ICAAP 11: Meet the Delegates: Xiaomi Li

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Xiaomi Li and the Lingnan Partner Community Support Center: The Success Story of an Internet Intervention for MSM in Guangzhou

Xiaomi Li lives and works in Guangzhou, China’s third largest city. She works for one of the largest HIV-testing and service providers in Southern China, the Lingnan Partner Community Support Center. The group has over seven years of HIV/AIDS-related service experience.

At the congress, Xiaomi presented on Lingnan Partner Community Support Center’s online interventions for men who have sex with men (MSM). For the past 15 years, the Guangzhou Tongzhi, a popular local newspaper for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders (LGBT), has been operating a national website with over two million visitors per year.Xiaomi.jpg

Xiaomi and her colleagues were interested in game-based social networking on the site, where users can earn credits to upgrade game levels, which is particularly popular with MSM in Guangzhou, who, according to statistics by the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control (CDC), make up about 46,000 active users.

This game-based social networking platform was the entry point for the research and development of the Lingnan Partner and Community and Support Center’s online HIV/AIDS education and intervention tools. According to Xiaomi, these tools increase risk awareness and promote HIV-testing, including scheduling appointments with CDC and sending reminder text messages. They also enable queries into test results and collect feedback.

For many years, only a few dozen test-takers from the MSM community were recorded in Guangzhou. But in 2012, 5,389 MSM that underwent HIV-testing were mobilized through these online tools. These men account for 83% of the city’s annual total. The proven effectiveness of this internet intervention approach led government partners, including the Guangzhou CDC, to support HIV-testing by community-based organizations.

This piece is the second in a series introducing you to the partners that Asia Catalyst is supporting through scholarships, strategy and translation to attend the 11th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.  The Congress brought together over 4,000 delegates from 22 countries in the region in Bangkok this month.

ICAAP11: Meet the Delegates: Lanlan

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Continuing the Fight for Acceptance of Female Sex Workers in China

“我们是有益的，没有害处。只要社会不歧视我们，法律不惩处我们，我们就过得很幸福。”

“We [sex workers] are doing something beneficial for others, not harmful. As long as society does not discriminate against us, and the law does not punish us, we will lead a happy life.”

Lanlan, a founding member and executive director of Xin’ Ai was born in 1978, a time of great economic change for China. After dropping out of school at thirteen, she tried her hand at farming and eventually found work in a restaurant, chopping vegetables and washing dishes. In 2000, after the birth of her daughter, Lanlan turned to sex work to support her child and aging parents.

Lanlan.jpgFounded in 2008 to work toward the decriminalization of the sex trade, and prevent violence and discrimination against sex workers, the organization, also provides violence prevention training, training  in persuading customers to use condoms, health, legal and human rights training, HIV/STI blood testing, and medical referrals.

Lanlan was motivated to start a sex worker support group when she began to feel, as she says, that “AIDS NGO staff could not relate to sex workers or their particular needs.” Today, Xin’ Ai conducts outreach to sex workers, providing them with occupational safety training, health training, and legal training. The mission, says Lanlan, is self-confidence, self-respect, and mutual support.

Lanlan wants to know more about overall international strategies for AIDS prevention as well as ways of international funding for AIDS prevention in China. At ICAAP Lanlan gave an oral presentation about her work at Xin’ Ai and took part in a roundtable discussion on female sex work and presented a video on sex work in the Asia Pacific Village.

This piece is the first in a series introducing you to the partners that Asia Catalyst is supporting through scholarships, strategy and translation to attend the 11th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.  The Congress brought together over 4,000 delegates from 22 countries in the region in Bangkok this month.

[PRESS STATEMENT] Widespread medical discrimination against People Living with HIV/AIDS undermines the global fight against the disease

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Bangkok, November 20th 2013

A coalition of international organisations call for an end to medical discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).  Governments and civil society organizations meeting in Bangkok, Thailand this week for the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) should prioritise education and services to eliminate discrimination in health care provision.

U.S based Asia Catalyst, the China HIV/AIDS Community-Based Organization Network (CBO Network), the Women’s Network Against HIV/AIDS China (WNAC), the National Federation of Women Living with HIV/AIDS, Nepal (NFWLHA), Healthy Options Project Skopje (HOPS), Macedonia, Youth LEAD, Thailand, Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium, Fundación para Estudio e Investigación de la Mujer-FEIM, Argentina, and AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Mexico urge governments in Asia take actions to address medical discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) today.

“Across Asia, people living with HIV/AIDS experience widespread discrimination in all spheres of life,” said Tingting Shen, Advocacy Director for Asia Catalyst.”Medical discrimination is one of the key factors preventing PLWHA from accessing critical life-saving treatment.”

The CBO Network has documented cases in China in which hospitals refuse to provide surgery to PLWHA.  WNAC has reported cases of positive pregnant women who were asked by their doctors to have an abortion.

“In China, there are laws and policies in place to protect PLWHA from discrimination, including the 2006 Regulation on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control,” said Wang Baoyi, secretariat of the CBO Network. “But there has been little action or measures to ensure the implementation of these laws and policies.”

A 2009 survey conducted by UNAIDS, among more than 2000 PLWHA in China, found that 12% of interviewees reported discrimination in health care settings by health care providers. In Nepal, a 2011 survey conducted among 848 PLWHA found that 7.3 % of respondents had been denied health services, with an even higher proportion of sex workers and drug users  also experiencing denial of health services. NFWLHA has collected cases of positive women experiencing discrimination to prevent them from receiving PMTCT (Prevention of mother to child transmission).

