that many LGBT people are not getting access to these services. We hope to improve their access through promoting more user-friendly health services as well as greater outreach programmes to their communities.

In terms of human rights, we promote the fact that they, like all people, have human rights. Like the U.N. secretary-general and the high commissioner for human rights, we call for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, as well as for their rights to non-discrimination, freedom from violence, health and participation and inclusion.

Q: What is the UNAIDS agenda for the post-2015 new development goals?

A: UNAIDS remains firmly committed to supporting countries to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment care and support. This means ensuring that everyone in need has access to HIV services without stigma and without discrimination.

Although there has been much progress in ensuring that even the most marginalised in society have access there is still a lot of work to do. To end stigma and discrimination around HIV we work with a broad range of partners including, community based organisations, faith-based organisations, political leaders, scientific committees, law enforcement bodies and many other groups.

Our response focuses on expanding the evidence base and increasing political engagement; engaging stakeholders to invest in programmes to reduce stigma and discrimination and increase access to justice; strengthening technical support for addressing punitive laws, practices, stigma and discrimination and strengthening support to civil society.

Q: There have been some breakthroughs in medical research on HIV and AIDS in recent months. Can we hope for a world free of AIDS in a few generations?

A: HIV has been one of the defining issues of our time and I strongly believe that we can end the AIDS epidemic. Right now we are on the brink of reaching the response’s full potential to save lives – so now more than ever countries need to commit to action and look to a future without AIDS.

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Paris and Benaiah are among a number of LGBTQ youth who have found transitional shelter at the Ali Forney Center in New York. Credit: Mathieu Vaas/IPS

By Mathieu Vaas
NEW YORK, Apr 24 2013 (IPS)

In New York City, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) youth represent 40 percent of the homeless youth living on the city’s streets. The Ali Forney Center is a non-profit organisation that offers them services such as emergency shelter, transitional shelter, help to reach out to family, and more specific services depending on what is needed.

Eli, Dupree, Paris and Benaiah are four young residents at one of the Ali Forney Center’s transitional shelters, where they live with four other LGBT youth. They can stay up to two years, rent-free, and enjoy a safe and stable environment.

IPS reporter Mathieu Vaas met with the young people living in one of the shelter apartments of the Ali Forney Center to hear their stories.

Leading experts on climate change and energy gathered at the UN this week to stress the need for urgent action and procedural reform to allow major changes to the world’s energy systems.

The conference was convened by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the Permanent Mission of Finland and the Club of Rome, a leading international think tank that brings together scientists, economists, heads of state and diplomats to address urgent global policy issues.

“Climate change has moved into a new and highly dangerous phase and is now the most urgent issue confronting the world,” said Ian Dunlop, member of the Club of Rome and Deputy Convener for the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil.

According to Dunlop, the “official” target of limiting temperature rise to two degrees Celsius over the next decades is far too high and will lead to “enormous” increases in energy demand in the next decades.

Indeed, “Four Saudi Arabias are required by 2035 to maintain current supply in oil,” he said, adding that new fields are not found fast enough or are not large enough.

Even where resources are available, “It’s one thing to have [them] in the ground and another one to bring them to the markets in a sustainable manner,” he said.

He stressed that in order to have a 50 percent chance of remaining below a temperature rise of two degrees Celsius, the world can’t burn more than 30 percent of its existing fossil fuel reserve. Staying below 20 percent would be a more realistic target in order to achieve this goal, he said.

According to Dunlop, different climatic events in the last decade, including Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy “are all in line with its forecast evolution of global warming,” and would have almost certainly not happened at pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide. Other examples he mentioned were the European heat wave in 2003, the East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane emissions from 2008 to 2012, and the Queensland and New South Wales floods in Australia in 2013.

“‘Official’ solutions are not working,” as carbon capture and storage, clean coal technologies and the recent rush from coal to gas all do their part to worsen global warming, according to the energy expert,

Both Dunlop and fellow Club of Rome member Tapio Kanninen stressed the limits to current reform processes, which at current speed “will take decades to implement major changes in our energy system, according to Dunlop.

Kanninen, Co-Director of the Project on Sustainable Global Governance, called for a complete overhaul of the UN Charter to improve negotiations and adapt to “rapidly changing global and regional conditions,” as well as the creation of global, regional and local crisis centers for climate change.

