Aid Groups Fight Anti-Prostitution ‘Oath’ on Free Speech Grounds

During the 2012 International AIDS Conference in July, ACT UP activists protested U.S. HIV/AIDS policies, including the PEPFAR anti-prostitution pledge.(Michael Fleshman / Flickr / Creative Commons)

Originally posted at In These Times

One of the few bright spots in the global response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been PEPFAR, the United States government’s program to fund treatment and prevention for vulnerable populations across the Global South. But several years ago, lawmakers singled out one group of people as less worthy of that care. In fact, aid groups must publicly denounce them—or risk losing U.S. funding.

That’s the basic idea behind the “anti-prostitution loyalty oath” embedded in the global AIDS initiative legislation. As a condition of receiving federal funds, organizations must adhere to avaguely worded anti-prostitution pledge, essentially swearing to the government that they do not support or promote prostitution. The extent of this restriction on their work is unclear; the only thing that is clear is that federal health authorities have sought to impose ideological views on aid workers in a way that could undermine both public health and organizations’ free speech rights.

The policy has been blocked on constitutional grounds in lower court decisions, but the White House will now take the case to the Supreme Court, which will rule later this year on the question of whether the government can link support for U.S. health organizations to the adoption of certain ideological positions on prostitution. Read the rest of this entry →

HIV Risks Stalk Migrant Farmworker Communities

5:43 pm in Uncategorized by Michelle Chen

Photo: Shiho Fukada, Coalition of Immokalee Workers (ciw-online.org)

Originally posted on In These Times

Last month public health advocates and researchers from around the world convened at the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C. to discuss the state of the crisis. But many of the communities most affected were not in the room. Some, like sex workers, were explicitly barred from entering the country. Others were excluded by their economic and political circumstances. Far from the conference, the country’s farms are quietly stalked by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but struggling migrant farmworkers may not realize they’re at risk until it’s too late.

HIV is one of a myriad of health issues facing migrant farmworkers, but it’s unique in that so little is known about the scope of the problem. Farmworkers are typically cut off from regular social welfare programs and lack insurance, and there are deep gaps in research about HIV prevalence in this population.

Access to healthcare is virtually out of reach for workers tied down by systemic exploitation. The most marginalized farmworkers, the vast majority of them Latino, face high risks of job-related illnesses and injury, abusive working conditions and, frequently, sexual violence against women.

The most recent research that focuses specifically on farmworkers and HIV is alarming, but sparse. A Centers for Disease Control investigation of about 300 farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida, (an area notorious for labor exploitation on tomato farming operations), found a prevalence rate of 5 percent. Other studies have found rates ranging from less than half a percent to 13 percent. Overall, the new HIV infection rates for Latino men and women are especially high compared to those for the white population. The bottom line is that there is a dire need for more in-depth research. Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: AIDS, farm, farmworkers, HIV, immigration, migrant workers, undocumented immigrants
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