Go! Go! Swazi Sisters!

Royal 'spending spree' makes HIV+ Swazi women see red

August 22, 2008Mbabane - More than 1 500 mostly HIV-positive women staged an unprecedented protest in Swaziland on Thursday against a foreign shopping tour by eight of the ruling monarch's 13 wives, in a country ravaged by Aids.Dressed in red, white, blue and orange T-shirts, the demonstrators marched across the capital, carrying placards with such slogans as, "we want multi-party democracy now", "enough is enough", or "taxpayers' money does not belong to royalty"."With this march, we want to drive home the point that we people living with HIV are not happy with the way our money is being used," said Siphiwe Hlophe, spokesperson of two NGOs for HIV-positive women - the Women's Coalition of Swaziland and Swaziland Positive Living - which organised the protest.It appeared to be the first such demonstration here by people living with HIV as they questioned how money could be spent on a shopping trip when Swaziland - with the world's highest HIV prevalence rate - faced shortages of medicines including Aids-fighting drugs.The eight wives, children, maids and bodyguards left the impoverished mountain kingdom last week to shop for the "40-40" double celebrations to mark its 1968 independence from Britain and King Mswati III's birthday on September 6."We cannot be allowing such exorbitant, luxurious expenditure of the taxpayers' money in the face of the dire poverty which is demonstrated by the fact that two-thirds of the population are being fed on food aid," the women said in a petition against the chartered flight.Close to 40 percent of adults in the landlocked southern African nation are living with HIV and Aids, the highest infection rate anywhere in the world, according to United Nations figures.Per capita income here is just over $1 000, according to government figures - the lowest in southern Africa.But government spokesperson Percy Simelane justified the spending spree for the celebrations."Poverty has been with us for many years. We cannot then sit by the roadside and weep just because the country is faced with poverty," he said."We have made great strides as a country that gives us pleasure in celebrating the 40 years of independence and the king's birthday," Simelane added.Swaziland is Africa's last absolute monarchy and is known for its annual Reed Dance celebrations in which thousands of bare-breasted young women dance in front of the royal family. - Sapa-AFP

Julian's Blog

This AIDS conference has been full of knowledge. It wasn’t just about HIV/AIDS. It was about learning and gathering and sharing information and opinions among people with HIV and without HIV. I also think that this conference was about women sharing about empowerment. There was discussion of violence, inequality, and disrespect. I hope everyone came out a little smarter and a little more aware how they can help especially that women’s empowerment can make a difference in the environment and in people’s minds. I’m eleven and I am taking a lot out of this conference. A bit more than I expected. I just hope that education for men and women gets better. That we know about HIV/AIDS and that our awareness changes our actions. Denying young people information about sex is a violation of their rights.

Julian. Age 11.

Criminalisation at the IAC2008 Mexico City

In the final plenary session in Mexico City on Friday morning, Justice Edwin Cameron gave, as part of his address, ten reasons why criminal laws and criminal prosecutions make bad policy in the response to the AIDS pandemic. here they areÑ

1. Criminalisation is ineffective
2. Criminal laws and criminal prosecutions are a poor substitute for measures that really protect those at risk
3. Criminalisation victimises, oppresses, and endangers women
4. Criminal laws and prosecutions are often unfairly and selectively applied
5. Criminalisation places blame on one person instead of responsibility on two. This is because women are often not equal partners in transactional sex
6. Criminal laws targetting HIV are difficult and degrading to apply.
7. Many of the laws are extremely poorly drafted
8. Criminalisation increases stigma
9. Criminalisation is a strong disincentive to testing
10. Criminalisation assumes the worst about people with HIV, and so punishes vulnerability

It would be interesting to hear movement builders comments on these ten points.

What a Week in Mexico City!!!

The conference ended today. It has been an eventful week. I did not get to contribute to JASS blog as I tried to cram in as much of conference program as possible. There has been too much of interest to me, and this has left me without much breathing space. I got to network, socialize, and I love that. On Tuesday I presented on the Zimbabwean experience of civil society working on treatment monitoring and advocacy, in particular our contribution to “Missing the Target”. I missed a session I had intended to attend (yesterday) after coming across some people, like my namesake Martha who lives in the UK, and got into our own discussion about strategies on how we can boost health access issues in our small way for our country. We plan to continue with the plan and mobilize all those Zimbabwean healthcare professionals who are working in the UK.

