5 January, 2007January 2007
ICEM HIV/AIDS Regional Workshop
National HIV/AIDS Coordinators from ten sub-Saharan African countries participated in the Regional Workshop in Johannesburg from 4 to 7 December 2006. The workshop was the fourth in a series of workshops held in the framework of the HIV/AIDS projects for the African region during the 2005-2006 project cycle.
It followed two workshops for national coordinators in 2005 (on initiation and strategies and developing the collective bargaining manual) and one earlier in 2006 on peer education.
The objectives of the workshop were: to identify immediate targets for fundraising, to build arguments on co-investment, to develop own workplace programmes and to write HIV/AIDS projects. The workshop was based on website research and project identification and project writing in small groups.
On fundraising for HIV/AIDS activities it was stressed that funding sources are decentralised. Partnerships have to be built at national and international level; “friendly technicians” have to be found to help in the development of proposals as unions lack the capacity to work with non-traditional methods and arguments (public/private partnerships, co-investment).
The working of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) was explained. The need to have unions on the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) was emphasised.
It was stressed again that unions must take the lead for workers to be tested. Without knowing their status, there can be no follow-up on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and support services. Unions can only advocate VCT to employers if workers are secure in their employment.
Testing at company level is a problem if workers are not confident that results are not passed on, with dismissal as a possible consequence. Workplaces policies and clauses in collective agreements are therefore necessary. An objective should also be to pursue training to have unionists as highly-qualified counsellors.
Two outside experts from the ILOAIDS programme and the German GTZ talked about Tripartite Action in the World of Work and the ACCA (AIDS Control in Companies in Africa) and BACKUP (Building Alliances – Creating Knowledge – Updating Partners) programmes respectively.
World AIDS Day – 1 December
Workers and their organisations play an important role in making World AIDS Day a success, yet they are often not recognised for their efforts. Global leaders have promised to deliver Universal Access to HIV/AIDS services for prevention, care and support and treatment by 2010. For unions and workers, this promise needs to become a reality in every workplace.
ICEM affiliates all over the world commemorated World AIDS Day. In summary it can be said that there has been a big improvement in the involvement and activities. Leaders are taking leadership on the issue more seriously and the reported involvement of people living with HIV/AIDS is encouraging.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, companies and unions organised rallies with banners “Let’s kill AIDS!” In Mali, fairs with information on HIV/AIDS were organised. In Côte d’Ivoire, companies and unions campaigned for testing. In Tanzania, trade unions and PLWHA were represented at the central event in the northern part of the country. Testing and treatment were advocated at a number of mines.
Stigma was the central theme in Botswana where peer educators organised stalls on wellness to drive home the fact that HIV is a condition like others. Apart from the main government-sponsored event in Namibia, the MUN and companies organised HIV/AIDS activities in three southern mines. In Nigeria, NUPENG branches, in cooperation with companies, organised “Know Your Status” campaigns with testing facilities on site. PERESSA organised prevention campaigns in remote communities.
In Zambia, the union was involved in condom promotion and VCT advocacy. In Ghana, the GMWU worked with Gold Fields in Tarkwa to launch the workplace policy and to inaugurate the VCT centre at the Tarkwa district hospital, which was refurbished with a grant from Gold Field and AngloGold Ashanti.
In India, INMF branches and the Institute for Miners and Metal Workers’ Education were particularly active in Chhattisgarh state with rallies, debates and competitions on prevention.
On 1 December, the Financial Times published a special supplement on Business and AIDS.
Violence against Women and HIV/AIDS
In conjunction with World AIDS Day (December 1) and International Women Human Rights Defenders Day (November 29), the Center for Women's Global Leadership launched the online version of its new human rights report, Strengthening Resistance: Confronting Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS.
Women in both the global South and North face not only staggering rates of HIV infection, but also un-abating levels of violence, whether at the hands of male partners, police, or community members. While most see these as distinct, women around the world are now calling attention to the ways these experiences can be fundamentally linked.
When women are - or are even perceived - to be HIV positive, they are at risk of violence, discrimination and other human rights violations. And when women are sexually assaulted, whether in conflict situations or in their homes, they are at risk of contracting HIV.
UNAIDS estimates that there are 17.7 million women living with HIV. There is an urgent need for activists and policymakers to create links between these two crises as they create and reinforce each other. Strengthening Resistance focuses on the points of intersection in the social, political and public health crises of violence against women and HIV/AIDS.
It provides an overview of the most salient issues, including challenges presented by restrictive and ideologically-driven government donor policies, as well as information on coalition building across HIV and women's movements. It is designed for activists, human rights defenders and policy makers alike. The report highlights nine creative advocacy initiatives from different countries and regions, including South Africa, Haiti, Vietnam, Spain and India.
(Source: Press Release of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, 30 November. The report is available at
http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter/
publications/strengthening.pdf.)
Global Fund and PEPFAR Announce New Treatment Numbers
The Global Fund and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) announced on December 1, World AIDS Day, that between them they are now supporting antiretroviral treatment for 1.2 million people living with AIDS. This represents a three-fold increase in the total number of people receiving treatment in low- and middle-income countries since December 2003, and a doubling over the course of the past year.
“Four years ago, almost nobody in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world was receiving treatment. That well over one million people with AIDS are now on treatment through the support of Global Fund and PEPFAR is a remarkable achievement,” said Richard Feachem, Executive Director of the Fund.
