RSA News Report 2008

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Cape Town, South Africa - One of the world's most visible HIV/AIDS activists has married his longtime partner at a ceremony near Cape Town. Zackie Achmat exchanged vows with Dalli Weyers as about 300 guests looked on at the Imperial Yacht Club in Lakeside. Same-sex marriage became legal in South Africa in 2005. The ceremony was performed by a judge and former British High Commissioner Ann Grant was master of ceremonies. Wedding invitations bore the slogan "safe sex, antiretroviral drugs and rock 'n' roll".

Achmat, the head of the Treatment Action Campaign, has long been a thorn in the side of the South African government which disputes the value of anti-retroviral drugs. He is credited with single handedly forcing the government to finally approved a five-year plan to distribute free AIDS treatment drugs to all who need them In 2003 he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Last year attorneys for an organization that claims antiretrovirals are more dangerous than HIV itself and that the most effective way of treating the disease is with natural and tribal medicines tried to have Achmat charged with genocide at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In a 59-page criminal complaint the Treatment Information Group alleged that Achmat played a "direct criminal role in the deaths of thousands of South Africans from poisoning from so-called antiretroviral drugs".

Born in Johannesburg, Achmat was raised in a Muslim community in Cape Town. He started his political life at 14, as one of the leaders of the 1976 anti-apartheid school boycotts. Between 1976 and 1980 he was arrested and detained by the security policy, and tried and imprisoned various times during those years. As a result he never completed high school. After his release in 1980 he turned to underground work, revealing a flair for strategizing and tactical application as well as political education. He then built a series of agencies providing educational support to disadvantaged youth.

To help support himself he turned to hustling. When he was diagnosed HIV-positive, Achmat threw himself into the gay rights movement founding the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and then starting the AIDS activist group Treatment Action Campaign. Expensive antiretrovirals were available to only a handful of South Africans who could afford the high price. Millions of others were condemned to death by a government that refused to distribute the medication to the poor. In December 1999, Achmat refused treatment until the drugs were made available to all South Africans who needed them. His campaign drew international attention to the country's growing crisis.

In 2003 the South African government announced it was abandoning the claim that HIV did not cause AIDS and would make antiretrovirals available to all who need them. Nelson Mandela has called him a national hero: an ordinary man whose extraordinary resolve could help save thousands of African lives, at the cost of his own. Achmat and Weyers met in 2005. Weyers was doing his master's in political science at Rhodes University in and was involved in an HIV/AIDS support group. Achmat had been invited to speak to the organization.

pinknews.co.uk
http://pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6974.html

27th February 2008

2
African lesbian conference demands equal rights

by PinkNews.co.uk staff writer
Lesbians from across Africa have held a conference in Mozambique to highlight the homophobia and prejudice they face across the continent. Most nations in Africa criminalise same-sex relationships and in some countries gay people can be put to death. The Coalition of African Lesbians conference was attended by more than 100 delegates.

Women from 14 African countries gathered in Namibia's capital Windhoek in August 2004 to develop the Coalition of African Lesbians. Lesbian organisations and a number of individual women from Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia are members of the organisation. "Our main goal is that lesbian and homosexuality can no longer be seen as a criminal offence," the group's director and conference spokeswoman Fikile Vilakazi told Reuters. "You should not be arrested and charged for how you use your own body."

The coalition lobbies for political, legal social, sexual, cultural and economic rights of African lesbians by engaging strategically with African and international structures and allies and to eradicate stigma and discrimination against lesbians. South Africa, one of the few countries on the continent where gay men and lesbians are allowed to marry and legally protected from discrimination, has been rocked by several murders of prominent lesbian activists.

Sizakele Sigasa, 34, an activist for HIV/AIDS and LGBT rights, and Salome Masooa, 24, were discovered dead at field in Soweto, Johannesburg, on July 8th. They had both been shot and, it is suspected, raped.