Urging the UN to “take this opportunity to reinvent itself,” Dunlop called for an emergency plan to avoid a four-degree temperature rise in the next decades that could lead to a five-to-70-meters sea-level rise.

Summing up the event, Jorge Réné Laguna Celis, delegate for the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the Second Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, reminded the audience, “Most of the policy we came up with in the 1980s and 1990s are end-of-the-pipe solutions, dealing with the symptoms but not with drivers of change.”

“We need to shift the focus of our action” he said, urging for an approach that tackles the root causes of ongoing climate and energy crises.

By Mathieu Vaas
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6 2013 (IPS)

For homeless youth, life on the streets is brutal. They experience sky-high rates of mental health problems, substance abuse and sexual assault. But despite the fact that it costs just under 6,000 U.S. dollars to permanently end homelessness for one youth, too little is being done to help them.

As the founder and executive director of the Ali Forney Centre, an organisation that helps homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth, Carl Siciliano has witnessed firsthand how harsh life is for them. He started the centre in 2002, naming it after Ali Forney, one of seven youths Sicilian knew who were murdered on the street and whose deaths moved him to found the centre.

Carl Siciliano, founder and director of the Ali Forney Centre. Photo courtsey of the Ali Forney Centre.

Other experiences also influenced Siciliano. “I was really religious when I was young, and worked with the homeless,” explains Siciliano. “When I came out of the closet, I wanted to figure out a way of integrating my work with them with my being an openly gay man.”

IPS spoke with Carl Siciliano about the Ali Forney Centre, the young people it shelters, and what needs to be done to improve circumstances for LGBT youth, homeless or not.

Q: What services does your organisation offer? What do you wish you could offer but can’t?

We have workers that reach out to kids on the streets and tell them about our program. We also have a big drop-in centre in Harlem where we provide food, clothing, showers and toilets, along with mental health, medical and substance abuse services.

Young people can also stay from three to six months in our emergency housing program while they figure out longer term housing. Our centre also has a transitional housing program where young people who can get a job or go to school can stay for up to two years. About 90 percent of our young people are employed and about 75 percent are going to college. When they graduate, they usually find a job and move into their own apartments.

There are several programs I would like to build, including a housing program specifically for transgender youth, who are the most vulnerable and experience the most violence and harassment on the streets. I also want to develop a model of studio apartments with intense staff supervision for youth with mental illnesses or developmental delays who find congregate housing situations difficult to manage.

One kid from Uganda reached out to us – he said that his parents kicked him out and he was afraid he was going to get killed, so I am interested in developing an international network of providers that can help young people get out of countries where their lives are in danger to reach us or other programs.Homophobia creates an environment of abuse and rejection.

Q: LGBT youth represent 40 percent of New York City’s homeless youth. As a small shelter, what are the biggest challenges the Ali Forney Centre faces every day?

The biggest challenge we face is the lack of resources. There are only 250 shelter beds for 3,800 homeless youth in New York City, and the waiting list to enter our shelter has about 150 to 200 kids on it. It breaks my heart to have to turn kids away every night.

Our day-to-day work is challenging. We occasionally have to deal with violence, and homeless LGBT youth have a very high risk of suicide, so we’re constantly monitoring them. We’re trying to protect them, but I wish there were more of a commitment on the part of the city to provide a safety net to these young people.

Q: What typically brings young people to the Ali Forney Centre? What kind of threats do they face?

The biggest common denominator tends to be family rejection. About 75 percent of our young people report that they were harassed or abused in their home for being LGBT. Some of them are kicked out. Others face so much violence and cruelty in their homes that they find it unbearable to stay. Too many parents don’t know how to cope with having a gay child.

Compared to straight homeless youth, LGBT homeless youth face twice the amount of violence on the streets by being gay bashed. They get beaten up by kids in other shelters, or staff in a Catholic youth shelter, for instance, will tell them they are sinners and going to hell.

A lot of them turn to prostitution, which puts them at greater risk of violence and a very high risk of HIV infection. Almost 20 percent of New York’s LGBT homeless youth has HIV. The stress and pressure of homelessness and the trauma of family rejecting harms their mental health, too.

Q: What should local politicians and international organisations such as the United Nations be doing to improve the situation of LGBT young people?

