[afro-nets] U.S. drops requirement on overseas AIDS groups

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

U.S. drops requirement that overseas AIDS groups oppose sex work
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From: "Vern Weitzel" <vern.weitzel@undp.org>

[This is good news for the recipients of US grants through the
Global Fund]

Randall Tobias, head of the U.S. State Department's Office of
the Global AIDS Coordinator, this week bowed to harsh reactions
from AIDS activists and HIV experts, announcing that his office
has dropped a recently created regulation requiring overseas re-
cipients of U.S. AIDS grants through the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria to sign a document opposing sex
work, The Washington Post reports. The government had imple-
mented a policy forcing all recipients of U.S. AIDS funds, in-
cluding those given to and distributed by the United Nations-led
Global Fund, to sign a document stating opposition to sex work,
even if they did no direct HIV prevention outreach to sex work-
ers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had created
a pledge document specifically for distribution to more than
3,000 groups in 128 countries that receive Global Fund money.

Overseas AIDS activists said signing the pledge would have se-
verely hampered their HIV prevention and education work among
sex workers, which typically have some of the highest HIV preva-
lence rates in developing nations. A group of health and AIDS
organizations--CARE, the International Rescue Committee, Save
the Children, and the International Center for Research on
Women--wrote to Tobias in February to denounce the new policy.
Global Fund officials also worried that the agency would lose
U.S. funding--which makes up about one third of the agency's an-
nual budget--if it did not enforce the policy among its grant
recipients in more than 100 poor nations.

Health and Human Services spokesman Kevin Keane said the CDC
document for Global Fund recipients "hadn't been fully reviewed
and cleared" and has been rescinded. Tobias said the document
that had been presented to overseas AIDS groups for their signa-
tures "is not one I have seen and considered," and added that
his office does not intend to invoke such a pledge in the fu-
ture. It was unclear, however, whether other HHS or Bush admini-
stration officials would attempt to resurrect the sex-work
pledge for Global AIDS Fund grant recipients.

Countries receiving U.S. AIDS funds directly through the Presi-
dent's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief are still required to sign
pledges opposing sex work.