On 22nd July Thokozane Qwabe, 23, was found in a field in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal with multiple head wounds. She was naked and it is thought she was also raped.

The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/world/africa/09safrica.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

March 9, 2008

3
Rift Over AIDS Treatment Lingers in South Africa

by Celia W. Dugger
Kwangwanase, South Africa — Colin Pfaff, a slight doctor imbued with Christian zeal, had reached a moral crossroads. Dr. Pfaff knew that giving H.I.V.-positive women and their newborns two anti-AIDS drugs instead of one would reduce the odds that mothers would pass the virus to their babies. For months, he and doctors from other hospitals pleaded with provincial health authorities for permission to use the approach, in a province where a staggering 4 in 10 pregnant women were infected. “We cannot sit in silence any longer,” they wrote last May.

But South Africa had not yet adopted the two-drug strategy, as recommended by the World Health Organization, and the doctors’ request was rebuffed. So, Dr. Pfaff made his choice. He raised the money on his own. Then a week after the national health department said in January that it would begin requiring the use of both drugs, health authorities here in KwaZulu-Natal Province charged Dr. Pfaff with misconduct for raising money from a British charity and carrying out the very same preventive treatment “without permission.” Dr. Pfaff’s case has stirred a furious reaction from rural doctors and advocates on AIDS issues, raising questions not only about a doctor’s duties in the public health system, but also about why it took so long for South Africa, a country with more H.I.V.-positive people than any other in the world, to act. The evidence that two drugs together — AZT plus nevirapine — work better than one has been accumulating since a clinical trial in Thailand was published in 2004 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Even here in South Africa, the approach has worked. The Western Cape Province has deeply reduced mother-to-baby H.I.V. infection rates since 2004 — to less than 5 percent from 22 percent — by using both drugs. AIDS advocates are celebrating the government’s new policy. Still, they contend that South Africa, the region’s economic powerhouse, should have put it into practice long ago, but lacked the political will. Sibani Mngadi, a spokesman for South Africa’s Health Department, disagreed, saying the government took the time needed to review the data and consult various players after the W.H.O. issued its recommendation in 2006. “There were a number of issues to be debated,” he said.

For years, the country’s political leaders have faced harsh international criticism for their resistance to providing antiretroviral medicines. Only after a 2002 court order did the government begin providing nevirapine to prevent women from infecting their babies. In years past, President Thabo Mbeki defended the country’s consultation of dissident scientists who denied that H.I.V. causes AIDS, while Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has promoted indigenous remedies, including diets of garlic, beetroot and African potatoes. Rural doctors in this district say babies were needlessly infected as a result of the government’s slow pace.

“You can’t uninfect them once they’re infected, can you?” said Dr. Victor Fredlund, who has been at the hospital in Mseleni for 27 years. In this remote, northeastern corner of the country, with its heart-stoppingly big skies and lush coast, doctors see grieving mothers carry babies with AIDS — feverish, vomiting and miserable — back to the hospitals where they were born. In the doctors’ letter to the provincial authorities in May, Dr. Pfaff, acting medical manager at Manguzi Hospital here, said they thought it was unethical to withhold a treatment used so successfully elsewhere. “We know better options are available and that we have the capacity to deliver them,” he wrote.

In an e-mail message, Dr. Sandile Buthelezi, a provincial health official, acknowledged that the mother-to-baby transmission rate in KwaZulu-Natal, where only nevirapine was used, was 23 percent, while it was less than 5 percent in the Western Cape. But he also wrote that nevirapine was still the nationally approved regimen and that the cost of adding AZT was not yet factored into the budget. “I am wary of us undermining national just because of what other provinces are doing,” he wrote. After Dr. Pfaff was charged with misconduct for using the two-drug regimen at Manguzi, advocacy groups took up his cause, as did the political opposition, which seemed only to further rile provincial officials. “We will not allow anyone to pull vulturistic theatrics to mystify this matter for their own political gain,” the provincial health department said in a Feb. 11 press release.

