Hypocrisy & HIV in the Caribbean
When Mia Mottley (i’m not sure if she was attorney general at the time) mentioned her desire to remove anti-gay laws, i remember thinking at the time that it would be some pretty easy legislation to pass. i was wrong. Apparently the law-abiding, upstanding, straight-as-arrows among us feel a boundless civic duty to police the sexualities of others- to tell them when, how and with whom they should have sex and just what qualifies as sex. The call in-programmes were ablaze with nebulous references to leviticus and the Nation ran an unscientific telephone poll which “revealed” that Bajans like the laws just as anti-gay as they are, thank you.
Recent moves to allow 16 year-olds to have HIV tests without parental consent have, thankfully, not met with such ignorance and ire.
A recent report (i heard it one the radio and will get back to you with the source later) reveals that the HIV rates are higher among the prison population than among the general population and that consensual homosexual sex does take place in prison. Still there is much hand-wringing over removing outdated laws from the books and allowing prisoners to have access to condoms (granted there are no easy solutions to the problem of HIV in prisons- suggestions of introduction condoms in Jamaica’s prisons led prisoners to riot). Conjugal visits, however, have been suggested. Given women’s vulnerability to HIV, i just don’t see how you can justify sending women into prisons to have sex with men so that, in theory and perhaps only in theory, the men won’t have sex with each other!!! Yes, my blood is boiling at the recommendation of such a use and abuse of women with no regard for the health of the women themselves.
Responses to HIV in the Caribbean are hampered by an entrenched hypocrisy, homophobia and false trotting out of “christian” values when convenient. meanwhile people continue to have sex, all kinds of sex, a lot of it unsafe.
We feel free to talk around sex, to joke about sex, to sing about sex, to simulate sex, to have sex but we refuse to really talk about it- to talk about power and pleasure and vulnerability. So JFLAG, the Caribbean’s most progressive gay rights group, has been blocked from attending a UN meeting on HIV/AIDS and Jamaica’s poster girl for the Ministry of Health’s HIV education programme has been fired for getting pregnant! The heads continue to suffocate in the sand!
As part of my job, i accompanied a group of young people all between 14 and 17 at an HIV Education workshop. Before the facilitators could begin one girl inquired loudly whether or not condoms would be distributed.
“No!”
“Well, how yuh supposed to protect yuhself without condoms?”
“That’s what we’re going to teach you today.”
Yes, the message was one of abstinence and the scariness and ickiness of sex and STIs- that the wages of sex is death. And of course, the message fell on deaf ears because most of these young people were already having sex. Sure, you could scare them for 45 minutes but how does that help them untangle their own sexuality, navigate and negotiate sex while keeping themselves safe. That requires dialogue- honest, open dialogue…
The Long Bench, another great Caribbean blog that i only just came across (at that to the list of nominees Karel!) has a great post about gender, HIV and hypocrisy in the Caribbean.
Filed under: HIV, caribbean, gender | 5 Comments
Tags: HIV, HIV in the Caribbean
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thursday night i went to see a Jamaican musical that dealt with HIV. It was really good,non preachy,met the people where they are. Those are the approaches that should be used in tackling the HIV scourge but people love to pretend things are not happening.
sometimes I feel the battle is well and truly lost
sometimes i feel that way too but i know that so many people are out there doing good work day after day.
was overwhelmed with the AIDS ads on tv in the last two weeks when I was home. I get the impression they arent making much of an impression on the youth though.
The thing with social issues such as HIV is that they become highly “emotionalised” instead of using logical means to guide paths. To me, once an organisation/state is responsible for trying to educate people about HIV/AIDS, you can’t do it based on religious or other beliefs. You’ve got to be practical. The fact is that within the population there will be those who abstain and those who don’t, so you’ve got to educate each segment and provide the information that will help them to protect themselves based on individual situations.
I often tell people you’ve got to think of yourself and the offspring you may want to have. Treasuring life sometimes involves living in the moment, but in that moment you’ve also got to think of the risks, and I hope that every individual will take responsibility for his/her life and not depend on a Government to save them.