All governments are urged to take steps to eliminate stigma and discrimination faced by men who have sex with men, lesbians and transgender populations.
They must also create social and legal environments that ensure respect for human rights and enable universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. This is according to a statement by Executive Director of UNAIDS Michael Sidibe on the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia being observed today.
In the statement, Sidibe noted that the failure to respond effectively has allowed HIV to reach crisis levels in many communities of men who have sex with men and transgender people. Efforts to reverse this crisis he said, must be evidence informed, grounded in human rights and underpinned by the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
The statement revealed that on the 2006 United Nations Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, governments committed to removing legal barriers and passing laws to protect vulnerable populations. He noted however, that more than 80 countries still have legislation that prohibits same sex behaviour.
According to the executive director, “today, more than ever, we must work together to end homophobia and ensure the barriers that stop access to HIV services are removed.”
Meanwhile, according to a press release, the UNAIDS and the UNDP have launched a plan which seeks to increase access to HIV information and services in a bid to encourage new and better approaches to HIV, specifically focusing on men who have sex with men and other transgender populations.
The release has stated that in many parts of the world HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men is more than 20 times higher than the general population. It added that according to studies, HIV prevention services reach only one tenth to one third of people who engage in male homosexual activity. Additionally, a growing body of evidence shows that the majority of new infections in many urban areas are among men who have sex with men; yet these same groups have limited access to HIV-related information and health services due to discrimination, violence, marginalisation and other human rights violations. In many countries, they still face criminal sanctions and lack access to justice.
Paul De Lay, Deputy Executive Director ad interim, programme, UNAIDS was quoted in the release as stating, “Countries must be rigorous in monitoring the evolution of their epidemics and recalibrate their HIV programming to respond to the needs of those most at risk. In many settings this will be men who have sex with men.” He added also that “responses must be based on local epidemiological and social realities to be effective.”
According to the release, the status quo falls far short of what is required to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support a commitment made by United Nations member states in 2006.
“The case is clear and urgent,” said Jeffery O’Malley, Director of UNDP’s HIV group. “If we are going to make universal access for sexual minorities a meaningful reality, we must work towards ending homophobia and transphobia. We must address the legal and policy barriers,” he added.
The UNAIDS framework outlines several factors that impede access to HIV services: unwillingness on the part of governments and donors to invest in the sexual health of sexual minorities; the impact of social marginalisation on the desire to access health-related services; fear of violence and public exposure; fear of criminal repercussions and a lack of provision of information and services.
The action framework outlines how UNAIDS will work towards achieving universal access through three main objectives: improving human rights, strengthening the evidence base through better data; and reinforcing capacity and promoting partnerships to ensure broader and better responses. Within the UNAIDS partnership, UNDP focuses on the rights of vulnerable populations such as men having sex with men and transgendered people.
The release furthered that in Guyana, as part of the joint UN programme of support 20009-2011, the UN will embark on a project towards universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for sexual minorities. This project will be a joint venture between the joint United Nations Team on AIDS, SASOD and GuyBow.
Homophobia is not a modern invention? One’s right to smoke does not mean one can smoke in a crowded room, because of the harm that second hand smoke can do.
Outside of the depraved mind Homophobia is vaild!
It will take a long time before this behaviour is accepted in caribbean islands and communities, although i don’t condone homsexuality, i learn to live and let other live, and respect others human rights.
The issue of rejection of same sex relationships is cultural and will take time and education to gain acceptability. We must remember not very long ago homosexuality was considered a character flaw and illegal in most if not all countries.
It is important to keep in mind that one can be against these relationships without being homophobic. Being Pro-Indian does not necessarily mean you are anti-black. I found many actions of Ex-President Jagan to have been Pro-Indian without being Anti-African. A case in point is his refusal to join the West Indies Federation because of the fear and its rejection by the Indian population who were his main supporters.
To many acceptance of homosexuality is the equivalent of removing rice as a daily staple. Very difficult. Very difficult. It’s cultural.
I have issue with the first sentence of this article. The topic of homophobia and other forms of sexuality is a very sensitive one since it falls into the category of discrimination and suffering. Such sensitivity also needs to be reflected in the style of reporting. The correct terminology is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender People otherwise known as LGBT. Get with it oh you people of the press – watch your language when reporting.
Yet again, the same old, tired arguments … that only the UN and its sister organizations still believe! Michael Sidibe’s comments are not new, and ignore the fact that most HIV/AIDS treatment in the Caribbean is anonymous!
The only effective rebuttal is to again provide the solid evidence that citizens and governments can use to make responsible decisions.
Passé rhetoric notwithstanding, most UN declarations on “homophobia” are now understood to be deeply flawed documents that have as their rationale nothing less than the subversion of the national ethos in UN member-states. The reader can judge for himself/herself given the evidence below:
Evidence 1:
A “phobia” is correctly defined as an “irrational fear”. “Homophobia” is anything but … and a mountain of social, legal, medical and societal evidence exists to invalidate the UN’s attempt to “manufacture” a cause based on “an irrational fear of homosexuality and its consequences”.