Peggy Nkonyeni, the African National Congress politician who is the health minister here, visited Manguzi Hospital after the charges were filed. Her spokesman, Desmond Motha, said she told the staff that antiretroviral medicines were not a cure for AIDS, “that the medicine they receive is indeed toxic and that’s why people need to be counseled.” The Treatment Action Campaign, the country’s most influential AIDS advocacy group, met last month with Mrs. Nkonyeni. Its spokesman, Nathan Geffen, said they were horrified to notice that the minister’s desk had on it only a notepad and a book, “End Aids! Break the Chains of Pharmaceutical Colonialism,” by Dr. Matthias Rath, whose ideas have been denounced by many medical groups and experts.

On his Web site, Dr. Rath contends that antiretroviral drugs attack and destroy the immune system and accuses multinational companies of using poor countries as a marketplace for their “toxic and often deadly drugs.” Mrs. Nkonyeni’s spokesman said a member of the Treatment Action Campaign disrespectfully told his boss “she should put the book in the dust bin.” “It’s her right to read the book,” Mr. Motha said angrily As protests mounted, the Pfaff case became an embarrassment to the governing A.N.C., which in December ousted Mr. Mbeki as its president. The party’s new leaders seem to be seeking to reduce the acrimony between the party and AIDS advocacy groups. It has already reached out to the treatment campaign.

“That’s a huge move forward,” said Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, who was fired by Mr. Mbeki in August as deputy health minister but was often credited with pushing for scientifically based action against AIDS. Mr. Geffen said that he hoped that the Pfaff case was “the last kick of a dying horse” and that the A.N.C.’s new leaders would take a fresh approach to AIDS. So it was perhaps not surprising that days after meeting with members of the treatment campaign, the provincial health department confirmed that Mrs. Nkonyeni had decided to withdraw the misconduct charges against Dr. Pfaff. Her spokesman, Mr. Motha, said Mrs. Nkonyeni managed a program to provide drugs to people with AIDS and would carry out the new guidelines to give both nevirapine and AZT to pregnant women.

Those new rules will be important to Phiwili Ntuli, who is now five months pregnant and working in a sweltering phone shop for $80 a month to support her 19-month-old, H.I.V.-positive son, Mpumelele. Ms. Ntuli was given nevirapine only when she went into labor in Manguzi Hospital in July 2006. The drug did not work. Her affectionate son, who is still unable to stand or walk on his own, endured months of sickness before he began taking antiretroviral medicines he will probably need for the rest of his life. Ms. Ntuli said she was never told that a second drug might have prevented her son’s infection. “Using just one drug makes them guilty,” she said of South Africa’s leaders. “They’re not thinking of the people.”

Africansuccess.org
http://www.petertatchell.net/international/africansuccess.htm

21 April 2008

3a
New website highlights gay African heroes

London - A new website highlighting African heroes and achievers has included three prominent gay Africans.

They are:

Simon Nkoli, the South African gay rights and anti-apartheid activist http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFiche.php?id=425&lang=en

Zachie Achmat, the HIV treatment campaigner in South Africa http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFiche.php?id=424&lang=en

Edwin Cameron, the openly gay and HIV-positive South African Supreme Court judge http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFiche.php?id=455&lang=en

The website’s founders want to add more African lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) biographies to the site, and are asking people to submit entries to the website: http://www.africansuccess.org

“Gay Africans make up a part of the landscape of the continent and any member of the gay community who has achieved something of merit deserves a place on our site. We welcome the submission of their biographies,” said the website’s creator, Kadija Traoré Bush, who is of is Malian and Beninoise heritage.

