After Uganda passed a law that punished gay sex with long prison sentences, Daisy Nakato got a visit from the police.
The
country's Red Pepper tabloid had outed hundreds of gays after President
Yoweri Museveni signed the anti-homosexuality bill in February and
Nakato's name was on a list.
Police targeting gays
Police targeting gays
Over the following six hours, Nakato, a bisexual sex worker, begged the police not to arrest her.
Read: Activists watching leaders
Read: Activists watching leaders
"I
had to stay in hiding for over a week without taking ARV
(antiretroviral) medication. A lot of people are going through the same
thing. A lot of people have run to neighbouring countries," Nakato told
delegates at an AIDS conference in the Australian city of Melbourne on Monday.
The law has broad support in religiously conservative Uganda, which is among 37 African nations where homosexuality is illegal.
But
one of the major concerns of the gathering of 12,000 AIDS activists,
scientists and people living with HIV is how the criminalisation of
groups at high risk of HIV – such as gay men, sex workers and
transgender people – is threatening progress in the global effort to
fight Aids.
Prostitution is illegal in 116 countries, and in 78 countries, having a same-sex relationship is a criminal offence.
Major concerns
Major concerns
"We know that criminalisation is bad health policy.
It is bad public policy. It doesn't work to prevent the spread of
disease. In fact, it does just the opposite," the US ambassador to
Australia, John Berry, told a discussion on the state of legislation in
India, Nepal and the United States, among others.
Read: Gay rights activist: no more bullying
Read: Gay rights activist: no more bullying
"The global fight against HIV and Aids will not be won by relegating segments of the population to the shadows."
According
to the World Health Organization (WHO), female sex workers are 14 times
more likely to have HIV than other women, gay men are 19 times more
likely to have HIV than the general population and transgender women are
almost 50 times more likely than other adults to have HIV.
Yet the same groups are least likely to get HIV prevention, testing and treatment services, the WHO says.
Bad health policy
Bad health policy
It's
not only gays and lesbians who feel persecuted in Uganda, Nakato said.
Sex workers are among those under pressure from an anti-pornography law,
locally dubbed the anti-mini skirt law, which seeks to police erotic
behaviour.
"These laws are just there to drive us underground, to harass us," Nakato told the session.
India
gay rights activist Ashok Kavi described the "incredible sense of
despondency" after India's Supreme Court reinstated a ban on gay sex in
December, following a four-year period of decriminalisation that had
helped bring homosexuality into the open in the socially conservative
country.
Read: Gay and HIV not a punishment from God
Read: Gay and HIV not a punishment from God
Manisha Dhakal, a Nepalese transgender activist, said certain laws in Nepal – while not criminalising transgender sex workers – were deliberately used against them.
"When
we are walking in the street, people are gathered to see us and there
are traffic jams because the taxi drivers also want to see us," Dhakal
said, adding that the commotion often ended in arrest under the Public
Offences Act.
By contrast, the United States is working on
changing laws that criminalise HIV transmission, said Nick Rhoades, an
American whose conviction for the criminal transmission of HIV in the
state of Iowa was overturned last month by the Supreme Court.
Source: http://www.health24.com/Medical/HIV-AIDS/News/Criminalisation-threatens-fight-against-HIVAids-20140722
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