HIV/AIDS: Commonwealth Countries

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I start with an apology. I am afraid that the speed of the previous business meant that I arrived just after the beginning of the speech by my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood. I realise that was a discourtesy to the House and I hope noble Lords will allow me to continue. I also thank my noble friend Lord Black for instigating this debate, which is very important. We have already heard from both him and the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, the important strategic reasons.

The continued spread of HIV and AIDS in the Commonwealth of Nations has had devastating effects on the lives of the ill and their families, and on the nation as a whole, which suffers the loss of a young population. Although many nations have been able to minimise transmission of the disease through education and public health initiatives, cultural barriers persist that make containment of the disease particularly challenging. We have all followed the progress of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda, which, in criminalising homosexuality and all educational content regarding homosexual behaviour, makes it nearly impossible to educate the Ugandan LGBT community about safe sex practices.

As we have heard already, this problem is not isolated to a single nation, but is part of a widespread culture of homophobia that bars education and marginalises gay men and women around the world. Although it might be awkward to acknowledge, we recognise that the homophobic attitudes that exist in statute today in parts of the Commonwealth originated in whole or in part from a legacy of colonial British prejudices. Over the past half-century, we have taken steps to change our own culture to one of tolerance and support for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Today, we must take those lessons that we ourselves have learnt to encourage and support some of our Commonwealth family to make similar strides towards the equal protection of all people, regardless of sexual orientation or HIV status, and towards a culture that encourages education and public health awareness.

While the spread of HIV and AIDS in the LGBT community has devastated lives around the world, this evening I would like to focus on Zambia, which is an interesting case study in the ways in which HIV and AIDS prevention can be effective, but also the ways in which it can fail. Zambia is one of the nations hit hardest by the HIV and AIDS epidemics and currently suffers the sixth highest rate of HIV in the world. Today, more than one in seven adults live with HIV. As a result, average life expectancy has dropped to a mere 49 years. Although hit hard by this disease, the Zambians rallied to become one of the most willing African nations to confront the epidemics by the start of the millennium. In 2004, President Mwanawasa declared HIV and AIDS a national emergency, promising to provide antiretroviral drugs to 10,000 people by the end of the year. Not only did the President meet this goal, but he exceeded it, and promised to provide the drugs for an additional 10,000 people by the end of 2005. Former President Kaunda, who in the 1980s attempted to cover up the magnitude of the AIDS epidemic, is now one of Zambia’s foremost AIDS activists. In 2008, UNAIDS reported that the epidemic in the region was stabilising.

Political attitudes towards the virus are changing now that politicians in Zambia are willing to talk about it. In light of International Women’s Day, it is important to congratulate Zambia on the steps taken to protect women and children against the disease by educating women about healthy relationships and safe sex practices, and leading a national campaign to dispel the “virgin cure” myth. Condom use is increasing, and with it the negative stigma associated with condoms is slowly waning. Heterosexual couples are learning through many education initiatives about abstinence and marital fidelity as means of stopping the spread of AIDS and HIV.

However, despite these positive steps forward, the LGBT community in Zambia remains marginalised, unable to access education and abused. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, has already told your Lordships’ House, homosexuality is a crime in Zambia, punishable now by up to 15 years in prison. Cultural attitudes express widespread disapproval of homosexuality. In a 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center, the number of respondents who indicated that they felt homosexuality was morally wrong was the highest in any country in Africa, at 98%. American journalist Linda Villarosa described her experiences in Zambia on the Huffington Post blog last summer after travelling with the Global Fund to report on HIV and AIDS. While in Zambia, she wrote, she met Lundu, an openly gay man and an HIV and AIDS activist. When he told his family he was gay, they turned to medicine men to try to cure him. Lundu told Linda that:

“The first day, they cut my skin in 200 places and rubbed herbs and ash in the cuts. The second day they tied me to a tree in the bush and left me there overnight. On the third day, they put me in a shallow grave wrapped in a white shroud”.

Despite the hellish experience that Lundu suffered at the hand of his own family, he recognises the cultural barriers and widely held beliefs that feed into homophobia and consequently contribute to the spread of HIV and AIDS. The criminalisation of homosexuality in Zambia makes it difficult for public health organisations to disseminate information about safe sex and almost impossible for homosexual Zambians to seek access to these materials and to support networks. Many people in Zambia, both heterosexual and homosexual, do not know their HIV status for fear of stigmatisation because of the virus.

The UK Government have come forward in the past and asked the Zambians to protect the LGBT community and legalise homosexuality, but we know that this was met with resistance. In 2011, we expressed our disapproval for these policies by channelling aid directly to the people rather than through the Government. However, the policies remain unchanged and, sadly, so does the state of the virus. Although Zambia continues to receive millions of pounds in international aid, the prevalence of the virus has not dropped significantly since it stabilised in 2008. If through this debate your Lordships’ House continues to take the view, which I hope our Government will continue to take, that one of our foremost priorities in the world is to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS, in Zambia in this instance, we must consider other means of helping to change the culture of homophobia in Zambia through channels other than purely by increasing or changing international funding. There is still a lot that we can do.

We can continue to support online resources, such as Rainka in Zambia and Behind the Mask in South Africa, which use blogs to disseminate information about sexuality and safe sex for homosexual couples in nations where the Governments are not willing to support this type of education. We can continue to engage in a dialogue with the nations most affected by the AIDS epidemic about the public health reasons to decriminalise homosexuality. We can set an example by continuing to stand for equal rights regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Perhaps most importantly, we can be the voice that connects health with respect for all people, promoting a new cultural attitude that will help nations like Zambia continue efforts to conquer HIV and AIDS.