New York City has shelter systems for children and adults, but those the ages of 16 and 24 don’t fit in these systems. Local politicians must understand and recognise that it’s a disaster for these kids to be left out on the streets. If they get adequate support, these young people can get jobs, go to school and become healthy independent adults.

If you leave them on the streets, they become addicted to drugs and infected with AIDS. They will become an enormous cost and burden to society. Even if politicians look at it in term of smart public policy and not in term of human decency, it just doesn’t make sense to leave kids out there on the streets. You’re creating a social disaster by doing that.

In term of international organisations, the most important thing is to understand that homophobia creates an environment of abuse and rejection. Organisations trying to combat homophobia must focus more how it affects youth – how it makes them feel unsafe in their own homes and endangers the children’s welfare. It would be harder for conservative organisations that promote homophobia, such as the Catholic Church, to do it with a clear conscience if these connections were clearer.

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Scientific experts from developing and developed countries participating in the Open Working Group (OWG), established  last January,  gathered in New York City to deliver their early deliberations on the way science can impact on the UN’s proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

One of the outcomes of the Rio +20 summit in Brazil last June was to launch a set of new SDGs.

“We are in a new era, approaches that worked in the past will no longer work in the future,” said Professor David Griggs, Director of the Monash Sustainability Institute and chief executive officer (CEO) of ClimateWorks Australia.

He explained that development and environmental issues can no longer be dealt with separately because of the way humans affect their environments and that “we need to deal with those issues in an integrated way.”

“We need to find ways to harness rapidly acquired knowledge, we need to find new way to organise ourselves and we need to use science to ground our goals in reality,” said Charles Perrings, Professor of Environmental Economics at Arizona State University.

He explained that science and technology now permit to model consequences of policy options in a much better way than it did 10 years ago and that well-framed SDGs  “can help us understand the world as an integrated whole.”

“We are currently thinking and acting on a sectoral basis, but  we need to think an integrated system,” said Youba Sokona, Coordinator of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC)  at  the UN Economic Commission for Africa. (ECA)

Norichika Kanie, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Decision Science and  Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan and Senior Research Fellow at United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies explained that in order to create SDGs,  there is a need for  an interface between science and policy and more interactions between scientists and policy makers.

“In order to address the goals sustainably, particular goals must have longer time-frame,” he added, calling for different time-frames depending on the goals.

Within the scientific field “natural and social sciences have to work together like never before,” said Nikhil Seth, Director of the Division for Sustainable Development at the UN’s  Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

“Scientifics have a very large role of capacity building” said Claudia Ringler, Deputy Division Director of the Environment and Production Technology Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute, about the ways to reach SDGs.

“Paradoxically, the poor countries have much more opportunities to be on a sustainable path,” said Sokona about the fact coming from less developed state, poor countries can start build a sustainable path from the beginning without dealing with a big former unsustainable heritage.

By Mathieu Vaas
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 2013 (IPS)

“In some communities, you can’t talk about violence against women,” says Agnes Leina, executive director of Il’laramatak Community Concerns (ICC), a group that promotes the human rights of pastoralist communities in northern and southern Kenya, with a special emphasis on women and girls.

Agnes Leina, executive director of Il’laramatak Community Concerns. Credit: Mathieu Vaas/IPS

“For us, the CSW is a space to make our views heard and to give suggestions and strategies to end the violence. It’s a very important space for women to talk about violence, get resolutions and build a way forward,” she tells IPS on the sidelines of the 57th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at U.N. headquarters.

IPS correspondent Mathieu Vaas spoke with Leina about the situation of women in pastoralist communities and how the CSW can help change chauvinistic mindsets. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: In your work with Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) and ICC, you fought for the rights of indigenous African pastoralist women. What is exactly the place and role of womanhood in these communities?

A: A typical day for a pastoralist woman would be to wake up very early around five am, to go milk the cows and go to fetch water and to collect firewood. Then she would come back to make the food for the children and milk again in the evening. Some of them also go herding and look for the goats.

Things are changing slowly because most of them are getting into the market economy. They want to sell small things so they can get some money. They would milk their cows and go to the town to sell it.