The new website is being supported by gay human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell of OutRage!: “The organisers are keen to end the frequent invisibility of famous Africans who are gay. They are committed to challenging homophobic attitudes in Africa and in the African Diaspora,” said Mr Tatchell. “The first three LGBT entries are all South Africans. There are many other heroic LGBT campaigners in Uganda, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya and elsewhere. I hope that people who know these courageous, inspiring individuals will add their biographies to the AfricanSuccess website in the coming weeks and months. This is, in part, a user-generated website, a bit like Wikipedia. It depends on public contributions to expand its data base,” said Mr Tatchell.

The website organisers are keen to debunk the often negative public image of Africa. “Africansuccess.org is a new web site that wants to get people to look at Africa in a different and positive way,” according to Kadija Traoré Bush. " We want to inspire the young, give hope and ambition to Africans everywhere, and to change the way the world sees Africa. Our aim is to create a website that will inspire a continent. If we can show the world where Africans are successful, we can change the way in which we are perceived. It is an interactive community website, which encourages the people who visit the website to add the names and biographies of people that they know and consider worthy of being included. The site is free access and it is free to add names, biographies and other historical information. We are still building the site, and we welcome contributions to add to our growing number of entries. We hope that people from all countries and all walks of life are going to put up the biographies of people they feel proud of, so we can offer role models for today's children and tomorrow's leaders,” said Kadija Traoré Bush.

“Too much of the news we hear about Africa is negative,” added human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. “It’s mostly about famine, civil war, HIV, corruption, homophobia and dictatorship. The latest horror stories of violence from Darfur, Zimbabwe and the Congo grab the headlines, as do the arrest and jailing of LGBT people. But the extraordinary success stories of people in Africa rarely make the news. This website is a welcome correction to the media bias that too often projects Africa as a story of non-stop bigotry, failure, suffering and tyranny. I congratulate and salute Kadija and the rest of the website team,” said Mr Tatchell.

The Cape Times, Capetown, South Africa

April 23, 2008

4
'Township Lesbians too Scared to Picket Murder Trial of Lesbian Friend'

by Natasha Joseph (natasha.joseph@inl.co.za)
Human rights groups say that lesbians in Khayelitsha are too frightened to picket and protest outside the trial of nine men who stand accused of beating 19-year-old Zoliswa Nkonyana to death more than two years ago. The brutal attack on Nkonyana was apparently motivated by the fact that she was living openly as a lesbian. On February 3, 2006, a mob of 20 men beat her to death in Khayelitsha's E section. Nine of her alleged attackers appeared in the Khayelitsha magistrate's court on Monday, but the case was postponed because one accused's lawyer was not present in court, said the Western Cape Alliance for Campaign 07-07-07. The campaign was launched provincially in February, and consists of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) organisations, as well as groups dealing with HIV/Aids and gender issues.

Campaign spokesperson Marlow Valentine said black lesbians who lived in Khayelitsha were "too scared" to protest outside the court during the men's trial. "They're too afraid to be visible at court," said Valentine. Last year Human Rights Watch called on President Thabo Mbeki to do more to protect all women, including lesbians, after the brutal murders of three lesbians in the space of a year.

The bodies of Sizakele Sigasa and Salome Masooa were found in Soweto on July 8 last year. Sigasa was an open lesbian and an activist for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and people living with HIV/Aids, said Human Rights Watch. She had been shot six times in the head and neck. Masooa had been shot once in the head. The body of Thokozane Qwabe was found in a field in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, on July 22. She had multiple head wounds and was naked.

In a statement issued earlier this week, Campaign 07-07-07 - named for the date on which Sigasa and Masooa were murdered - said it was seeking a "rigorous, speedy and successful" conclusion to the trial of Nkonyana's alleged killers. The campaign also called on police to convene a meeting with Khayelitsha's LGBTI community to "hear concerns" relating to the investigation of hate crimes, victimisation of gay men and lesbians, and homophobia. It also called on police to create a system of recording hate crimes and collecting statistics related to hate crimes.