“Medical practitioners in Nepal have negative attitudes towards women living with HIV/AIDS, as they associate HIV with immoral behavior, ” said Rishu Shrestha, project officer at NFWLHA. “The government should ensure that women living with HIV/AIDS  have access to life saving medical treatment without discrimination. ”

Across Asia People Living With HIV/AIDS are regularly turned away by hospitals when they are seeking medical services that address their health needs. Medical discrimination not only endangers the lives of PLWHA, it also violates their right to the highest attainable standard of health and increases stigma towards HIV/AIDS. This drives PLWHA, who are already marginalized, further underground to the point where they will not be willing to seek key HIV prevention, care and treatment services. This must change.

The coalition urged governments and other attendees at this year’s ICAAP to:

*   Protect the equal rights of PLWHA for treatment by developing and implementing laws and policies that prevent discrimination;

*   Fund programmes for medical practitioners to learn and disseminate knowledge of HIV/AIDS and standard precautions in health care settings to ensure that health care providers have appropriate protections when providing medical services;

*   Conduct education campaigns to the general public, to address ignorance and discrimination on HIV/AIDS.

For further information please contact:

Asia Catalyst, Advocacy Director- Shen Tingting (Chinese & English),+66 – 928108615 tshen@asiacatalyst.org

The China AIDS CBO Network, Secretariat -Wang Baoyi (Chinese), +66 – 908936816

NFWLHA, Project officer – Rishu Shrestha (Nepalese & English) , +977 – 9841489299

Download the full statement and view signatories here.

[PRESS STATEMENT] Chinese Government Denies Travel to Bangkok for AIDS Activist

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Bangkok, 20 November, 2013

Yuan Wenli, a women’s rights and AIDS activist from China, was forced to cancel her plan to travel to Bangkok for this week’s International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), due to the Chinese government’s cancellation of her passport, Asia Catalyst said today.

Mrs Yuan Wenli, a prominent AIDS activist from Zheng Zhou, Henan province, was stopped by customs officials at Guangzhou airport on November 15, 2013 and informed that her passport had been revoked by the local authorities. She was specifically told that she was not to go to Bangkok for ICAAP.

Yuan Wenli was due to participate at this year’s ICAAP where thousands of AIDS activists from across Asia are gathering in Bangkok this week. The Congress brings together policy makers, civil society, academics and relevant regional stakeholders to share information and discuss strategies to control the epidemic. Asia Catalyst had organised for Yuan Wenli to participate in a panel discussion and meeting with UN agencies and international organizations in Bangkok to share her experiences around documenting medical discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in China.

“This is a great opportunity for me to meet with organizations from other countries, to learn their experiences and to show what we have achieved in China,” said Yuan Wenli. “But now I can do nothing but stay at home.”

Yuan Wenli’s case highlights ongoing restrictions on freedom of association and assembly for AIDS activists in China. Rights activists operate in a difficult and oppressive environment. Henan province, the home of Wenli, was the main site of China’s blood disaster in the 1990s, in which the HIV virus was transmitted to hundreds of thousands of citizens through unsafe blood transfusions and blood donations.

Decades later activists continue to advocate for accountability and
compensation for the victims, in an environment rife with police surveillance, arbitrary detention, arrest and harassment. It is difficult for activists to organize events and many meetings have been canceled by the authorities.

China’s Prime Minister Li Keqiang has stressed that “civil society
organizations play an important role in the response to HIV/AIDS. ”

“The cancellation of Yuan Wenli’s passport undermines efforts to strengthen community voices and build the leadership of civil society organizations, which is essential to an effective response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China,” said Tingting Shen, Advocacy Director for Asia Catalyst. “We urge China to protect the right of expression and association for its citizens and to ensure a space for civil society leaders to have their voices heard.”

As the mother of an HIV positive child, Yuan Wenli founded Golden Sunshine in 2005, an organization that provides support to women and children living with HIV/AIDS. In 2010, she established the Henan Regional Network of Women Living with HIV/AIDS, the first regional network in China that builds the leadership of women in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Due to her leadership and commitment to women’s rights she was elected secretary of the Women’s Network Against AIDS China (WNAC) in 2012.

Asia Catalyst works with grassroots groups from marginalized communities in East and Southeast Asia that promote the right to health.

For further information on Yuan Wenli’s case, please see:

Why Deprive Me of My Right to Participation? Zhengzhou police revoked passport to prevent AIDS activist from participating in regional AIDS Congress. (Chinese and English:  https://goo.gl/y44NUi)

 

CONTACT:

Shen Tingting, Asia Catalyst Advocacy Director (Chinese
& English)

+66 – 92 810 8615 (until 22 November)

+86 -138 117 10833 (after 22 November)

tshen@asiacatalyst.org

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Download the PDF of this Press Statement Here

 

Schedule of Asia Catalyst Events at ICAAP 11

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From November 20th to 21st Asia Catalyst staff and delegates from four Chinese partner organizations will gather with other advocates from the region at the 11th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICCAP). Delegates will present their work, meet with advocacy targets, and attend community and scientific sessions. The congress, to be held in Bangkok, Thailand, is the largest forum on HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Will you be in Bangkok for ICAAP 11 or otherwise?

Check out our list of events, panels, roundtables, workshops and presentations.  Many events are free and open to the public, taking place in networking zones or our organizational booth inside the Asia Pacific Village, an area of the conference proceedings open to the public, and designed to include community groups.

Download our ICAAP schedule here.

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