A pastoralist woman is actually like a working machine, she works very hard without resting. Men look after the cows and take them to watering points that are sometimes very far off and come back on the evening and expect there will be food. I think the wife has more work than the man apart from the normal duties of a wife and a mother.

Q: Have you noticed any change in cultural perspectives on the role of women and violence such as genital mutilation in the pastoralist communities?

A: Yes, there is a bit of a change, especially for women who have gone to school. Most of the women who have gone to school are not likely to circumcise their daughters and they are more likely to have a better economy and therefore a career.

For the women who are educated, this is a very big change. But for the women who haven’t gone to school, there is not a single change. She will make sure that her daughter has been mutilated and she will make sure she has been married early because she doesn’t understand the importance of education at all.

So definitely, for her, keeping the tradition, the marriage, and the culture is of importance, not education – that is not an emotional issue.

[At the same time] we have so many women leaders in Africa and the role of women is changing. Women are taking up leadership positions in parliament, in offices. It’s like a pyramid, there is much fewer at that [top] level. Some communities are better than others.

In Uganda, for instance, we still have a number of illiterate communities. In Rwanda, they have the highest number of women in a parliament in Africa. Women’s position is changing slowly but it depends on which country you’re talking about. As an African, African patriarchy is very strong and we have a long way to go. But it’s good to break the silence.

Q: The IPACC highlights the problem of access to healthcare and education for pastoralist indigenous communities. How do you reach out to the women in these communities?

A: In Kenya, the highest level of illiteracy is among pastoralist communities and that is why ICC is working hard to make sure there is education. We do it through transformative leadership. It’s a way of goal setting.

Girls know that they have a future and a goal to achieve. They know they have something to work hard on and something to look forward to.

We have a slogan adapted from Alice in Wonderland: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will lead you there.” If they have no target in life, no goals, they have no idea where they’re going to.

One day, a father will say to his daughter, “I want you to get married to my friend because I have no cows. So I would want you to get married so that I can have a number of cows because I am getting poorer.” It is an emotional issue for a pastoralist girl and a pastoralist man and for that reason the girl would agree to get married.

We tell the girls, ”Look at yourself 15 years from now, what would you want to be?” and most of them are setting goals. “I would like to be a doctor, a pilot, a surgeon or a member of parliament.” Then they start role-playing this goal so when their fathers ask them to get married, they will tell him to wait for her to get a job and she would buy the cows. And the father will agree and let the girl go on with school and pursue a career.

We want to set up a trust fund because primary education is free but secondary school is not. It has been a promise for years that is yet to be fulfilled. When they have a career, they have a voice to say no to things that take them backwards.

Q: How can African governments manage to stop violence against women and to reach full empowerment for women and girls?

A: It depends from country to country. But most countries have laws against violence against women. They are signatories and have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women. But it’s one thing to ratify a treaty and it’s another to implement it. So we have a long way to go to implement the laws.

That’s why we are here for the CSW, talking about violence against women. It has been decades and decades of talking about violence against women, so why is it not ending? That’s the biggest question we should be asking ourselves.

Maybe there has to be a change in strategy, maybe we need to involve more men because they are the perpetrators anyway. But we have broken the silence on violence against women and that is a big step. We need to act now to stop that violence once and for all.

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By Mathieu Vaas
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2013 (IPS)

On Sunday,  Mar. 3, nongovernmental organisations working on women’s rights gathered in New York City for the annual meeting of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women.

In line with the theme of the 57th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) that will take place Mar. 4-15 at the United Nations, the central focus of this year’s NGO Committee was strategies to address violence against women.

Nearly 20 speakers, including civil society, diplomats and high-level representatives of UN Women, discussed trafficking of women and girls, the role of men, the best practices for prevention and the use of social media to spread campaigns and fight violence against women.

By Mathieu Vaas
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 2013 (IPS)

As the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaches, different United Nations agencies are beginning to discuss what the post-2015 Development Agenda will encompass.

The United Nations (U.N.) entity for women, U.N. Women, has been tasked along with the United Nations Children’s Fund(UNICEF) to lead consultations on the topic of inequalities, which can be based on anything from gender and sexual orientation to race or socioeconomic status. Written submissions, e-discussions and an advisory group helped inform these discussions.

Saraswathi Menon, a senior manager at U.N. Women. Photo courtesy of U.N. Women.