Keegan Lakay, of the Commission for Gender Equality, said the organisation was "frustrated" by the delays in bringing Nkonyana's alleged killers to trial. Lakay said the organisation was considering applying to become an amicus curiae - a friend of the court - so that it could provide input if the prosecutor requested it. The case has been postponed to May 19.

newkerala.com
http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=fullnews&id=53090

April 26, 2008

5
Prince Harry to tackle Aids in southern Africa

London - Prince Harry is a soldier in the true sense of the word, for he certainly knows how to plan for a fight. However, this time the young British royal will be tackling a different kind of battle - that of Aids in southern Africa. Fresh from the frontline in Afghanistan, Harry will be making a 12,000-mile round trip for a three-month mercy mission to the troubled kingdom of Lesotho, that too by putting a part of his holiday at stake. By this move, Harry will be merging two of his pasions- the Army and Sentebale, the Aids orphan charity he set up in memory of his mother Princess Diana.

"This adventure represents the next step for the young officer Harry. It had been unclear what he planned to do next after returning from Afghanistan," The Sun quoted a pal, as saying. The pal added: "But he is now expected to arrange and plan a period of training for his troops. Harry being Harry, he decided to do something totally different and came up with the idea of taking them to Lesotho. He knows better than anyone how much good a team of soldiers could do there in a relatively short space of time."

And sources claim that the 23-year-old is "extremely excited" about his mission, which shows his genuine interest for Lesotho. Harry founded the Sentebale charity, two years back, after he made a pledge to do his bit to help Lesotho kids orphaned by Aids. In fact, he is so much concerned for Lesotho kids that he even declared he would rather give up his career in the Army than neglect his charity. However, the final details of Harry's mission are still not confirmed. He founded the charity to fund work with Aids orphans and dedicated it to the memory of his mother. He named it Sentebale which means "forget me not" in the local language.

truthwinsout.org
http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/corrective-rape-of-lesbians-in-south-african-schools-shows-sickness-of-ex-gay-movement/

May 7th, 2008

6
‘Corrective Rape’ of Lesbians In South African Schools Shows Sickness of ‘Ex-Gay’ Movement

by Wayne Besen
“Corrective Rape” at schools in the Western Cape is a growing concern, say non-governmental organizations, some of who have noted an “alarming” level of cases. Earlier this year, the report by the Human Rights Commission on school violence mentioned the growing crime, where heterosexual male pupils rape lesbian pupils, believing that this will make them heterosexual. A recent study by the Triangle Project and the University of South Africa found that schools were still “unsafe places for many lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered (LGBT) learners”.

“The level of cases coming to the fore is alarming … It’s like (heterosexual boys think) if you want to be lesbian, this is your punishment.” He said in some communities, boys thought if girls ignored their come-ons, they could force themselves on them. “Heterosexual boys also perceive lesbian women as being competition, so they think: ‘I need to change you’,” he said.

Of course, these extreme cases do not represent the so-called “ex-gay” movement in general. Certainly, Exodus and even NARTH, I beleive, would oppose such torture. However, the notion that GLBT people must be “changed” no matter what the psychological or physical toll is in step with the West’s ‘ex-gay’ movement. The very existence of these organizations creates a sour climate where GLBT lives are demeaned and homosexual relationships are viewed as inferior. In such a hostile environment, some people will take desperate measures (exorcisms) or partake in dangerous experiments (shock therapy) to fix the “problem.”

The lesson the world must learn - from North America to South Africa - is that GLBT people should be left alone to live in peace, exactly as they were created. It is time to end the sickening abuse in all of its injurious forms that occur in the name of “corrective” or “ex-gay” therapy.

Info from http://www.imdb. com/title/ tt0379461/

7
Film: Proteus (2003)

Synopsis: A recreation of the decade-long love affair in the 18th century in a Cape Town penal colony on Robben Island. The two lovers were a Dutch sailor imprisoned there for sodomy and a young Khoi herder. The Khoi were part of the Hottentot tribal group and as such were the untouchables of that time. The two were placed on trial and this love affair and the legal battles are the grist of Greyson and Lewis' film based partly on court transcripts from the time. In South Africa, during the 1700s, sodomy was a crime deemed worse than murder, and the fact that these two young men had indulged in it was also complicated by the fact that this was an interracial love affair.

