Human Rights Watch has urged the Uganda Police Force to urgently investigate the murder of David Kato, a prominent gay activist who opposed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill submitted to parliament in 2009. ‘The government should ensure that members of Uganda's LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community have adequate protection from violence and take prompt action against all threats or hate speech likely to incite violence, discrimination, or hostility toward them,’ the group said in its statement. Police are investigating the matter and called for gay people who are being harassed to come forward and report these incidents - otherwise the police are not in a position to protect them. However, homosexuality is a criminal offence in Uganda, and reporting harassment to the police is a risk few are willing to take. Only a handful of gay Ugandans are ‘out of the closet’, with most preferring to live anonymously in a society where homosexuality is taboo. The criminalisation of homosexuality is predicted to have a negative effect on the transmission of HIV in the country, as gay men are unlikely to use health facilities for fear of discrimination and possible legal prosecution.
Values, Policies and Rights
The aim of this report is to see how gender and AIDS concerns could be better mainstreamed in Zambia’s Norwegian Embassy portfolio. It indicates that gender inequalities exist at all levels in Zambia, and challenges remain critical and fundamental to the country’s achievement of its vision and goal on gender. Four programmes were reviewed, and the researchers noted that good opportunities existed for better synergies and learning. They give four key recommendations. First, internal organisation is required at the Embassy – responsibility should be placed at management level, and gender and AIDS competence should be secured. Second, at programme level, selection and focus should be on only one or two gender and AIDS mainstreaming topics. Third, at programme level, the main focus should be on only one programme or sector (in addition to improved quality work on the others). And fourth, at policy level, further work is needed to integrate the gender and AIDS aspects in the political dialogue with the government of Zambia and key development partners.
This pack assesses how it might be possible to move towards a world that recognises and values the importance of different forms of care, but without reinforcing care work as something that only women can or should do. Drawing on diverse examples of initiatives taking place in countries across the world, it considers what strategies offer the best prospects for change. It recommends that donors should fund capacity building of grassroots care-givers, women’s organisations and networks, and organisations and networks of people living with HIV and AIDS, to enable care givers to advocate for their rights and represent themselves in local, national and international decision-making forums. Governments should ensure that gender-sensitive care provision is an integral and budgeted aspect of HIV and AIDS policies and programmes.
Have development interventions promoted only negative messages in relation to sexuality, ignoring poor people's rights to pleasure, affirmation and joy through sex and sexuality? This Cutting Edge Pack hopes to inspire thinking on this question - with an Overview Report outlining key issues on gender, sexuality and sexual rights in the current climate, a Supporting Resources Collection providing summaries of key texts, tools, case studies and contacts of organisations in this field, and a Gender and Development In Brief newsletter with three short articles on the theme.
Gender-based violence and gender inequality are increasingly cited as important determinants of women's HIV risk; yet empirical research on possible connections remains limited. No study on women has yet assessed gender-based violence as a risk factor for HIV after adjustment for women's own high-risk behaviours, although these are known to be associated with experience of violence. Women with violent or controlling male partners are at increased risk of HIV infection. Research suggests that abusive men are more likely to have HIV and impose risky sexual practices on partners. Research on connections between social constructions of masculinity, intimate partner violence, male dominance in relationships, and HIV risk behaviours in men, as well as effective interventions, are urgently needed. (Access to this article requires registration.)
In this study, the authors set out to determine whether countries with high gender empowerment have a higher female-to-male smoking prevalence ratio. They explored the relationship between the United Nations Development Programme’s gender empowerment measure (GEM) and the female-to-male smoking prevalence ratio (calculated from the World Health Organisation’s 2008 Global Tobacco Control Report). Because a country’s progression through the various stages of the tobacco epidemic and its gender smoking ratio are thought to be influenced by its level of development, they explored this correlation as well, with economic development defined in terms of gross national income (GNI) per capita and income inequality (Gini coefficient). In their findings, the authors note that gender smoking ratio was significantly and positively correlated with the GEM. In addition, the GEM was the strongest predictor of the gender smoking ratio after controlling for GNI per capita and for Gini coefficient. Whether progress towards gender empowerment can take place without a corresponding increase in smoking among women remains to be seen, the authors conclude. They argue for stronger tobacco control measures in countries where women are being increasingly empowered.
Adopted in 2005, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness is the most recent framework on management of development aid assistance agreed by the donor community in the OECD, in partnership with some Southern governments. It aims to contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. There have been some improvements in recognising the importance of gender equality and women’s rights, such as the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA), which emphasises their central place of poverty reduction and human rights in development policy. The AAA also recognises the need to improve access to sex-disaggregated data but fails to explicitly recognise the need for coherence with international agreements on human rights, gender equality, environmental sustainability and decent work as frameworks for aid relationships. Ultimately, there has been no significant change in direction since 2005.
This book brings together leading researchers from a variety of disciplines to examine three areas: health disparities and inequity due to gender, the specific problems women face in meeting the highest attainable standards of health, and the policies and actions that can address them. It also brings together experts from a variety of disciplines, such as medicine, biology, sociology, epidemiology, anthropology, economics and political science, who focus on three areas: health disparities and inequity due to gender; the specific problems women face in meeting the highest attainable standards of health; and the policies and actions that can address them. Highlighting the importance of intersecting social hierarchies (such as gender, class and ethnicity) for understanding health inequities and their implications for health policy, contributors detail and recommend policy approaches and agendas that incorporate, but go beyond commonly acknowledged issues relating to women’s health and gender equity in health.
Gender inequality is killing the women of Africa, a diplomat and international AIDS expert told a Madison audience Monday night. "I have come to the conclusion that the single most important struggle on the face of the planet is the struggle for gender equality," Stephen Lewis said to an audience of about 400 during his UW-Madison Distinguished Lecture Series talk in the Union Theater. He received a rare standing ovation after an impassioned speech. In Africa and in other parts of the developing world, gender inequality needs to be addressed, Lewis said.
This interview report on the launch of the report of the UN Economic and Social Survey of Asia and Pacific makes the more generally relevabnt point that gender related interventions have been regarded as "social" and given little attention until economic numbers have been put to the interventions. Calling for wider gender budget analysis, the report notes that the promotion of breastfeeding, for example, saves lives and saves million dollars on import of baby milk. Economic and social arguments should be used in advancing gender health.