We have iitially detailed this evidence in the article “The Case against Pancap and the Decriminalization of Homosexuality”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8387665/Arguments-Against-Pancap-and-the-Decriminalization-of-Homosexuality
Evidence 2:
The effort to manufacture a “civil-rights” analogy has always been foremose in the minds of gay militants and the UN … referring to behaviour-based groups as “sexual minorities” rather than in terms that are more clinically correct from a psycho-sexual point of view.
Thankfully, Sidibe does not, like Reuben del Prado of the local UNAIDS office, go down the activist “Yogyakarta Principles” road. A rebuttal of del Prado’s abortive attempt in the past is found at “Del Prado’s Activist Statements Insult UNAIDS and CARICOM Policy on AIDS and must be Rejected” http://www.scribd.com/doc/3095333/Del-Prados-activist-statement-insults-UNAIDS-and-CARICOM-policy-on-AIDS-and-must-be-rejected .
Evidence 3:
The jury is still out on whether these UN-inspired declarations are being facilitated at the expense a vast majority of other citizens with opposing views. An example is found in another forum.
The hard questions previously asked Guyana’s Representative to the OAS, Dennis Moses, remain unanswered … in spite of the fact that a citizen of Guyana asked them … in the article: “Submission To The OAS Re June 3 2008 Resolution On Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” http://www.scribd.com/doc/4929534/Submission-to-the-OAS-Re-June-3-2008-Resolution-on-Human-Rights-Sexual-Orientation-and-Gender-Identity
Again talk, talk, talk. Baloney.I do not support homosexuality, but I will not go on a rampage, or condone such actions, against those who have caused no harm.In the end, however,there will always be discrimination.Subtle, overt, or covert.It is human nature to act like this. If you are different, and act different,you will always be watched.
” … Against those who have caused no harm …”
Perhaps careful reading of the law review: “Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement”, by Steve Baldwin. 14 REGENT U. L. REV. 267 (2002), (
http://www.regent.edu/news/lawreview/articles/14_2baldwin.doc ) would change your perspective about the dangers of treating lightly with psychosexual disorders.
A word of caution. Everywhere in the literature is the warning that gay-militant activists prey on the fact that religious and secular populations will not read and appreciate the evidence of their deception because of their natural aversion to the details of the “lifestyle”.
But … the devil is in the detail, and it is to that detail that citizens and governments must now proceed.
Other law reviews are listed in “Arguments Against Pancap and the Decriminalization of Homosexuality” ( http://www.scribd.com/doc/8387665/Arguments-Against-Pancap-and-the-Decriminalization-of-Homosexuality )
homos are human beings…..should they be killed because they are like us? men love men women love women who de hell cares??
they dont care if we men loves women or women loves us….all dis crap about homophobia is a bunch of crap…let me ask this….supposed homos were majority,should they kill us or degrade us like what is being done to them????
let the people choose their life and their way of life…end of case…dats it…stap squaking over dis…
The discerning reader who looks at ALL the evidence will find an astonishing truth … that the last thing on the minds of gay militants is to “live and let others live”.
But the issue of “live and let live” will surely fail as a public policy imperative if not from being simplistic then certainly from the danger of the “politics-of-avoidance-by-ignoring-it” that it represents.
Essential reading is the book by lawyer and author Roger Magnuson (“Are Gay Rights Right: Making Sense of the Controversy”; Multnomah Press; 1992; Portland, Oregon 97266). The excerpt below is taken from his arguments at pgs. 67-107, specifically p. 82-89):
“… As we have already seen, proponents of gay rights laws rely heavily on an analogy to other human rights legislation. If human rights laws have provided protection to other minorities, why should society not add one more group to those protected from discrimination? Hitching their wagon to the broadly based support Americans have traditionally given civil rights laws, gay rights advocates have made surprising progress in the past decade. The human rights analogy, though popular and politically understandable, cannot withstand careful analysis. Adding homosexual behaviour to a list of classes that includes racial and religious minorities makes no sense. The tenuous balance of social interests represented by these laws is reflected in the few, and carefully chosen, classes they protect. Relief has been given only in extraordinary circumstances.
To add another protected class, at least five requirements have had to be shown:
(1) A demonstrable pattern of discrimination …
(2) … based on criteria that are arbitrary and irrational
(3) … causing substantial injury
(4) … to a class of people with an unchangeable or immutable status
(5) … which has no element of moral fault ….”
We should now look to the evidence in law reviews that show that failure to acknowledge these imperatives in the American and Canadian cases have led to unprecedented social upheaval … carefully assuaged by nationwide dramatizations of the “The King’s New Clothes”.