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Media Report 86
Source: | Author:hkb980dd | Published time: 2013-09-10 | 362 Views | Share:
 
Source: Stuff.co.nz
 
Only when sun sets on the southern Chinese city of Mengzi, do the roller doors of the city's red light district rise. They reveal tiny lounge rooms bathed in pink light where young women put on stilettos and apply makeup. Strangely intimate, domestic scenes where a poster on the wall of a naked couple hints at what's for sale. In the hours before the men of Mengzi end their workday - and theirs' can begin - the sex workers gossip and do each other's hair.
 
The rags-to-(relative) riches tale of this 300,000 person city in Yunnan province is textbook modern China, and with prosperity sex follows. Add increased internal migration, where job prospects may put hundreds of miles between husbands and wives, and a gender imbalance that's left the country with a bride shortage, and China's sex trade - though technically illegal - is suddenly booming.
 
In Mengzi, the 30 or so brothels of Zhao Zhong Rd represent just one, highly visible, portion of the city's sex industry. And on the sliding scale they - along with hotels, massage parlors and karaoke television (KTV) joints - are considered high end. Their sex workers range in their teens to late 20s, happy to make fast money over slogging for low pay in a restaurant or factory.
 
But further back in an older, shabbier part of the city is another class of sex workers. They work out of their homes, earn less and have little support on the occasion a customer is violent or leaves without paying. And with Mengzi just a few hours drive from the "Golden Triangle" of opium-production, some of these women do sex work to feed their crippling heroin addiction. In terms of social status they're just the gum on the bottom of the nation's shoe, but a priority for certain groups working to combat HIV.
 
Overall, HIV is still a low-prevalence epidemic in China with just 0.058 per cent of the population infected or 92,940 reported cases, according to the government's 2012 China AIDS Response Progress Report.
 
Rather the disease is concentrated in "hotspots", with Yunnan accounting for the country's highest number of reported HIV cases. Where in the past injecting drug use and unsafe blood handling were the most common ways to be infected, cases from sexual transmission has leapt from 33.1 per cent in 2006 to 76.3 per cent in 2011 nationally. More…
 
 
09/09/2013
Taking the fight against HIV discrimination to the classroom[UN RESIDENT CO-ORDINATOR’S TEACHERS’ DAY OP-ED]
 
Source: China Daily
 
On Tuesday, Sept 10, there are many reasons to celebrate Teacher's Day. Teachers are vital to society and play a crucial role in creating a world that is both informed and inclusive. The role of teachers is much more than helping students to succeed at exams and transition smoothly into further study and work. Teachers also inspire their students to contribute to building a compassionate, fair society — a society that promotes reason and science over ignorance, fear and intolerance.
 
In a bold show of progressive policymaking, Guangdong province this month abolished restrictions preventing people living with HIV from being employed as teachers. The policy change, which came into force on Sept 1, represent a shift from previous regulations, which excluded people living with HIV from serving as teachers in the province.
 
With this important policy move, Guangdong is sending a message that discrimination against HIV-positive people is both unnecessary and harmful. As other provinces begin launching consultations on this matter, seeking input from experts, communities and the public, it is important we consider carefully the issues involved.
 
The United Nations believes that HIV-related restrictions which limit the rights of HIV-positive people to work are both unnecessary and harmful, both from a public health and a human rights and dignity perspective.
 
They are unnecessary because the risk of HIV transmission within a classroom is effectively zero. HIV can only be transmitted through sexual intercourse, transfusion of contaminated blood or from a mother to her child, making transmission within the classroom essentially impossible. The United Kingdom recently removed restrictions preventing people living with HIV from working as surgeons, dentists, nurses and midwives, deemed unnecessary thanks to the widespread application of universal precautions for healthcare workers in the UK. Announcing the policy shift, the UK's Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies said, "It is more likely that someone will be struck by lightning than be infected by HIV by their doctor or dentist." In the classroom environment, this is even more the case. There is therefore no reason, from a health and safety perspective, that people who are HIV-positive and keen to contribute to society through teaching should be shut out of the classroom. More…
 
09/09/2013
 
Source: South China Morning Post
 
Gay rights have come a long way in the mainland since homosexuality was a crime, until 1997, or classified as a mental illness, until 2001.
 