Review: "A handsome, classy gem of a movie, imaginatively shot on a very low budget… be prepared for gorgeous scenery…and completely believable performances by a first-rate, though unknown, cast…. A mixed bag of a love story that actually works, thanks to a refreshing lack of camp…. Definitely not your average "gay movie", and certainly not to everyone's taste, "Proteus" is challenging yet generous toward those who are willing for something a little different. Stick with this one."
Run time: 100 mins

July 19, 2008

8
Mandela Celebrates His 90th Birthday

by Alan Cowell
There was a time, not all that long ago, when he was the invisible man whose name was a battle cry, his appearance known to most people only from an out-of-date photograph, a hidden hero on a prison island off the coast of Africa. But as he celebrated his 90th birthday on Friday, Nelson Mandela was anything but invisible, a figure of reverence whose nine decades have already been observed at a huge rock concert in London’s Hyde Park, a gala dinner for his children’s charity in the august, chandeliered Long Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground (also in London) and a host of other tributes. The actual day of his birth was supposed to be celebrated with a quiet affair in his ancestral village of Qunu in the southeast of South Africa — with a mere 500 of his closest friends in attendance, and a wry self-deprecation.

“We are honored that you wish to celebrate the birthday of a retired old man, who no longer has power or influence,” he said in a public radio message, according to news reports. Friday was also the 10th anniversary of his marriage to Graça Machel, the widow of Samora Machel, a revolutionary leader and former president of Mozambique. Mr. Mandela divorced Winnie Mandela in 1996. Part of Mr. Mandela has always seemed to be public property, owned initially by foes of apartheid rule in South Africa and now a kind of universal talisman of integrity and dignity — a name to bring a flush of moral ardor to the most jaded celebrity visages. Where his name once resonated around the segregated black townships of apartheid South Africa, chanted by the rebellious youths who challenged white rule, it now seems to head a list of encounters with notables sought by rock stars and politicians.

In his presence, even the most battle-scarred and cynical of politicians seem to feel they are wafted to the high ground wrought by Mr. Mandela’s 27 years in prison. His stature and charisma have given him entree from the White House in Washington to 10 Downing Street in London. Remarkably, it has been 18 years since Mr. Mandela was released from jail, 14 years since he triumphed in his country’s first democratic elections, 8 since he left office and 4 since he formally withdrew from public life. But, contrary to his disclaimer of power and influence in his birthday message, he is still seen as a guarantor of his country’s remarkable transition from a segregated society to one that is majority-ruled.

F. W. de Klerk, the last white president of South Africa, who negotiated the transition with Mr. Mandela and shared a Nobel Peace Prize with him in 1993, hailed Mr. Mandela’s role in molding “our widely diverse communities into an emerging multicultural nation.” Mr. Mandela has lent his name to the struggle against H.I.V. and AIDS. The rock concert in Hyde Park was devoted to the effort to combat the epidemic that has been the scourge of Africa. He also entered the bitter dispute over the electoral, social and economic crises of Zimbabwe, saying that there had been a “tragic failure of leadership” in the country. As Mr. Mandela ages, there are fears among some South Africans that, as The Mail and Guardian, a South African newspaper, put it, his legacy is under threat from his successor, Thabo Mbeki.

Mr. Mbeki’s critics have accused him of being far more divisive than Mr. Mandela and of overseeing a centralization of the power of the ruling party, African National Congress. “Mandela is 90,” The Mail and Guardian said in its online edition on Friday. “But the sweet celebration of a life of leadership, service and generosity is mixed with the sour taste of a legacy being polluted in front of the old man’s tired eyes.” It is thus with a certain wistfulness that some South Africans contemplate a post-Mandela era.