Yesterday, I made my political presentation, titled “Ongoing Political Crises in Zimbabwe, Sexual Violence and HIV. It was difficult having to present from power point, as the effects of the politically motivated violence is a very emotional issue, and mostly I prefer to speak from my heart. Power point seems to disrupt and dilute my way of expression. Maybe I subconsciously had to sanitize the presentation because of fear of repercussions. It was scary doing that kind of presentation!! At the end of the day, I found myself trying to get to a reception I had been invited. Stupidly, I had not asked of details, and only understood it to be a reception for people who are involved in clinical trials. We got off the bus with Allegra at the Marriott Hotel, after braving almost two hours of the horrible Mexico City traffic, and rain was pouring down. The reception, to my horror, was hosted by Boeringer Ingelheim – big pharmaceutical company. I don’t like playing with big pharma, even if my life is dependent on them now since this is my sixth year on ARVs. However, the traffic and hunger by the time I got there ensured that I was on my best behaviour.

I was happy to hear Justice Edwin Cameron and Zonny Woods make their very inspiring and refreshing addresses in the final plenary this morning. Then we had the rapporteur session today to wrap up the conference. Points from my presentation were quoted! The rapporteur presentations by the youth, community, and policy and political sciences were the most human and addressed our issues. I went to get my certificate of attendance from the “Global Ghetto” while waiting for the closing ceremony to begin. The closing ceremony took longer than usual, as a few groups disrupted with their protests. The panel had no black African, but it was refreshing to see a young black woman “invade” the podium to deliver demand for housing for PLWHA.

The end of the ceremony was another chance to network and socialize, and I deliberately sought out Zimbabweans I had never met before. One Shona Catholic nun shocked me when she complained and wondered who was revealing the violence against women in Zimbabwe in an international forum like this one. She was referring to the reference made to issues coming out of my presentation that were quoted in the rapporteur session. One woman commented that someone had to start speaking for those who could not speak for themselves. The nun complained about the conference entertaining issues of sex workers and LGBTI. I was too shocked and walked away. The Catholic Church is one that I looked up to, especially with respect to the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), which has always been at the forefront of letting the world know about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, particularly during the time when there were many killings in Matabeleland by the army.

This shows we still have a lot of work to do, and particularly crossing the line as women.

Bittersweet goodbye to Mexico City

August 7th, our last day together, was another action-packed 10 hours of motion as we tried to make the most of the conference and being together. A discussion about the complex world of microfinance led by Malena and Adriana -- how to navigate a world dominated by financial interests to get resources to enable women to feed their families and have time to organize and act politically? A discussion with Helena Hofbauer, Mexican budget wiz and feminist, to explore how women can track public money for healthcare, treatment, prevention, income generation, etc. Wandering about in the loud chaos of the global village, the hectic grand hallways of the official meeting; and our final panel: Political Crises, Sexual Violence and HIV/AIDS, with our Martha Tholanah speaking powerfully about violence as part of the post-election chaos followed by Paula Donovan's (from AIDS FREE WORLD (a campaign co-founded with Stephen Lewis) explicit expose of the ferocious violence against women in the Congo, and the United Nation's half-baked and incomplete responses. Raced back in dense, endless, rainy traffic in time, collectively numbed and silenced by the cumulative impact of the conference and the horro of the final presentation, for a quick debrief in the middle of the hotel lobby. One after another, our final thoughts began with "exhausted" or "troubled" but mixed with an impossible volume of new information and perspectives to sift through. Mixed with a sense of pride and power at having been present and vocal amongst the experts, the salesmen, the managers and the policymakers. Martha said "We've been learning together in the context of workshops and now we faced power. It's different and much more."

The glaring contradictions of the conference are disorienting, troubling, enraging, intimidating -- from the fact that the "global village" full of "activists" is in the middle of a horse race track, and the first booth you see when you enter on one side is Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals, placed alongside booths about people's empowerment to blur the power differences and conflict of interests in this fight. The creative resistance of lesbian activists, transgender groups, unionists, indigenous people, HIV+women, men and children reduced to a series of booths and shows on a stage. Alejandra added her disgust at how all things mexican had been reduced to decorations and stuff to sell. We couldn't help but feel that the gains of painful, past struggles for a voice at the table had been coopted and manipulated to legitimize the continued dominance of corporate, international aid and non-profit interests in the scramble for money that fail to reach or respond to those who need it in the fight against AIDS -- and most importantly for us, women. All this, and we still feel hopeful. Energized by the three women amonst us who spoke on panels, by the excitement of T-shirts WOMEN CROSSING THE LINE generated. By the clear recognition that gender equality and gender violence have made their way into the "experts" parlance and policymakers mouths. Huge victories for many who've fought this fight many years. So, for us, putting words into action and resources into women's hands is where we have to direct the power of our numbers and continue to cross the line for women's lives and rights. We met a lot of extraordinary people and feel privileged to be in Mexico city. Next stop, Cape Town, November.

