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Name
Editor
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Profession
Question
Can you please give us a short introduction about your work and about HARPAS project?
Answer
UNDP HARPAS is the HIV AIDS regional program in the Arab States. We are covering 20 Arab countries and we are in charge of coordinating the response to HIV/AIDS.
UNDP mandate is to tackle HIV/AIDS as a government development and human rights issue.
We work with key stakeholders of the Arab Society; religious leaders, business leaders, NGOs, media orgnaizations, human right experts as well as representatives of the 3 executive state powers and with people living with HIV.
Name
Editor
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Profession
Question
What is the state of HIV/AIDS in the Arab states right now?
Is there reason for alarm?
Answer
On average, there are 500,000 people living with HIV in Arab states.
However, we are the second fastest infections growth rate in the world. That is why there is a reason to be alarmed.
The rate of growth is currently 300% annual increase.
Basically, that's one new infection every 10 minutes.
Four Arab countries have a generalized epidemic which means the disease is not only on risk groups but spreading and is over 1% now of population.
In some countries risk groups are espicially in danger, such as Djibouti, where 6% of youth are already infected.
Name
Nehal
- Egypt
Profession
Student
Question
We want to know if the antiretroviral drugs are available for free or not?
Answer
Yes they are freely available in all Arab countries.
The mininstries of health are handing them for free but again, it's the doctor who decides when medication can start.
When the imnunity system drop to 350 CDC the medication is usually started.
However, only 5% of those in need of antiretroviral drugs in the region are getting them. That's because many people don't get tested or they may be scared of stigma and if they discover they are HIV positive they would never go back to the hospital.
Sadly in this region we have strong stigma, denial, secrecy...all of them.
And sometimes, the countries are not capable of handing out the drugs to everybody.
Name
Editor
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Profession
Question
It has come to our knowledge that there has been training conducted for media personnel to raise awareness about AIDS, yet little seems to be showing on the ground. Why is that?
Answer
That's because in one hand we have alot of self-censorship and censorship from governments some time.
Media people seem attracted to speak about AIDS only on December. For some reason they don't understand that they should be talking about it all year long.
I also think that the media, like other stakeholders, still see no reason to talk about AIDS since they think it's not such a big problem and they don't need to address it right now.
They also think it's still not a big enough crisis and it's competing with the pollitical scene. They find the political scene much more interesting to talk about so they would rather focus there instead of AIDS.
Even when they are talking about AIDS, they end up promoting stigma further. Not everyone does that of course, but many talk about it in the wrong way.
Name
Breathe
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Profession
Question
Can you tell us about your work in promoting human rights for AIDS victims?
Answer
First we should specify they should be called people living with HIV instead of AIDS victims. They are not victims and they don't like to be called that.
So we are doing several things, first we manigistarate the parliamant to come up with a model of legalisation as a draft to be proposed in each country hopefully to be enacted as law to protect the rights of people living with HIV.
Unfortunately we don't have any parliament who's done that so far.
On the other hand, as a way to popularize the laws and human rights of people living with HIV we are giving out cards talking about the universal human rights of people living with HIV based on international convictions all of them ratified by our Arab governments.
The third activity is that we are finalizing a training manual on human rights to be used for training by parliamentarians and magistrates that will hopefully be conducted next year in 2007.
But also we are conducting People living with HIV training in the regional levels. So far we trained 80 people and in these trainings we teach them their rights and how to speak of any violation of their human rights. It's a chance for them to talk about these violations and a chance for us to address these.
For 2007, we are also planning on a training for women right's NGOs to explain to them the importance of protecting the rights of women if they are HIV positive.
Name
Megawati
- Indonesia
Profession
Clerk
Question
As-salamu alaykum...
I read in this website and other articles on medication through black seed. Do you ever hear of this issue? If you do so, would recommend this to UN? As far as I know black seed is easy to find and cheap too.
Thank you for your response.
Salaam
Answer
During the last 25 years we've heard a lot of myths about miraculous medicines. Nearly every month or so people would come up and say they have found the miracle cure to AIDS.
But till now, we know for sure that we don't have a cure apart from antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that are not really a cure, they only prolong life.
But anyone who discovers anything has to submitted to the WHO and only it can say if this is a real cure or not.
However we do know that good diet and good nutrition is necessary for people living with HIV whether on ARV drugs or not.
Name
Dalia
- Egypt
Profession
Question
Dr. Khadija
Would you please clarify further what you mean by working with religious leaders, business leaders, NGOs, media orgnaizations, human right experts? I mean working in which direction and trying to do what?
Answer
First of all we documented all those initiatives on our website which is www.harpas.org so we would advise people to visit the website and see this first hand.
