The prominent Chinese AIDS activist Gao Yaojie, whom I blogged about previously, left Beijing yesterday to receive an award in Washington DC for her work exposing blood-selling schemes that infected tens of thousands. Chinese authorities had released her from house arrest, suggesting that they respond to international media coverage and diplomatic pressure.
But what about AIDS activists who are not so internationally famous? How are they faring? To find out, I called up Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong-Kong based researcher at Human Rights Watch, which in 2003 published a report on human rights and AIDS in China.
“Essentially all the independent HIV aids activists in China operate under fairly difficult conditions,” says Bequelin, “We still see the harassment of individuals and grassroots activists.”
NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) in China have few legal protections from authorities wary of initiatives operating outside of the government framework. That’s not the most effective way to fight a virus that at current rates of transmission could infect 10 million people in China by 2010, according to estimates by the United Nations.
“I think international experience shows clearly that NGOs are the most effective groups to deal with high risk populations—sex workers, injection drug users, gay men, truck drivers—to reach them you need to have organizations that are grass roots,” says Bequelin.
As an example, consider the strong link between AIDS activism and the gay rights movement in the United States. Yet in China, the government only decriminalized homosexuality ten years ago and only six years ago removed it from a state list of mental disorders. In many parts of the country, people with HIV/AIDS are still stigmatized.
Over the last several years, China has improved its approach to AIDS treatment and prevention, for instance, increasing spending and applying for funds from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Yet the country still has a long way to go.
The 2003 report from Human Rights watch extensively documents the harassment and surveillance of groups that combat HIV/AIDS. Much of that is still going on, says Beqeuelin, who provided two examples:
1. Wan Yanhai, the director China’s leading AIDS NGO, Aizhixing, was reportedly coerced into canceling a conference on HIV–AIDS and human rights. The conference, “Blood Safety, AIDS and Legal Human Rights” was to have taken place in Beijing in November, 2006. But Yanhai called off the conference after being detained by Beijing security personnel for two days.
2. In Tianjin, police harassment has curtailed advocacy and awareness projects in clubs and other places where gay people meet. In July 2006, the police arrested clients at a male bath house and confiscated all the condoms supplied by Tianjin’s Family Planning Association, according to reports from Aizhixing. A month later police again raided the club. “Everything has disappeared in the city,” says Bequelin, “There are no activities in terms of prevention and awareness for gay men.”
Even Yaojie has said she is wary of being too outspoken during her trip to the United States.
The 1980’s AIDS activist slogan “Silence=Death” was powerful for a reason- this is a virus that thrives on silence.
By some estimates, a billion people watched the Academy awards last Sunday—and surprisingly that could provide a boost to efforts to publicize the fate of individuals infected with HIV through tainted blood in China. The documentary “The Blood of Yingzhou District" won the award for best documentary short subject. The film, produced by the China AIDS Media Project follows the life of a child orphaned by the blood scandal. The film will be playing in mid-March here in DC and I’ll be blogging about it later.