Association: Cogan hit the ground running as "Bailey AIDS Policy" fellow

Jens Seeberg: Stigma Statistics: Agendas in the Making in Danish AIDS Policy This article explores a number of paradoxes and assumptions in the public debate on AIDS in Denmark. They form part of a recurrent attack on the Danish ‘soft line’ AIDS policy that maintains anonymity and voluntary HIV-testing. One central issue in recent years has been obligatory testing of asylum seekers from high risk areas as a precondition for considering the asylum request. Especially asylum seekers from African countries are pointed out as constituting a major threat to the native Danish population in terms of spread of HIV. This is shown to rest on a misreading of the official statistics, repeated as often as the statistics themselves. The assumption that there is a basic clash between the human rights of the HIV-infected person and the population in general is discussed. This conceived clash rests on the assumption that restrictions of the human rights of the HIV-infected person will provide efficient protection for the noninfected majority. The potential counterproductive effects of this line of thought are discussed. Contact tracing is sometimes considered as an effective preventive measure. Part of the critique of the present AIDS policy States that contact tracing is virtually non-existing and that this has a major negative impact on the preventive efforts. It is argued that while the impact of contact tracing in itself may be rather limited, the lack of contact tracing may be seen as a symptom of insufficient counselling. While obligatory HIV testing may never be practiced in Denmark, its recurrent appearance on the agenda serves to provoke a defensive stand among AIDS policy makers. It is argued that this debate has hitherto had the effect of keeping the needs of HIV-infected people - and especially HIV-infected immigrants — away from public debate and serious concern.

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The implications of early marriage for HIV/AIDS policy

10.31899/pgy22.1000 ◽

2004 ◽

Author(s):

Judith Bruce ◽

Shelley Clark

Keyword(s):

Reproductive Health ◽

Adolescent Girls ◽

Safe Motherhood ◽

Early Marriage ◽

Economic Disadvantage ◽

Aids Policy ◽

Health Vulnerability ◽

Health Programming ◽

Adolescent Reproductive Health ◽

Hiv Aids

This brief is based on a background paper prepared for the WHO/UNFPA/Population Council Technical Consultation on Married Adolescents, held in Geneva, Switzerland, December 9–12, 2003. The final paper is entitled “Including married adolescents in adolescent reproductive health and HIV/AIDS policy.” The consultation brought together experts from the United Nations, donors, and nongovernmental agencies to consider the evidence regarding married adolescent girls’ reproductive health, vulnerability to HIV infection, social and economic disadvantage, and rights. The relationships to major policy initiatives—including safe motherhood, HIV, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights—were explored, and emerging findings from the still relatively rare programs that are directed at this population were discussed. Married adolescent girls are outside the conventionally defined research interests, policy diagnosis, and basic interventions that have underpinned adolescent reproductive health programming and many HIV/AIDS prevention activities. They are an isolated, often numerically large, and extremely vulnerable segment of the population, largely untouched by current intervention strategies. As stated in this brief, promoting later marriage, to at least age 18, and shoring up protection options within marriage may be essential means of stemming the epidemic.

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