Top UN Official Tells of 'Inhumane' Treatment of AIDS Victims

By Rich Bowden

Img: UNAIDS logo.

Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), has underlined the problem over the stigma that remains attached to AIDS sufferers and activists in the Asia Pacific by describing reports his office receives of “senseless, vicious and inhumane” treatment.

Speaking in a statement delivered by J. V. R. Prasada Rao, Director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team, at the week-long 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) in Bali, Indonesia, Sidibé contrasted the economic and social development of the Asia Pacific region in recent years with the enduring discrimination against AIDS sufferers.

"The region has been achieving breathtaking economic growth and social development, especially in the last decade," he said in the statement reported by the UN News Centre, but added this achievement "...has not been matched by progress in creating the enabling environments and supportive social norms necessary to deliver a future generation free of HIV."

According to a report released in 2008, over five million people in the Asian region, and 74,000 in the Pacific, carried the HIV virus in 2007. The study added that AIDS was the most likely cause of death and work days lost of people between the ages of 15 to 44.

Sidibé said UNAIDS continued to receive reports of harrassment of AIDS sufferers and activists and said his organisation would continue to work towards supporting laws in the region which would lift the stigma from AIDS.

However he said that "...real transformation has to come in the hearts and minds of the people," pointing out that "...courts and parliaments can only create an enabling environment."

"Societies and communities have to change the social norms to end stigma and discrimination faced by transgender, men who have sex with men, sex workers and injecting drug users," he said.

Delegates from 65 countries are attending the event which will run until Thursday.

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NZ to Ratify UN's Indigenous Rights Declaration

By Rich Bowden

Img: Maori flag

New Zealand's Maori Affairs minister Pita Sharples has told Radio New Zealand that his Government will ratify the non-binding United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples within weeks, reversing the previous Labour party's policy.
Previously one of only four countries - along with Australia, Canada and the United States - to refuse to endorse the declaration, New Zealand has now decided to ratify the key declaration which guarantees Indigenous peoples the right to right to self-determination, autonomy and the self-government of their local and internal affairs.

Australia has since decided to change its stance on the document.

Mr Sharples told Radio New Zealand he expected to make a joint announcement within weeks with Prime Minister John Key on the details of the ratification.

Mr Sharples, who is also the co-leader of the Maori Party in the Government coalition, said the the ratification of the declaration would protect Maori culture and would not override New Zealand sovereign law or provide additional claims of self-determination.

However the declaration has been criticised from a number of quarters.

One of the bones of contention is Article 26 which says Indigenous peoples have the right to "...own, use, develop or control lands and territories that they have traditionally owned, occupied or used."

The NZ Herald quoted New Zealand's permanent UN representative, Rosemary Banks, as saying such an arrangement would be unworkable in the country.

"For New Zealand, the entire country is potentially caught within the scope of the article. The article appears to require recognition of rights to lands now lawfully owned by other citizens, both indigenous and non-indigenous."

However the document supporters contend that it is intended as an aspirational declaration rather than legal and the New Zealand Government has decided, unlike the previous Labour administration, that ratifying its posed no legal dilemmas.

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