“Mandela can’t come to our rescue any more,” the newspaper said. “But his example can.”

pinknews.co.uk
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-8504.html

July 28, 2008

9
South African named as new UN human rights chief

by Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk
The new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will be South African judge Navanethem Pillay. She has been nominated despite initial American resistance over her support for abortion rights. The UN General Assembly is to meet today to confirm Ms Pillay's appointment to the high profile role. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced her nomination on Thursday. In an interview with Reuters, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, congratulated Ms Pillay on her new job. "We need a strong voice, we need a credible voice to speak on the issue of human rights issues, one of the key missions of the United Nations and we look forward to working with her," he said.

He denied the US had formally opposed her nomination. In 1967 Ms Pillay became the first woman to start a law practice in Natal Province, South Africa, and the first black woman to serve in the country's High Court. As a lawyer she defended many opponents of apartheid. She was elected by the United Nations General Assembly to be a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served for eight years, including four years as president. She has written on and practised in international criminal law, international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and more particularly on crimes of sexual violence in conflicts.

In a valedictory speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council in June, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour challenged the continued oppression of women and sexual minorities. "A failure to understand or accommodate diversity has inevitably led to an erosion of the rights of minorities and vulnerable people within a country, and those of individuals who move across borders, including refugees or migrants," she told the 47-member council. "Fears and mutual suspicions, engendered by the security environment that has prevailed in the past few years, have exposed minorities to additional risks and abuse. "The perpetuation of prejudices continue to deny equal rights and dignity to millions worldwide on the basis of nothing more innocuous than their sexual identity or orientation, or their ancestry, in the case of caste discrimination."

During her time as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights many Muslim and African countries expressed their displeasure at Mrs Arbour's insistence that gay and lesbian people and women have human rights equal to those of men. She highlighted the treatment of sexual minorities through her work. Mrs Arbour said the new state reporting system, known as the Universal Periodic Review, could provide a vehicle for scrutiny of the implementation of rights and norms beyond anything ever attempted by the Commission on Human Rights, the ineffective body that was replaced by the Human Rights Council in June 2006.

The UPR, which began functioning in April, has examined the human rights record of 32 states so far, and will take four years to complete its first round of all the UN's 192 member states. It illustrates deep divisions on the issue of gay rights. As part of the second stage of the UPR Tonga was advised to decriminalise sexual activity between consenting adults, recommended by the Netherlands, Canada and the Czech Republic. However Bangladesh, a Muslim country, told Tonga it should retain a ban on gay sex.
Pakistan has expressed the view that sexual orientation falls outside "universally recognised human rights." Last year Mrs Arbour declared her support for the Yogyakarta Principles.

Named after the Indonesian city where they were adopted, the principles were introduced by 29 international human rights experts at a UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva in March 2007. They refer to the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity and address issues such as rape and gender-based violence, extra-judicial executions, torture and medical abuses, repressions of free speech and discrimination in the public service.

From: health24 .com
http://www.health24 .com/news/ General_health/ 1-915,47362. asp also
http://www.health24 .com/news/ Parenting_ Child_health/ 1-937,47379. asp

July 2008

10
Nearly half of RSA boys raped; 2 in 5 RSA boys raped:says study

by Wilma van Zuydam
An astonishing 44 percent of South African school-aged boys have been forced to have sex. And even more
shocking: most of the perpetrators were women. These findings were made by Prof Neil Andersson and Ari Ho-Foster from the Centre for Tropical Disease Research (CIET) in Johannesburg and published in the ‘International Journal for Equity in Health’. "We are very concerned at the findings and statistics of this research," comments Ricki Fransman, Senior Manager for Childline Western Cape. "This research once again highlights the reality that boys are as vulnerable to sexual abuse and rape as girls are."

