Moment of Truth for National and International AIDS Policy | Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project

The Moment of Truth
for National and International AIDS Policy:

Immigrants, International Solidarity

and the Battle Against AIDS

Panel, Film, and Discussion

Tuesday, May 16, 2006
6:30 – 8:30PM

LGBT Community Center, New York City

“Abstinence-only-until-marriage” policies promoted in the United States have spread into a global net pushing stigma, anti-gay bias, misinformation and denial of access to education, condoms and needles. Current and proposed legislation on immigration threaten the lives of people with HIV/AIDS and LGBT people. HIV/AIDS issues, often rooted in policies of the U.S. Government, impact people across borders and communities.

As people around the world prepare for the second United Nation General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) in New York this spring, this timely public forum addressed global and domestic HIV/AIDS policies and immigrant rights. The UNGASS has promised an analysis of five years of efforts since the first gathering, and a commitment to new goals — but will it reveal half a decade of progress, or entrenchment into wrongheaded or insufficient efforts?

The forum also included selections from film, Pills Profits Protest: Chronicle of the Global AIDS Movement, and information on the major protest scheduled during the UNGASS gathering on May 31.

Speakers:

Amos Hough, New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN)
Jodi Jacobson, Center for Health and Gender Equality (CHANGE)
Eric Sawyer, ACT UP NY
Sarah Sohn, Immigration Equality
Moderator: Sonny Suchdev, CHAMP

Co-sponsors:

ACT UP NY (http://www.actupny.org)
African Services Committee (http://www.africanservices.org)
Audre Lorde Project (http://www.alp.org)
Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) (http://www.genderhealth.org)
Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP) (http://www.champnetwork.org)
Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) (http://www.gmhc.org)
Health Global Access Project (Health GAP) (http://www.healthgap.org)
Housing Works (http://www.housingworks.org)
Immigration Equality (http://www.immigrationequality.org)
LGBT Community Center (http://www.gaycenter.org)
New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN) (http://www.nycahn.org)

Summary:

Welcome: Sonny Suchdev, CHAMP

Below is a summary of Sonny’s remarks:

CHAMP wanted to do a forum on this topic because of the perspective of solidarity that we attempt to bring to all of our work. In a time where there is much tension between activists and advocates who focus on domestic policy issues and those who focus on international issues, it is important that we understand the connections between domestic and international HIV/AIDS policies. We believe in bridging the domestic and international movements – our struggles are connected, and our enemies are the same.

It is also important to put this topic into the context of immigrant rights in the United States. There has been an inspiring upsurge in the immigrant rights movement here as a result of repressive federal bills being considered, so we want to explore how AIDS fits into this discussion.

Thanks to all the co-sponsors of the forum.

Introduction: Eric Sawyer, ACT UP NY

Below is a summary of Eric’s remarks:

This really is the moment of truth for national and international HIV/AIDS policy. The last few years, the Bush administration and the media have primarily focused on the terrorism and the war in Iraq. Both are going terribly awry. These are unwinnable wars, but the war on AIDS is a winnable war – a winnable war that the generals aren't fighting. We know that enemy and can find it. We have the tools to defeat it, but our leaders have chosen not to fight it. T hey are posturing rather than using the tools of condoms, needle exchange and treatment to win it.

From May 31st to June 2nd is the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS). This June is the 25th anniversary of the first diagnosed cases of AIDS. In August the International AIDS conference will meet. We, as AIDS activists, need to use these events to try to capture the media's attention. The upcoming UNGASS meeting is to review progress made in the fight against AIDS since the passage by the UN of the Declaration of Commitment to Fight AIDS. Progress is poor--they have only put 1.3 million people in treatment in 2006 when they should have had, by their own estimates 3 million in treatment by 2005.

We have a need to help people with AIDS from around the world because the US administration is trying to ram unproven abstinence-only HIV prevention programs down the throats of people in developing countries. Other speakers will talk about this more.

Jodi Jacobson, Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE)

Below is a summary of Jodi’s remarks:

CHANGE is trying to help people get the tools they need to have healthy lives and healthy sex lives.

One thing we have to keep in mind as we battle around issues of abstinence-only education is that while George Bush won't be president in a few years, the movement that put him in power is not going to go away when Bush leaves. We have a longer-term challenge. The Democrats don't stand up for much of anything, especially around these issues.

We are fighting a battle with the media because Bush put $15 billion on the table to battle global AIDS, so it is hard to get media attention. Frequently reporters ask, "Aren't Bush's initiatives a good thing overall?" The answer is that we need sustainable policies and his policies aren't sustainable.

You may have heard of the global gag rule, which prevents discussing abortion or how to get an abortion in family planning clinics. It is a policy that the U.S. has exported, like the abstinence-only-until-marriage education. Abstinence-only programs began in the U.S. at local and national levels. States can't get state level funding for comprehensive sex education. Contraceptives can only be discussed based on their failure rate.

The Office of AIDS policy is taking an extremely narrow interpretation of legislation in place mandating one-third of prevention funds go to abstinence-only prevention programs. They disaggregate programs so that only "high risk" people can get condoms. These people are sex workers and gay men. 60-70% of the people that are sexually active receive abstinence-only-until-marriage education. The rest of sexually active people, that are married, only get the "Be Faithful" rap. So huge monies are being funneled into the abstinence-only programs or secondary abstinence programs.

In Nigeria, 70% of the HIV prevention money is for abstinence-only education.

In Zambia, the US administration dismantled the comprehensive social marketing system for condoms.

The condom crisis in Uganda happened at the same time as the popularization of abstinence-only education. This effectively dismantled their condom distribution system.

