This paper offers a critical
overview of social science research presented at the 2014 International AIDS
Conference in Melbourne, Australia. In an era of major biomedical advance, the
political nature of HIV remains of fundamental importance. No new development
can be rolled out successfully without taking into account its social and
political context, and consequences. Four main themes ran throughout the
conference track on social and political research, law, policy and human
rights: first, the importance of work with socially vulnerable groups, now
increasingly referred to as “key populations”; second, continued recognition
that actions and programs need to be tailored locally and contextually; third,
the need for an urgent response to a rapidly growing epidemic of HIV among
young people; and fourth, the negative effects of the growing criminalization
of minority sexualities and people living with HIV. Lack of stress on human
rights and community participation is resulting in poorer policy globally. A
new research agenda is needed to respond to these challenges...
Fortunately, after many attempts to discover a “magic bullet” for HIV prevention, researchers (both social and biomedical alike) increasingly accept the need for a form of “combination prevention”, that is not limited to biomedical intervention. Any efficacious biomedical strategy requires both behavioral and structural components if it is to be successfully scaled up, and improving the broader legal and policy environment remains a major challenge to improving the HIV response globally. Building on this theme, one presenter issued a call for a “vaccine against intolerance”, a “condom to protect against violence” and a new form of “pre-hate prophylaxis” that will help people behave more respectfully to one other, protect people from violence and allow them to treat the effects of discrimination 8.
Remarkably, Brazil, well known early on for its
rights-based approach to HIV prevention and care 69,70, did
not provide any significant input into this debate. Presentations in the
Conference discussed the national government’s effort to monitor its commitment
to universal access to treatment and the recent commitment to promote treatment
as prevention 71,72,73,74,75,76. On the other hand, many
presentations showed how the centrality of human rights in prevention efforts
have been lost, and how support for civil society participation, a principle
characteristic of the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS), has
decreased 77,78. Since 2011, challenged by
increasingly vocal conservative religious clergy and politicians, the federal
government has censored programmes and campaigns on non-discrimination
targeting MSM and sex workers 79. The
local sustainability of landmark forms of comprehensive HIV prevention
education has been undermined 80. Unacceptably high levels of
unprotected sex among MSM 81 and
the growing profile of the adolescent HIV epidemic in the country 10, can both be linked to the
neglect of human rights which heightens the growing vulnerability to HIV of sex
workers, MSM and transgender people 12...
Full article at:
By:
1Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil
2Institute for Global Health, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, U.S.A
3Centre for Social Research in Health, Sydney, Australia
4Pathfinder International, Watertown, U.S.A
5School of Public Health & Community Medicine, Sydney, Australia
6Sexual & Reproductive Health Unit, Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research, Goroka, Papua New Guinea
7Hanoi Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam
8Núcleo de Estudos de População Elza Berquó, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brasil
9Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Perú
10SMS Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, U.S.A
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