For us, working with them is a way to discuss with them and allow them to discuss between themselves AIDS as an issue.
For example with religious leaders, when we started working with them, they came up with the Cairo declaration as well as 2 kits; one based on the Qur'an and Hadith, the other on the Bible.
Later we got the Tripoli declaration written by women religious leaders.
Those 2 declarations is the message from our religious leaders to people living with HIV and the entire population about their condition.
The same is when we worked with the private sector. They decided to form a coaltion called ABCAR (AIDS Business Coaltion for Arab Regions).
They will soon be starting workplace policies as well as other activities to provide the right information for their employees as well as providing them with whatever they will need.
Working with media was again a good platform for them to understand the issue and to be much more motivated to take a positive stance when writing articles for example, but also we worked with media companies to produce episodes whether they are fiction or true stories that hopefully will be aired very soon on most of our regional and national media outlets basically to break the silence around AIDS and explain to people what it's like to be living with AIDS.
We also produced 39 episodes with Sout El Arab from March till December that were already aired to be able to reach out to most of the population who might not have access to TV. It was a weekly program.
As for legislators, we provide them the platform to be together and to work to come up with these drafts that will hopefully be declared as law by all Arab countries because sadly, we don't have any Arab country that has such laws protecting the rights of People Living with HIV which is why they are violated in every single way.
As for NGOs, we helped creating RANAA (Regional Arab Network Against AIDS) which now has more than 350 NGOs working in the AIDS response from the civil society part.
Name
Khalid
- United States
Profession
Question
Dear Dr:
Are there any community work conducted by the HARPAS? for example in support groups or hospitals?
Answer
No we are a regional program and as such we don't have such national projects.
However, in each and every Arab country we have a UNDP office working at national level.
Those offices are working to promote NGOs as well as the implementation of support groups on a national scale.
This is what is happening at the national level, there are differences between each area, but basically this is the national work.
However when we do a training of People Living with HIV at a regional level, the objective is to train those people to go back home and then create their own support groups or be speakers for People Living with HIV.
Name
Steven
- Canada
Profession
Question
Why would goverenments force censorship on AIDS programs?
This itself is discrimination.
Answer
Some countries fear because they are touristic countries. They think that by talking about AIDS or have big media campaigns it would scare people from coming to their countries.
Of course that is not true. We don't see why tourists would be scared of coming to a country that is promoting rights of People Living with HIV or that has a big AIDS media campaign.
Some other countries would see they have other priorities. They don't see why they should talk about AIDS when they have poverty and hunger and other problems that they find more important.
So it's not really censorship, but more like not finding the reasons to talk about AIDS.
That is why you would very rarely find anyone talking about AIDS outside the month of December. You might find them covering a workship here or there, but that's about it.
Name
Editor
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Profession
Question
Do you think that there is discrimination against women in particular when it comes to giving services to AIDS patients?
Answer
First of all there is discrimination against all People Living with HIV when it comes to health services delivery.
However I do agree that in general, women are much more stigmatized and discriminated against when they are living with HIV.
For example, if they go to see a doctor they will automatically assume that she had extramarital sex. That is in fact wrong because 4 out of 5 women infected in the Arab region is infected through their husbands.
They are also discriminated against by their in-laws. For example they may be kicked out and left on the streets after their husbands die. Many of them are poor and are forced to go to commercial sex. We see here the failure of the community to protect them. Then they would be doubly discriminated against because they went to commercial sex.
They are also much more stigmatized against since, for example, a women who is not married and has HIV would endure much more stigmatization than a man.
Name
Donia
- Egypt
Profession
Question
Dr:
Why is it that the media feel free and very interested in tackling issues such as cancer in all kind of ways, and show no interest in AIDS or self support to people suffering from this disease? And how do you think this can be changed?
Answer
First of all maybe because on personal level they might have never met a person living with HIV and thus have no idea about what it means to be living with HIV in the Arab region.
Secondly, it's still not a crisis in their countries and as such it might not be a priority for them to write about it.
Thirdly, because of the stigma, they think they cannot write a nice article about somebody because still in the minds of the majority AIDS is linked to sex and death. These 2 subjects are still very taboo in our regions to talk about.
Also, People Living with HIV are so scared to disclose their status because they fear the stigma from their families and neighborhood that they would be too scared to deliver their testimony showing their faces on TV for example. There is only very few who have been willing to do this. Maybe that's why media don't really know how to deal with these people and still be innovative enough to tell the story of a person who refuses to show their faces.
Finally, it's also because AIDS is still competing with the political agenda.