Statistics Concerning
Study results show that 14 percent of 10-year-old boys were forced to have sex in the last year (prior to when the survey was carried out). And the results were not much better for older boys: between the ages of 11 and 19, an average of 11.1 percent of boys were reported to have been sexually assaulted during the previous year. "There was a marked association between schoolboys who had been beaten and those forced to have sex in the last year," said Andersson and Ho-Foster in their report.

Findings realistic
"We believe the statistics to be realistic," Fransman said when asked whether the statistics may be exaggerated. "It does tie in closely with international trends where it is indicated that one in five boys are sexually assaulted by the time they reach young adulthood."

Perpetrators
According to the report, perpetrators were most frequently an adult not from their own family, followed closely in frequency by other schoolchildren.

Contrary to expectations, the study results show that most of the sexual assaults on boys were carried out by females (41 percent), compared to 32 percent of male perpetrators. The remaining 27 percent of the abused boys had been forced to have sex by both females and males. Another alarming finding is that 28 percent of the study participants reported to have been sexually abused by a fellow learner, while 11 percent of participants admitted to having forced sex on someone else. One in five boys also reported that they had been sexually assaulted by a teacher, while 20 percent of schoolboys said they had been asked to have sex by a teacher. "There was also an important association between victim age and sex of the perpetrator, " reads Andersson and Ho-Foster's report. "Younger victims (aged 10 to 14) were more likely to report a male perpetrator than those aged 15 to 19 years."

"Boys don't cry"
"Perpetrators prey on vulnerable children," comments Fransman. "The crime also seems to be assisted by the myth that boys are not victims of sexual abuse or rape, and this discourages young men from making disclosures. "Unfortunately young men are often still getting the message from their families, friends or communities that they should not cry or express their emotional distress at negative, traumatic experiences that they may have." Where the crimes take place Andersson and Ho-Foster found that there were "notable differences between provinces, with Limpopo (the least economically developed and most rural province) suffering the highest rates of this type of abuse (16.1 percent) and the Western Cape the lowest." Mpumalanga was in second place with 11.9 percent, followed by the Northwest Province (10.6 percent), the Freestate (10.3 percent) and the Northern Cape (10 percent).

More behavioural differences between urban and rural areas:
- Rural schoolboys were more likely to have been forced to have sex in the last year (prior to the study) than their urban or metro counterparts.
- In urban areas the association between beating and forced sex was slightly stronger than in rural areas.
- Rural boys were significantly more sexually abused at school by a fellow student and/or teacher than urban boys.
- Male abuse of schoolboys was much more common in rural areas while female perpetration was more an urban phenomenon.
- Boys admitting to having forced sex on someone else were marginally more common in poorly resourced schools.

"It [the study] dispels the myth that it is only girls that are sexually abused or raped," said Fransman. "It is also an indication that more needs to be done in the way of education and empowering children, caregivers and communities, as well as professionals who work with children, around the issue of sexual abuse and rape."

Additional problems
South Africa already has one of the highest rape rates in the world, and other studies have shown that people who sexually abuse children were often the target of such violence when young, the authors said. Another problem is that the prevalence of rape is hampering efforts to combat Aids in a country at the epicenter of the global pandemic. "There is increasing recognition of links between sexual abuse and high-risk attitudes to sexual violence and HIV risk," the researchers wrote. "Sexually abused children are also more likely to engage in HIV high-risk behaviour."

About the study
The study set out to find out how common male sexual abuse is in South Africa, and to identify some of the relationships between male child rape and behaviours of schoolboys. They compiled the report from information gathered during a 2002 study among 269 705 learners from 1 191 schools countrywide - 126 696 boys between the ages of 10 and 19 took part in the study. This type of study based entirely on the response of participants has limitations because there are no ways to verify whether people exaggerate or withhold information, the researchers acknowledged.

Even so, the researchers say they constructed their anonymous survey to cut down on these pitfalls and the findings may actually underestimate the sexual violence. Anderson and Ho-Foster concludes that "this study uncovers endemic sexual abuse of male children that was hitherto only poorly documented."