[socialactionfoundationforequity:2639 Sexuality-related stigma impedes access to existing services

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BUTTERFLY: Nature Club of India

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May 15, 2010, 11:19:37 AM5/15/10
to SAFE - Social Action Foundation for Equity
Sexuality-related stigma impedes access to existing services
http://www.littleabout.com/news/97807,sexuality-related-stigma-impedes-access-existing-services.html

Published on : Saturday 15 May 2010

Globally, men who have sex with men (MSMs) and transgenders have a
higher rate of HIV incidence, due to appalling attention towards their
health needs. In the words of Shivananda Khan, who was conferred upon
the prestigious Order of The British Empire (OBE) by the British
Queen, for his services to HIV/AIDS prevention and among marginalized
communities in South Asia, and leader of Naz Foundation International
(NFI), "unless we create an atmosphere in which the transgenders and
MSMs can access appropriate health services, to reduce their
vulnerability to HIV, they will constitute more than 50% of the people
living with HIV, by the year 2020.This is bound to have a tremendous
economic impact on governments and societies by way of increased
expenditures on treatment and care."

Shivananda Khan is one of the keynote speakers at the High Level
Dialogue to discuss punitive laws, human rights and HIV prevention
among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Asia Pacific, in Hong Kong on
17th May to mark the International Day Against Homophobia.

Existing healthcare and other services are not sensitive towards
people with different/ alternate sexuality, said Arif Jafar, Executive
Director, Maan Foundation of India. Arif felt that in normal health
settings, there is no sensitization towards people with alternate
sexual preferences. The healthcare services are so stigmatized against
LGBT,that for a long time HIV/AIDS was blamed on homosexuals. Arif
rues that no government hospital in India is comfortable enough for a
hijra (transgender) to line up with the other patients, even for
availing normal healthcare services. Even the doctors ask them to sit
in a corner, far away from the madding crowd, and then give them moral
preaching. He narrated an incident wherein a doctor, who was a trained
counselor and who had been sensitized on this issue, squarely blamed a
feminized male for some infection he was suffering from.

Shivananda Khan believes that it is not only the attitude of doctors/
healthcare workers, but also the environment in which the healthcare
systems exist that matters. The discriminatory attitude of the family,
government, police, religious leaders combine together to create a
multiple complex environment, in which the LGBTs are denied access to
basic health rights.

The process of discrimination starts from early childhood, when a
young boy gets attracted to a man. Due to societal indoctrination, he
feels that as he is not behaving like a man, he must not be a male. He
then starts behaving as a woman to justify his affinity to men. This
makes him more visible and noticed by others. His feminine actions
invite jeers, taunts and harassment by the peers in school. Later on
it takes the form of violence, rape and physical abuse. Even the
parents fail to understand this alternate sexuality of their child.
Obviously, the school dropout rate for such people is very high,
resulting in low levels of education, and hence or otherwise, fewer
job opportunities for them.

Shivananda Khan advocates a three pronged strategy to reduce this
malaise of the different sexuality people. The first level involves
policy decisions which enable governments to repeal, amend and create
new laws which makes social and health service more accessible to
them. This would create a conducive and enabling environment.

At the second level it should be ensured that decision makers are
sensitized to the different issues and needs affecting these people.
This would help in implementing the policies in a better manner.

At the third level lie the parents, siblings, teachers; religious
leaders need to treat them at par with other so called normal
citizens. This would result in the universal access to health care and
human rights, without discrimination.

The media can play a very proactive role in this whole process of
sensitization and desensitization. It can act as an important vehicle
to lay bare the truth and not create an attitude. There is need to
disseminate information which is already available. The media should
not chase stories to increase their TRP, but create an atmosphere of
trust without any discrimination.

So be sensitive without being sensational.

Let's hope the media engagement at the forthcoming High Level Dialogue
in Hong Kong to mark the International Day Against Homophobia is
meaningful, and genuine. The United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (ACPOM) and the
Center for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) at the Faculty of Law,
The University of Hong Kong will also release the key findings and
recommendations of the UNDP-APCOM study entitled: "Laws affecting HIV
responses among men who have sex with men and transgender people in
Asia and the Pacific: an agenda for action" during this High Level
Dialogue to honour the International Day against Homophobia on Monday,
17th May 2010. (CNS)

Shobha Shukla - CNS
(The author is the Editor of Citizen News Service(CNS), Director of
CNS Diabetes Media Initiative, and CNS Gender Initiative, has worked
earlier with State Planning Institute, UP, and teaches Physics at
India's prestigious Loreto Convent. She is an invited journalist
supported by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) and CNS,
reporting on the International Day Against Homophobia from the High
Level Dialogue in Hong Kong. Email: sho...@citizen-news.org, website:
www.citizen-news.org)

--
Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it. But no one has a right to coerce others to act according to his own view of truth. - Mohandas Gandhi

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