We don't have a problem with the media reporting about people dying from wars in the region but we still think the deaths of people living with AIDS is an illegitimate death for some reason.
I mean last year we lost 8,000 children because of AIDS but basically, no one is talking about them. However, if we lost that amount for another reason, everyone would see their faces on TV and would know about them.
It is all that silence around AIDS and AIDS death that is definitely unacceptable. We have double standards when it comes to suffering and death when it comes to this region.
Name
Editor
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Profession
Question
Some behaviors that lead to infection with HIV/AIDS like infidelity, prostitution, homosexuality and drug use are considered immoral and shameful in Arab cultures. Some are skeptical that the way international agencies are fighting the stigma surrounding AIDS patients will lead to the normalization of such behaviors as well. How do you respond to that.
Answer
I cannot speak on behalf of all UN agencies, however, as far as our program is concerned, we don't see our role as to dictate any agenda on any of the constituency that we are working with.
All that we have been doing during the past 3 years is to provide the platfrom for those constituency to see the reality of this epidemic in our reigion and how it spreads as well as provide them with the right and accurate information as well as leadership tools that allow them to take the stand they took and to give the answer they want.
This is why for instance the Cairo declaration has been written by and for religious leaders. The model of legislation has also been written and darfted by parlimants.
It's because we do value ownership and respect for our constituency and the people we work with that we don't come with any ready outcomes or documents that we prepare befoer any workshop.
Now, when it comes to those vulnerable groups that you mentioned, we still believe that the answer that has been provided by every country for the last 50 years is not the right answer because if it was, then they wouldn't be vulnerable anymore and we would have solved the problem.
So for instance, if you consider an injecting drug user as a criminal and you just put him in jail, you didn't protect him nor the society. Ultimately, when he is out of his jail, he will start again so you didn't help him. But if you as a society offer him a rehabilitation center and with the same money you would spend on the prison give him a chance to get out of his addiction. Addiction is a sickness and this is a sick person who needs help and as a society we are responsible to provide him with this help.
So yes, as a regional program, we prefer, like Mother Theressa, not to judge people because we wouldn't have time to love them.
We prefer to think about what is the innovative way and right way to stop judging vulnerable groups and proivde them with the right services because we want to help people not to judge them and sentence them and to consider their behavior against any type of morale but to try to understand why they are doing this and to help those who want to stop like commercial sex workers or drug users.
Name
Editor
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Profession
Question
Some believe that the spread of AIDS in Arab countries has been much slower in previous decades when compared to other parts of the world because of their religious and moral standing. Would you agree with such a statement and how do you think the current explosion in AIDS cases in the region can be therefore explained?
Answer
I do agree with you about the previous decades. However, for the last 10 years the spread has been much faster and for instance we have three times the infections of Western Europe in the Arab states (67,000 new infections in 2004 in Arab states compared to the 20,000 new infections in Western Europe) which means I do not believe that our region is more protected because of it's culture or religion.
I think that because we don't have accurate and efficient surveillance system, we might think that we are still low prevalence countries while the reality might be totally different. So lets compare the comparable and do those when we will start to have the same efficient surveillance systems and mechanisms in our countries like those that exist in other parts of the world such as Europe and the United States
Name
Maria
- South Africa
Profession
Question
But do you think that enforcing these human rights will solve the problem of the discrimination caused by the common, everyday people that HIV patients deal with?
For example as you said women could be discriminated against by their in-laws or families?
Answer
We have to face the stigma and discrimination together because facing stigma first will encourage people to get tested and thus ask for their rights to be protected in one hand, and facing discrimination on the other hand by enacting national laws that protect those rights will help and encourage more people to get tested and to disclose their status.
It is also crucial if we want to ask people living with HIV not to infect anyone else and thus protect the rights of the others of not to get infected we have to protect their rights.
With every right there is a duty and responsibilty. We do believe that there is a way to stop this virus if people living wit HIV are tested and disclose their status, which 90% of them unfortunately do not. And then when they are infected not to infect anybody else and our duty vis-ŕ-vis those people is to stop victimizing them and to stop violating their universal human rights.
Name
Duha
- Egypt
Profession
Question
How far is AIDS an infectious disease? Is it safe to visit African countries where AIDS is very common? and is it true it can be carried and spread thru a needle in a cinema seat like one of the old popular forwarded emails claimed?
Answer
Frankly speaking I travelled to many sub-Sahran African countries and most of the Arab countries and I do believe that all those countries are really safe.
I have never seen or witnessed any of the rumors spread against this continent so I would highly recommend anybody interested to visit Africa in general or the Arab region in particular because they are safe when it comes to AIDS.