In their joint statement, the Fund and PEPFAR said that at the end of September 2006, 822,000 people received support for treatment through PEPFAR’s bilateral programs, in fifteen focus countries. The Global Fund supported treatment for 770,000 people worldwide. Approximately 400,000 people in PEPFAR focus countries received treatment support from both PEPFAR and the Global Fund, and are thus counted in the totals for each organisation.
Note from the GFO Editor: When the Global Fund and PEPFAR say that they “support” treatment for a specific number of people worldwide, this does not mean that their grants “provide” all aspects of treatment to that many people.
This is because other funders, including national governments, employers, and the infected people themselves, make significant contributions to the costs of providing treatment to many of the people included in the Global Fund and PEPFAR numbers. For instance, in Country X, the Fund and/or PEPFAR might pay for something like clinical testing or second line medications, with all other costs for those same patients being covered by other players.
(Source: Global Fund Observer Issue 69, 14 December 2006 – GFO is a free service of Aidspan www.aidspan.org)
New Report Focuses on Stigma
The stigma associated with HIV works as a barrier to take advantage of medical advances as it often prevents people affected by HIV from accessing testing or treatment services. This is the conclusion of a new report, Unveiling the Truth, published jointly by Health and Development Networks (HDN) and the global AIDS-Care-Watch Campaign on World AIDS Day. Based on presentations made at the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, in August 2006, 40 articles deal with the continuing presence of stigma.
According to the report, hospitals, clinics and other health care settings are among the places where people living with HIV still experience HIV-related stigma. “HIV-relate stigma cannot be tackled until health systems are strengthened at the local level so that everyone has access to basic health care”, comments Mary Robinson, President of Realising Rights in her foreword. “Adopting this approach with those affected by HIV and AIDS must be central to all our endeavours.”
(Source: Break the Silence – Issue 1 – December 2006 and Press Release HDN, 30 November. The report can be downloaded from www.hdnet.org)
Workers and Employers Joint Action in Africa
The African Regional Organisation of the ITUC and the International Organisation of Employers jointly organised a capacity-building meeting on HIV/AIDS for workers and employers in Kampala, 12-14 December 2006 with the support of the ILO and the International Training Centre, Turin.
The objective of the meeting was to evaluate programmes and activities implemented within the IOE-ICFTU joint agreement on HIV/AIDS of 2003 and the action plan agreed in Geneva in 2004, as well as to build capacity in project management. The meeting also discussed ways of strengthening partnerships with key agencies at national level and of mobilising resources – particularly through the Global Fund – in order to scale up joint employer and union action on HIV/AIDS through the workplace.
(Source: ILO website www.ilo.org where the recommendations can also be found)
Clinton Announces Breakthrough in HIV/AIDS Treatment for Children
On the eve of World AIDS Day, former US President Bill Clinton announced in New Delhi that his Foundation has negotiated new agreements to lower the price of HIV/AIDS treatment for children.
Indian drug companies Cipla and Ranbaxy will price the new child-friendly product – a three-in-one dispersible tablet that replaces individual solutions which need refrigeration – for less than USD 60 per year for an average child.
UNITAID, the new international drug purchase facility established in October 2006 (see ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin No. 14, November 2006), will provide the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) with USD 35 million in 2007 to buy medicines and diagnostics and CHAI will contribute USD 15 million for technical assistance to work in 40 countries to treat more than 100,000 additional HIV-positive children in 2007.
“Though the world has made progress in expanding HIV/AIDS treatment to adults, children have been left behind. Only one in 10 children who need treatment is getting it,” said President Clinton.
(Source: Clinton Foundation Press Release, 30 November)
ILOAIDS 2006 Report on HIV/AIDS and Work
A new ILO report estimates that more than a million new jobs a year are being lost because of AIDS. It says the workplace should become a major focus for prevention and access to treatment.
The relentless advance of HIV/AIDS is markedly reducing economic and employment growth in the countries hit hardest by the epidemic, jeopardizing their efforts to reduce poverty, create new jobs for young people and fight child labour, says a new ILO report released on 1 December.
HIV/AIDS and work: global estimates, impact on children and youth, and response 2006 reports that about 36.3 million people of working age are now living with HIV/AIDS - the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa.
Moreover, the report says that a reduction in employment growth resulting in 1 million fewer jobs per year in the worst-hit countries is attributable to the epidemic.
The report presents an economic model which captures the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on economic and employment growth in 43 countries with over 1 per cent HIV/AIDS prevalence, for which sufficient data were available. This made it possible to arrive at an estimate of the annual cost to the global economy in terms of curtailed job growth.
The 43 worst-hit countries lost, on average, 0.5 percentage points in their rate of economic growth every year between 1992 and 2004 due to the epidemic. Among them, 31 countries in sub-Saharan Africa lost 0.7 percentage points of their average annual rate of economic growth and forfeited 0.5 percentage points in employment growth. Altogether, the job shortfall is put at 1.3 million a year, of which 1.1 million were lost in Africa alone.
The impact of the epidemic is particularly severe for children and young people whose lives, hopes and future are blighted directly or indirectly by HIV/AIDS. Globally, 2.3 million children live with AIDS and there are an estimated 15 million AIDS orphans. When children in worst-affected countries do reach working age, they face a severe shortage of legitimate job opportunities.
(Source: ILO ACTRAV Human Rights at Work 6, December 2006 and ILOAIDS website, where the report can be downloaded)