THE AIDS EPIDEMIC CAN BE ENDED

The recent murders of Dwayne Jones, a transgender teenager in Jamaica, and Eric Ohena Lembembe, a gay activist in Cameroon, as well as the global outcry over Russia’s anti-gay legislation have rightly attracted international attention as gross violations of human rights.

While the debate about gay rights in the West has shifted to the rights of same sex couples to marry, these recent events bring back to light the cruel reality that in many countries people who are openly homosexual or suspected of being homosexual are still being thrown in jail for years or even facing death sentences. It beggars belief that in sub-Saharan Africa homosexuality remains illegal in 38 countries.

It is crucial that pressure be stepped up on governments that, through punitive laws, continue to make the daily lives of homosexuals a nightmare.

But even greater pressure can be exerted if we acknowledge that this deprivation of human rights goes beyond mere civil liberties: It is bad public health.

Three decades of experience in responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has provided indisputable evidence that depriving those groups most at risk of HIV infection of their human rights drives them underground.

The impact is twofold: Not only do sex workers, men who have sex with men, drug users and transgender people live in daily fear of reprisals, but precisely because of that they are considerably less likely to access basic health services such as condoms to protect themselves from infection.

Education campaigns that reach the general population are unlikely to reach these populations, and it is no surprise that in many parts of the world HIV prevalence among sex workers, men who have sex with men, and transgender people is much higher than in other populations.