Last month, Beijing hosted its second annual conference for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists. This year’s event not only attracted twice as many delegates, but – for the first time – funding of more than 30,000 yuan (HK$38,000) from a joint US-United Nations initiative to improve gay rights in Asia. It also had the approval of Chinese government departments and the China Family Planning Association.
 
This year’s conference drew more than 140 delegates from 28 regions in the mainland – including Tibet and Xinjiang – plus a small number from Hong Kong, Taiwan, the UK and the US.
 
The event, on August 17-18, was organised for the second year running by the Beijing Gender Health Education Institute.
 
“This is actually quite astonishing,” said a woman who used to be a lesbian group organiser in Beijing but now studies in Hong Kong. “A few years ago, police would intimidate and disperse volunteers just for setting up an information booth.”
 
The regional initiative, called “Being LGBT in Asia,” was launched in late 2012 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) to study and support LGBT rights in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia and Indonesia.
 
It set up an office in Beijing in April and has already secured support from several government bodies.
 
“We received support from Supreme People’s Court, China Family Planning Association (CFPA), and the Central Party School. Three officials attended a community consultation we held on August 16,” said Xu Wenxu, a UN human rights officer. More…
 
02/09/2013
 
Source: Leadership Nigeria
 
In a previous life when I was a National Immunisation Programme Manager in Ghana, I saw firsthand the challenges that many African states face in delivering healthcare. Today, while attending the Ministerial Forum on China-Africa Health Development, representing the GAVI Alliance, I was struck by the common legacy that China and countries across Africa share in overcoming such obstacles, and the important gains that have been made.
 
China and African countries also share a vision for the future: one where all citizens have a chance to lead healthy and productive lives. Our governments understand the African proverb that if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.
 
To forge the path ahead, dozens of health ministers from across Africa and high-level Chinese government officials met at the Ministerial Forum on China-Africa Health Development in Beijing, China this week. Along with representatives of international organisations including the United Nations, they explored ways to strengthen their partnership towards greater health gains across the continent.
 
Ministers at the Forum also signed the Beijing Declaration of the Ministerial Forum on China-Africa Health Development, which sets a vision for a continued partnership to address a number of pressing health issues that affect Nigeria and other African countries disproportionately. Among these are HIV, malaria, schistosomiasis, reproductive health, immunisation and vaccine-preventable diseases. The declaration also highlights efforts to address the shortage of healthcare workers and increase joint research efforts. Moving forward, China-African cooperation will aim to align with African countries’ priorities as well as national and regional development plans.
 
These new actions at the Forum build on the long-standing health partnership between China and African countries, which began when China first sent medical teams to the continent 50 years ago. Since then, China has worked with countries to establish hospitals, clinics and malaria control centers in many African countries as well as sharing technical expertise to help address health issues. More…
 
30/08/2013
 
Source: China Daily
 
Rising cross-border communications and exchanges have made containing imported cases of various infectious diseases a challenge, a senior Chinese official said.
 
Zhi Shuping, the minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, made the remarks at an inquiry held by the 12th National People's Congress Standing Committee on Thursday.
 
Senior officials from 15 ministries and administrations — including health and family planning, development and reform, education, public security, finance, environmental protection, water resources and agriculture — attended the session on the prevention and control of infectious diseases.
 
Such inquiries are a means by which the NPC oversees the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
 
"Chinese regions bordering other countries, such as Yunnan province and the Guangxi Zhuang and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions, are at a particularly high risk of imported infections, given the limited medical and public-health services and frequent cross-border exchanges among people," Zhi warned.
 
He said that about 20 percent of long-haul truck drivers in Yunnan tested positive for HIV in a survey that tested 500 drivers at random for the virus in border areas in 2000.
 
In Longyan, Fujian province, an HIV screening among 138 local wives from Vietnam in 2010 found 12 with HIV/AIDS, he added.
 
Li Bin, minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said that nearly 90 percent of the newly found HIV/AIDS cases involve sexual transmissions on the Chinese mainland.