Lets not forget that AIDS is not contagious, it's mainly a sexually-transmitted virus.
Name
Editor
-
Profession
Question
What differences in strategy are there when dealing with AIDS in Arab countries when compared with other parts of the world?
Answer
We do believe that the Arab region is quite different from other regions like sub-Saharan Africa or Asia or others.
The background conversations in people's minds are also different. The culture tradition and religion are also different or practiced in a different way. This is why some strategies can better work in our region than in others and vice versa.
For instance, working with religious leaders is maybe one of the best answers we can incorporate in any strategy to stop the spread of this virus as well as to face stigma.
Concentrating on promoting the rights of People Living with HIV might work everywhere but is definitely something that should be part of our straetgy to face discrimination.
Tackling gender issues in a very innovative and different way is capital if ever we want any gender program to succeed and for that we do need to know what the reality is and what are the positions, actions and/or inactions of women religious leaders and women rights NGOs.
I can conclude by saying that the Arab region is a low-prevalence region and this has an enormous chance to really stop this virus if all the stakeholders we've been working with for the last 3 years and with whom we will continue working with take a personal stance and commit themselves to stop this virus from spreading.
Name
Editor
-
Profession
Question
There was a conference organized by the UNDP in Cairo last month that included religious leaders from across the Arab region. What was the goal of that conference and what were its outcomes? How do you see the role of religious figures in fighting AIDS?
Answer
We organized this conference under the auspices of the League of Arab States with his excellency Amr Mousa as well as the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar and representatives of Pope Shenouda and the representative of the general secretary assistant.
The objective of this secondary regional forum was to again provide the platform for religious leaders, both Muslim and Christian, to come. 250 of them gathered togehter to create the first Arab faith-based organization network called Chahama and these religious leaders also came up with the pact of Chahama which will shortly be on our website as well.
They also decided to have their own website which will also be online shortly at www.chahama.org
These are the major outcomes of that workshop.
The religious leaders are the best people to face stigma because they have such an impact on people's way of judging and thinking of others that when their own religious leaders would deliver a compassionate message towards people living with HIV this is the best way to face stigma.
On another hand, for people living with HIV, it's crucial for them to be accepted and loved by religious leaders. That is why all of them, with no exceptions, welcome very well the Cairo and Tripoli declerations where these religious leaders delivered those compassionate messages.
We also know that the slogan they have chosen for their forum is a very improtant message. It is "Religions in Service of Humanity" I think that says it all. It explains what religions are and should be.
They also expressed their willingness to be involved in any response to any developmental issues other than AIDS such as poverty.
That his why in UNDP we believe those religious leaders are a very good ally in the AIDS response. They are, and should always be, involved in any national program against AIDS.
Name
Jonathan Andersson
- Sweden
Profession
Student
Question
The questions I have are the following. First I was wondering when AIDS became known, and how spread it is today compared to when it was discovered. I also wonder if the outcome is always deadly, or if it is possible to "cure" it. If there is a chance to be ok, how big is that, and does the chance decrease with the time that you have AIDS, as with cancer? Thanks in advance.
Answer
It was first discovered around 1981. For the past 25 years, 70 million people have been infected. 30 million of them have already died and 40 million are currently living with HIV.
30 million of those living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa, that's three quarters of all those in the world.
Currently we do have antiretroviral drugs which are not a cure but are life prolonging medicines that may allow an infected person to live up to 25 years. So there is hope of course but only IF we take the medication.
Only a medical doctor can decide when you should start taking those medications. If you take it, your chances will increase up to the 25 years we mentioned before. This is the maximum number we know, we do hope they can live even longer of course.
Name
Maria
- South Africa
Profession
Question
Can you please give us an idea about what kind of human rights are you trying to get to be enforced in these arab countries?
And are these human rights laws supported in European countries?
Answer
First of all so far, there isn't any international convention that is protecting the rights of People Living wit HIV.
What we are trying to do in our region is to lobby with the League of Arab States to enact a national law to protect those rights.
The rights we are talking about are the same universal human rights, political, civil, economical, social and culture rights that any citizen in any country is benefiting from.
So we are not inventing new rights or more rights, we are advocating for People Living with HIV to have the same rights. Of course in some cases they may mean something different.
For instance, the right of privacy for someone can be the right to privacy of his mail. However, for a person living with HIV, it means that nobody should disclose his/her HIV status or have access to their medical records.
The right to work, which is a universal human right recognized in every place in the world, would mean for a Person Living with HIV not to be fired due to their status. Or for a foreigner not to be deported due to his status which is the case in some Arab countries as well as American and European states.
Please visit our website www.harpas.org to find the human rights card I mentioned earlier.
