[NEWS] Room for Debate at China’s LGBT Community Leader Conference

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Aibai Transgender Program Manager Wu Jisuan.JPG
Aibai Transgender Program Manager Wu Jisuan. Photo by Queer Comrades

The first China Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual &Transgender (LGBT) Community Leader Conference took place last weekend and the “intense debates about the development of ideas, tactics and future directions for the LGBT movement in China” are hopefully just the beginning. Hosted by the Beijing Gender Health Education Institute, the conference boasted almost 100 regionally diverse activists representing 53 organizations and a wide range of viewpoints.  To see a longer write up and many great pictures check out the Queer Comrades blog here.

[PROFILE] Yuan Wenli: Mobilizing Women Affected by HIV/AIDS in China

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Yuan Wenli, originally from Henan province, an area ravaged by HIV/AIDS, started Henan Golden Sunshine in 2005, after her son was infected with HIV. The organization aims to help women and children living with HIV/AIDS and to incorporate women’s voices in advocacy in China. Subsequently Yuan helped establish the Henan Regional Network of Women Living with HIV/AIDS in 2010 and in 2012 became the secretary
of Women’s Network Against AIDS in China. Yuan will be coming to the International AIDS Conference, AIDS 2012, in Washington this July on a full scholarship, and will present her own talk Mainstreaming Gender into The National Global Fund Strategy in China: A Case Study from a Grassroots Women’s NGO Network on Thursday July 26th in English.

Yuan spoke to Asia Catalyst about her own work and what she is most looking forward to at AIDS 2012 this year.

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[UPDATE] UN Endorses Asia Catalyst Report on Compensation

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In the good news category, UNAIDS has recently come out strongly in favor of China’s Blood Disaster: The Way Forward, a joint report published by Asia Catalyst and the Korekata Law Center this year. The statement, available here boldly calls for ‘comprehensive and inclusive process of consultation and dialogue involving representatives from government, civil society, people infected through contaminated transfusions, legal experts, academia and other relevant fields.’

[REPORT] Dream of Ding Village

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The following is a cross post from the great people at The China Beat. The site provides context and criticism on contemporary China from China scholars and journalists. 

By Mike Frick
“Since you have gone, the house is empty, it has been three seasons now
Extinguish the lamps, let the twilight come, we must endure the setting sun” 
–Chinese funeral couplet

In 2000-2001, Elisabeth Rosenthal published a series of reports in the New York Times that alerted the world to a startling AIDS epidemic among farmers in central China. Beginning in the early 1990s, thousands of farmers in the Yellow River provinces of Henan, Hebei, Hubei, and Shanxi had contracted HIV through commercial blood selling. Local government officials in Henan promoted blood and plasma selling as a rural development scheme that would lift farmers out of poverty.

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[NEWS] Global Times Condemns Forced Labor in Drug Detention Centers

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According to official statistics over 171,000 drug users underwent forced drug treatment, in China, in 2011 alone. While a joint statement cosigned by 12 UN bodies in March 2012 calling for “States to close compulsory drug detention and rehabilitation centers” did not force China to close its drug treatment centers, a highly critical article from the Global Times, an official media outlet, may point to a shift in the right direction.

The article highlighted personal stories of drug users and NGOs like Asia Catalyst’s partner the Dongzhen Nalan Culture Communication Center, praising reforms including promoting counseling and community rehabilitation.