The consultations discussed gender equality and gender-based violence, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI), persons with disabilities, economic inequalities, indigenous peoples, young people, urban inequalities and minorities.

IPS correspondent Mathieu Vaas spoke with Saraswathi Menon, a senior manager at U.N. Women, about the post-2015 Development Agenda and what possibilities it may offer to fight inequality around the world.

Q: How will the post-2015 Development Agenda differ from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?

A: The success of the MDGs was in the way they captured the imagination of people around the world. We saw women’s organisations, civil society, media and academics using the MDGs to rate the performances of their leaders and the international community and in many cases hold them accountable.

Governments also rapidly absorbed the MDGs into their policies and priorities. Any new agenda must therefore respond to what people and governments have seen as the strengths and weaknesses of the previous framework.

In every country, rising inequalities and the impact of different crises – food, fuel, financial, economic employment – are concerns, and so is the violence against women that occurs in every country, in every income bracket, in homes and public spaces. The fragile lives of people in situations of conflict or in countries prone to natural disasters or vulnerable to climate change are also concerns.

These are only some of the issues that were not addressed in the MDGs and that need to be addressed in any new framework. Because we have seen the track record of the MDGs – with uneven progress on many, the worst case being maternal mortality – attention must be paid not just to the way the goals and targets are crafted but also in terms of how they have been translated into public action and made a difference in people’s lives.

The new framework will be different – it will respond to aspirations of people and lessons learnt by governments and their partners, and it will need to address challenges that have been aggravated or emerged in the years since the Millennium Declaration was adopted.

Q: U.N. Women has been tasked along with UNICEF to lead the consultations on inequalities. How will you reach out to women and youth?

A: The Inequalities Consultation has just ended, and it was wide-ranging, inclusive and open. Much of the discussion took place online in moderated discussions on 10 themes ranging from disabilities to indigenous peoples. Each discussion was jointly moderated by a U.N. agency and a civil society organisation.

We also put out a call for papers and received close to 200 papers. Through social media and by picking themes that resonated with people, we generated enormous interest. Over 4,600 people have registered and 34,500 individuals have visited the inequalities space since its launch.

The majority of those who participated were from civil society and developing countries. The majority of comments related to gender equality and women’s empowerment. So we are confident that we have received a wide cross section of views and that youth and that women have participated actively, since their concerns were specifically included.

Q: With some countries in the General Assembly refusing to discuss LGBTI rights, will those rights be part of the post-2015 agenda on inequalities?

A: In the inequalities consultation, one of our e-discussions was specifically on inequalities and LGBTI people. Key recommendations that emerged were to repeal all discriminatory laws and policies; enact comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation; include a commitment to address such discrimination in the post-2015 agenda; and to establish a U.N. human rights mechanism to monitor report on violence and discrimination against LGBTI people.

So the expectations are clear. Of course the final post-2015 framework will be determined through negotiations among governments. But expressing expectations is important and we hope that will influence the outcome.

Q: LGBTI youth are at special risk for homelessness, drugs, HIV/AIDS and other problems. Will these issues be dealt with?

A: The discussions around the post-2015 framework are looking specifically at poverty, urbanisation, including slums, health and HIV/AIDS in all their dimensions.  The vulnerability of specific groups and the overlapping discriminations that they face applies very specifically to LGBTI people.

In the inequalities consultation, we found that when different forms of inequality intersect, they reinforce each other and create unique forms of discrimination and exclusion. We also recommend that different inequalities cannot be dealt with in a piecemeal fashion, and so all those issues – homelessness, drugs, HIV/AIDS – need to be tackled coherently.

Q: How do these kinds of international consultations help change the reality on the ground?

A: Setting global standards and goals is not only an inspiration but also a call for accountability. Goals are often aspirational but behind them lie the recognition that if mindsets change, if policies are improved, if people are empowered, there can be transformational change.

That is why we feel it is so important that the next round of goals and targets not only focus on averages like the MDGs, but actually reflect inequalities so that the measure of success is improvement in the lives of all and not just of a few.

The consultations told us that inequality affects not only the poorest or most deprived but diminishes communities, societies and the economy as a whole. So international consultations are important to express what the world prioritises, what people can use to hold leaders accountable, and to move us all, women and men, girls and boys, towards a better world.

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