One other moment that thrilled me during our time here -- aside from our digital stories workshop and Patience and Martha's presentations -- was our crossregional dialogue between African, Mesoamerican, European and North American women -- an open conversation about our context, political aims and possible ways and reasons to organize our collective power. And with radio feminista broadcasting live with virtual participation from our feminist friends in Costa Rica. Old fashioned political dialogue -- the essence of building collective power among women -- multiplied and documented on the information highway by technology. How cool is that!? Lisa V, Mexico city.

The day I crossed the line

Tuesday at the IAC was an action packed day for me. I got to speak in front of a lot of people which was a new experience for me and it definitely made me feel more empowered. Before I got on stage I was telling myself that I cant do this, but at the same time I told myself this is the an opportunity for me to tell my story. Having the women from Jass there helped me a lot because they encouraged me and told me I could do it. As I sat on the panel I scribbled a lot of things I would want to say but when I was eventually introduced and had to speak I totally forgot it all and just spoke from my heart. Issues of violence affect me deeply as I have also had personal experiences of violence and its also common in the environment I currently live in. After I was done and the comments were now being made, I felt great about myself and that there were people who were in solidarity with me and the work I do. I appreciate being a part of the Jass process as it has given me the opportunity to share with a lot of great women issues that affect all of us. After the session I met up with so many different people who are currently working on such issues. I was then invited to speak at another meeting talking about the invisibility of WSW within the HIV/AIDS movement and the women's movement in general. It was a great place for me to share with others around the world on this issues and it was more relaxing now because it was not in front of such a big crowd so I was not as nervous as I was the first time. After that talk I then rushed over to the Cross Regional Dialogue. This was also an eye opening event for me as I got to listen to women's different experiences in Mexico, Spain and Africa. You get to realize that the group was so dynamic and the experiences shared are so different. As I listened to some of the women talking about legalizing abortion, I looked at the context where I was coming from and realized that we still have a long way to go as issues the legality of abortion were not even on our agendas yet. This was a great learning experience foe me especially talking about the strategies they used and appreciated the work that they were doing currently.
As we go into our final days in Mexico I am looking forward to being a part of a larger process especially having met other women from a different part of the world. I hope that the process will continue and we will share with each other regularly on the work we are doing and we would like to do collectively as Jass. By the way I am Patience Mandishona from GALZ.My final words are lets Keep Crossing the Line.........

From the Global Village and Opening Ceremony, AIDS 2008

I'm sharing this space with my friend and sister activist, Sindi Blose, from Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa. She won't mention the fact that she did an extraordinary job of rocking the Global Village this afternoon with the rest of our women crossing the line. The songs and dancing drew dozens of men and women to our cramped site with huge enthusiasm and nothing but joy and appreciation for the power of their very personal stories of struggle.


Hi everybody, I'm Sindi in Mexico having the time of my life so far. Today I attended the session on women and girls with a speech by Stephen Lewis. I was happy to finally be in the same room with him. We need many male leadership in Africa to view women as he does the world would be such a safer space for women to realize their full potential because there would be no discrimination against women on so many issues and platforms.

I'm part of a group of eight women from Southern Africa who planned a session on us being African women telling our own stories at the Women's Networking Zone in the Global Village today. When we got to the women's networking zone I was disappointed by the fact that we were 80% of our audience and there was a loud musical band distracting us so I thought that we won't be able to share our digital stories with anyone what a waste of time. we decided to sing African songs really loud, that speak about power and unity to fight against injustice on women. Then people started coming in numbers to hear what we have to say.

There are about 13 digital stories but we decided to only present three. First by Patience from Zimbabwe how she views her self as a women who is lesbian and how society discriminates and marginalizes her, second by Esther from Namibia her story about how she was robbed of her motherhood by her government health department when they decided to sterilize her without consent because she is HIV positive. Third story by Wala and post-natal depression how the public health system in her country fail women like her who suffer from post-natal depression

At least 70 people listened to our stories and felt the world is failing African women every single day, but most people were happy there we were there to tell our own stories in our own way.

The experience was empowering for me. It was my first time facilitating at an international AIDS conference. I am more than ready now to attend the rest of the conference and engage critically on issues relating to women especially in Africa.




Lisa again: the most powerful responses to Sindi and the other women came from a Mexican transgender who told me "i can feel the power with these women. I only want to sit here and listen to them all day."   Two African men committed their solidarity -- saying that they would do whatever they could to fight "this oppression of their African sisters."

In closing, the official inauguration at the National Auditorium in downtown Mexico City. An all star cast included the President of Mexico, the UN Secretary General, the VP of Spain and 4 other important and powerful AIDS leaders, yet it was an HIV+ 13 year old girl from Honduras who's shaking voice and personal plea stole the show and had the place cheering with a standing ovation. Honorable mention goes to the amazing mariachi band and the gorgeous and talented Folkloric Ballet.