Threat of economic penalties from AIDS

Originally published: Monday October 20, 2008

Gareth Thomas, the British state minister for trade and development, was, happily, not told to butt out of Jamaica's business. And no one has claimed that there is a quid pro quo attached to the £46-million aid package for the Caribbean that Mr Thomas announced in Kingston last week to help the region enhance its capacity to trade with Europe under their new free trade pact, the Economic Partnership Agreement.
All of which is good, given Prime Minister Golding's blustering attempt earlier this year at establishing his hard-core Jamaican credentials with his 'not-in-my-Cabinet' response to a British television journalist's question about the ability of homosexuals to serve in Government. We argued then, and still hold, that the prime minister's remark, whatever his intent, served to reinforce and legitimise a hardened public attitude against a set of people based on their lifestyle, which could well be in breach of their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association.

Not a disease of gay men
But there are also far more immediate and practical issues which Mr Thomas, like brave Jamaican campaigners have been doing, underlined in his speech in Kingston last week. He warned that discrimination against homosexuals weakened the fight against HIV and AIDS, with potentially detrimental impact for Jamaica and its Caribbean partners.
In the early days of the AIDS pandemic, it was widely held to be a disease of gay men. Whatever the historical truth of that assertion, it is certainly not true today. HIV/AIDS is, in the Caribbean, as in most regions of the world, having its fastest growth among heterosexuals. Unfortunately, while information about the disease is widely available and knowledge has grown exponentially, deep cultural biases in Jamaica still weaken the ability to deliver the most effective response to the problem, and public policy or, more correctly, the failure of Government to act courageously, has not helped.

Obvious dangers
Attitudes may not be as hardened as in the past, but it is not easy being openly gay, especially at the lower socio-economic level in Jamaica. Homosexuals suffer open discrimination and sometimes violence in their communities and, at times, even from state institutions - an attitude reinforced by the maintenance of the law against buggery, giving an official seal to such attitudes. In the face of such discrimination, gays, particularly male homosexuals, are driven underground and are less likely than other groups to access social services, including health care - particularly if such care involves treatment for HIV/AIDS. The dangers are obvious.
Jamaica has cause to worry. For instance, in the recent Global Competitive Report, Jamaica ranked 118 of 134 countries in which domestic businesses believe that HIV/AIDS will have an impact on enterprises over the next five years. On a scale of one to seven, where seven is none and one is very high, Jamaica's score was 3.6. An estimated 1.6 per cent of Jamaica's adult population between 15 and 49 is infected with HIV/AIDS. Moreover, 250,000 people across the region have HIV/AIDS, and the Caribbean, on a per capita basis, has among the highest rates of infection in the world. We could face a serious economic and development penalty from HIV/AIDS.
Sensible governments should want to mitigate against such consequence rather than encourage peeps by state officials into people's bedrooms - or wherever.


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