The Bush administration has also instituted a prostitution loyalty oath, requiring care providers to not advocate for prostitution or legalization of prostitution.

Part of the problem is pervasive fundamentalist ideology, which has damaged previous successful programs and will be hard to undo without concerted activism in the long term.

Sarah Sohn, Immigration Equality

Below is a summary of Sarah’s remarks:

There is a ban on immigration to the U.S. for HIV positive persons. Currently, HIV positive immigrants can't come into the country for a visit or to live. Senator McCain recently said there is absolutely no way he would support lifting the ban.

The immigration law makes it legal to detain immigrants indefinitely. Detention is the same as jail. The government doesn't appoint defense council for them, and access to treatment for HIV positive immigrants in detention is dismal. They have less rights, including less access to care, than those imprisoned for punishable offences. This detention problem will get worse with the recent addition of 2,000 beds.

In the early 1990s, Clinton promised to lift the HIV immigration ban, which was then a rule. Public Health officials realized that the ban wasn't feasible, it didn't make sense, and was driving positive immigrants underground. However, in the end, Congress codified the HIV ban in the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

There is no movement against the ban on the rise, and neither side of the political spectrum seems interested in removing it. The only way you can get immigration status is to have a sponsor. If you are LGBT, your spouse doesn't count. You also need to have private health insurance. There have been a few cases of people with HIV getting asylum, but it is rare and not precedent setting. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is being used by government lawyers to argue against the granting of asylum based on HIV status. You have to prove that you would be much worse off in your home country than in the US. The government lawyers say, ‘well this country gets aid from the US to pay for AIDS drugs, so they don't need to be here for treatment.’ As a result we have to get expert witnesses from the clients countries to testify as the real situation of people that are seeking asylum.

For example if a client is gay, social conditions may complicate getting access to treatment.

Amos Hough, New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN)

Below is a summary of Amos’s remarks:

NYCAHN is a membership organization comprised and led by low-income people living with HIV/AIDS. We engage in community organizing, advocacy and public education. We work on the issues that affect the lives of our members and to improve the systems that our members are forced to navigate: immigration, welfare, housing, criminal injustice and education. I got involved with NYCAHN when I myself was struggling to survive the City’s emergency housing system for homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS and an organizer knocked on my door. After 18 months there, I knew it was time to get involved.

NYCAHN is currently advocating for the passage of legislation that will make it easier for thousands of tenants living with AIDS to get repairs in their apartments, legislation that will ensure that the City will not send homeless people living with AIDS into dangerous apartments, and legislation that will give access to welfare centers and office buildings providing lifesaving services to NYers living with AIDS to advocates and organizers. Youth CAHN is advocated for increased funding to build housing for homeless youth in our City and we are trying to get the State to radically improve access to healthcare throughout the prison system, including HIV and Hepatitis C treatment and services. But NYCAHN is equally committed to building a movement. We are a founding member of the US Human Rights Network. We were the convener and lead organization of the Still We Rise Coalition and we are members of Grassroots Global Justice.

The bridge between the HIV/AIDS movement, the housing movement, the immigration movement and the fight for human rights is not a theoretical one. Our members’ lives are not rooted in just one movement, but rather across issue areas.

In New York State, there are more than 200,000 people living with AIDS. In NYC, there are over 31,000 POOR people living with AIDS relying on welfare benefits. Over 86% of them will need housing related assistance. Yet, our City lost funding from the federal Ryan White program last year, leaving support for lifesaving programs in the poorer outer boroughs nearly disseminated. In addition, the City’s Commissioner of the Department of Health now wants to do away with written consent for HIV testing and wants to completely disseminate funding for the anti-eviction services that thousands of New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS rely on. Believe me, being a poor tenant in NYC is like being a poor Texas farmer sitting on an oil field. Landlords will do anything to get you out of their investment and without a lawyer you are sunk. On top of that, the Department of Homeless Services just released a report saying that the top killer of single women living in the shelter system is AIDS. It’s the second highest killer for single men in the shelter system. Now, NYC has a law that people living with AIDS do not have to spend a single night in the NYC homeless shelter system. So that means that people are entering the shelter system when they are HIV+, non-AIDS diagnosed and then rapidly dying from AIDS before they move into the City’s emergency housing system for homeless people living with AIDS or they simply aren’t told that they are entitled to something better. NYCAHN’s HASA for ALL! Campaign seeks to expand the enhanced welfare benefits entitled only for people living with AIDS to poor NYers who are HIV+.

We are mobilizing our over 3,800 individual members and 67 dues paying member organizations to turn out for the march and rally on the opening day of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS 5 year report back because it is clear to us that the United States has not done enough to fight the epidemic right here in NYC. New Yorkers need to be there because the ways that we deal with the epidemic here are being exported to other countries. We’ve heard or will hear about the exportation of Bush’s ideology driven abstinence only policies! We know about the US exported war on drugs, which translates into a war on drug users! We know about the xenophobia that is sweeping all western countries leading to draconian policies that demonize immigrants! But those aren’t the only US exports. Last week, the South African government flew over our Commissioner of welfare to learn more about how NYC dramatically reduced its welfare rolls. Well, we know how that happened-they cut people off, sent people to temporary, dead-end jobs, and dramatically cut benefits. Join us on May 31st at the United Nations to demand an end to exportation of ideology, an end to the budget cuts, an end to the empty rhetoric and Join us to Demand a REAL END to AIDS here and abroad!

FILM: Pills Profits Protest: Chronicles of the Global AIDS Movement

10 minute clip from the film shown highlighting the protest at the 2001 UNGASS protest.
For more information on the film, visit:
http://www.outcast-films.com/films/ppp/index.html

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