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New HIV infections increasing among homosexuals

New HIV infections are increasing among homosexuals, drug users and prostitutes who don’t seek help because of laws that criminalize these practices, the head of the U.N. AIDS agency said Monday.

UN report says HIV infections are increasing among certain populations

Michel Sidibe, the head of UNAIDS, said “it is unacceptable” that 85 countries still have laws criminalizing same sex relations among adults, including seven that impose the death penalty for homosexual practices.

He called a proposed Ugandan law that would impose the death penalty for some gays “very unfortunate” and expressed hope it will never be approved.

At a time when UNAIDS is scaling up its program and seeking universal access to HIV treatment, Sidibe said he was “very scared” because bad laws are being introduced by countries making it impossible for these at risk groups to have access to services.

“You have also a growing conservatism which is making me very scared,” Sidibe added.

“We must insist that the rights of the minorities are upheld. If we don’t do that … I think the epidemic will grow again,” he warned. “We cannot accept the tyranny of the majority.”

Sidibe told a group of journalists at a luncheon hosted by the United Nations Foundation that in countries from China to Kenya and Malawi, about 33 percent of new HIV infections are in men having sex with men, a significant increase.

By contrast, he said that in the Caribbean where most countries don’t have repressive laws, only between 3 and 6 percent of HIV infections are in male homosexuals.

Even in the United States, where laws are not restrictive and the gay community was the first to tackle AIDS, Sidibe said it is “shocking” that more than 50 percent of new HIV infections last year occurred among homosexuals. And he said in the 19-25 age bracket the infection rate was even higher.

“It seems like we have come full circle” in the United States, he said. “After almost no cases a few years ago we are seeing again this new peak among people who are not having access to all the information, the protection that is needed.”

In addition to failing to adequately deliver the right messages about AIDS prevention, Sidibe blamed complacency in a new generation that has access to treatment.

He added that this was not just a problem in the U.S. but in Europe and in Africa as well.

Sidibe said drug users are also getting the HIV virus that causes AIDS in high numbers.

“You have 70 percent of new infections occurring in Eastern Europe and Central Asia among drug users, but they are criminalized,” he said. “They don’t have access to services. They have to hide themselves and go underground.”

Of the 16 million people in the world who are injecting drugs, almost 3 million are HIV positive, and among them less than 4 percent have access to treatment and less than 8 percent have access to services, Sidibe said.

“It’s the same for men having sex with men,” he said.

In Nigeria, where there are 1,000 new HIV infections every day, over 30 percent are in vulnerable groups — drug users, sex workers and homosexuals, he said.

Sidibe called for “a prevention revolution” including a campaign in major cities around the world like the anti-smoking campaigns launched in recent years.

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While the challenge mounted by individuals and NGOs to the Delhi High Court judgment decriminalising gay sex is still pending in the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has quietly set in motion a move to take same-gender sex out of criminal jurisprudence.

A communication from the MHA to the Ministry of Law and Justice, sent earlier this week, asks the latter to prepare a draft of an amendment Bill to the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the most striking feature of which is that Section 377 would no longer deal with the offence involving voluntary “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” between consenting adults of the same gender.

Sources in the Law Ministry told The Sunday Express that the MHA proposal with regard to amendment to Section 377 talks only of “carnal intercourse with animals”.

The proposed amended Section 377 reads: “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse with animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment or either description for a term which may extend to 10 years and shall also be liable to fine”.

Senior officers of the MHA refused to either confirm or deny the move, maintaining the matter was sub-judice.

It is, however, learnt that the MHA plans to circulate the proposed amendment among state governments for their comments but at the same time await the final decision of the Supreme Court in the matter.

While the Centre has already indicated to the court that it is not averse to the idea of decriminalising gay sex among consenting adults, the latest move is the first concrete evidence of a change of thinking within the government on the contentious issue which had divided the previous

government.

Sources also said that while the MHA wants to decriminalise gay sex, it could have given in to the strong demand of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) and the National Commission for Women (NCW) to keep rape gender-specific.

So far, the MHA was keen that the offence of rape be made gender-neutral, as recommended by the Law Commission of India in its 172nd report and supported by previous Union Law Secretary T K Vishwanathan. But the MWCD and NCW opposed any move to make rape gender-neutral. A panel led by Home Secretary G K Pillai discussed the issue. One way out suggested was that rape could continue to be a women-specific offence. In case of males under the age of 18, if sexually abused, a new Section (376E) in the IPC could be added. This clause could deal with the offence of unlawful sexual contact with males below the age of 18. An offence would carry a punishment up to seven years. Strangely, the new law doesn’t propose any punishment if the age of the male in question is over 18.

Its promotional posters, placed throughout India, show two bare-chested men, eyes closed and necks strained, locked in a sexual embrace. And though the film does not come out until May, it is already being hailed as an iconoclastic cinematic break—or, more commonly, “Bollywood’s answer to Brokeback Mountain.”

Sanjay Sharma’s film Dunno Y…Na Jaane Kyun will, for the first time in Bollywood history, feature a gay kiss. The plot centres on a struggling model who moves to Mumbai in search of fame, and then begins a relationship with another man. In a country that only decriminalized homosexuality last year, it’s no surprise that the premise has some filmgoers squirming. (In fact, until recently, even heterosexual kisses—or “lip-locks”—were taboo, although that is changing.)

To be fair, Dunno Y will not show Bollywood’s first man-to-man kiss, per se. In 2008, the film Dostana portrayed two men pretending to be gay, in an effort to fool a young woman into living with them. At the end of the film, the two men kiss…as a punishment. And Bollywood has occasionally featured gay characters. But they are effeminate men whose roles are limited to comic relief.

And they are never cast in a sexual light. In contrast, Sharma insists that his film depicts a “normal relationship” between two unambiguously gay men. “The only thing I was particular about was that this character should not come across as a caricature or just as an object of mockery,” he told the Times of India.

India’s gay rights activists have been organizing, following the country’s repeal of Section 377 of the Penal Code, which declared homosexuality a crime “against nature.” Manvendra Singh, an Indian gay rights campaigner, worries that Dunno Y could cause “a backlash.” But he hopes that “it will go some way to sensitizing the public.” So far, reaction has been minimal—likely because, aside from the posters, Dunno Yhas been kept under wraps. So Sharma remains hopeful that his film “will pass” Indian censors.