Thursday 07 August
2008, San José, Costa Rica
HEALTH:
Global Village or Sexual
Minorty Ghetto?
By Zofeen Ebrahim
MEXICO CITY
(IPS) - Dealing with
transgenders (TGs) can
be confusing. Even the
organisers of the 17th
International AIDS
Conference underway in
this city failed to
accommodate the third
gender by providing them
separate toilets.
"I went to the male
toilet only to be told I
should go to the female
one, where again I was
told to try the male
one!" Agniva Lahiri, 28,
expressed her
indignation while
talking with IPS at the
Global Village -- the
most happening and
animated place in the
entire Cento Banamex,
venue of the Aug. 3-8
conference.
Lahiri declares that her
‘’political identity is
TG’’ and ‘’not gay’’.
She is an MSM (men who
have sex with men) and
has a male partner, but
takes a passive role in
the relationship.
However, she refuses to
do the housework back in
Mumbai, India, where she
comes from.
Lahiri admits that
things are changing at
international
conferences. She has
been to five
international
conferences over the
last decade and insists:
"The visibility of TGs
is much better here than
at previous ones.’’
Susan Lopez of the
United States-based
Desiree Alliance had
similar praise for the
conference. "The sex
workers are very visible
and there are a lot of
sessions around their
issues, no doubt, than
ever before in the
past." A former
stripper, Lopez
describes herself as a
sex worker, and says she
‘’misses her work
terribly’’.
In fact, for the first
time, in the history of
the AIDS conference, a
plenary session had a
sex worker for a
speaker. "This is a
great achievement," said
Elena Reynaga, from
Argentina’s RedTraSex,
making a stirring case
for full recognition of
sex work and the rights
of sex workers.
Reynaga said the
contribution of sex
workers in mounting
effective response to
the HIV pandemic cannot
be ignored. She cited
the example of Kolkata,
India, where a strong
movement of sex workers
in the Songachi red
light area of the city
helped increase condom
use from only 1.1
percent in 1992 to 90
percent by 1998.
"What did they do? They
fought for their health
by advocating for sex
work to be recognised as
legitimate work and by
defending sex workers’
human rights," said
Reynaga.
Taking the experts to
task, she pointed out
that funding was given
without understanding
the "real needs" of sex
workers. "In many parts
of the world, sex
workers do not even have
access to basics such as
sufficient male and
female condoms."
She also pointed out the
times when funding comes
with conditions. "I ask
you how do you think sex
workers can use ABC
(Abstinence, Be faithful
and Condom) as an
effective HIV prevention
tool? It is an affront
to our work! The only
letter that is of any
use to us is C..."
But there are people
like Dr. Janaki
Vidanapathirana, a
community physician from
Sri Lanka, who are
baffled by so much
attention paid to sex
work. "Nobody in his or
her true mind wants to
go into this field. They
talk about it as if it
was alright!" While she
believes that sex
workers should be given
treatment and care and
that prevention
programmes should be
designed for them, as is
their right, she wonders
why, "people here are
not able to find the
root cause of why people
are selling sex," which
is "poverty and poverty
alone’’.
To Vidanapathirana
experts are talking
about behaviour change.
But ‘universal action
(the theme of the
conference) now’ should
also include behaviour
development. They have
to talk of those who
have not yet joined the
profession of selling
sex but due to extreme
poverty are vulnerable
to going into sex work.
"Why don’t they talk
more of education,
livelihood issues and
economic empowerment so
they leave this work?"
But then Vidanapathirana
has not met Lopez who
emphasises that people
must understand that
"some of us have chosen
this as our profession
of our free will."
Bhanu Buduk, 23, from
India is a Dalit (a low
caste Hindu) and a TG
who earns a living by
dancing at weddings. "We
can’t find work so we do
this. Not only are we
lowly paid but we face
extreme harassment --
from the police, our
clients and even at
times from our masters.
When we are raped and we
report it, the police
ask us how we can be
raped when we are men."
Lahiri has been working
with this group to
"reduce violence" in
their work. "These
dancers may provide
their services to
sometimes a dozen men in
one single night, and if
they cannot perform well
enough they are beaten
up and subjected to
sadistic attacks,’’ she
said.
Similar things happen in
the U.S. where, says
Lopez, when a prostitute
is found dead, the
police files are marked
NHI (acronym for no
human involved). "We are
considered trash, less
than human."
"Last year a stripper in
Irvine, California, was
raped but she lost the
case because she was
told by the judge that
she was overtly sexual
and got what she
wanted!" narrated Lopez.
In another case, an
escort was gang-raped
and the judge, that too
a woman, said it was
theft of service and not
rape!"
Lopez calls the global
village a "global ghetto
where all of us are
sequestered’’ and says
the "pharmaceutical
companies have been paid
to keep us out of
there".
And yet, it is the place
where the experts and
the leaders fighting for
an AIDS free world can
find answers to the
problems they brainstorm
over inside closed,
sanitised rooms.
It is only in the global
village that one can
find graphic depictions
of sex practices among
men and ways to put on
condoms, male or female.
There are women doing
pole dancing and condoms
are everywhere, in a
riot of colours and
shapes. Few here have
time to hear what the
experts have to say or
the steady exchange of
information about the
epidemic and its
prevention.
A fashion show organised
by Brazilian Davida, an
organisation of sex
workers, was a huge
success and drew crowds
too. Nets, furs, leather
and lace, flying kisses,
suggestive poses and
blown up condoms, all
made up the show.
"We want to show to the
world that sex workers
are not victims and we
want our rights," said
Gabriella. "I have a
face and am not ashamed
of my work," she said
talking with IPS
backstage. "I want more
respect from people,"
said 40-year-old Carmen,
a commercial sex worker
for the past 24 years.
"Grandiose,
spectacular!" is how
44-year-old HIV positive
Palo Gomex, a drag
queen, termed the
fashion show of which he
was a part.
"I wish Peter Piot,
executive director of
the Joint U.N. Programme
of HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS)
would hang out with us,"
says Tara Anne Sawyer, a
TG from the U.S. She
also showed discontent
over U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s
rather brief appearance
at the official opening
of the Global Village.
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