Project HOPE faults NACA’s position

BY SOla Ogundipe & VICTORIA OJEME

Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, NACA,Professor John Idoko, has assured that the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2013, will not deny access to HIV/AIDS treatment to anyone, even as Projekthope Nigeria, an HIV/AIDS-focuse NGO has faulted NACA’s official position on the matter.
Idoko, in a signed statement stressed that no part of the HIV/AIDS support and care programme currently on-going in Nigeria will be negatively impacted by the law.

Debate
“The law has generated much debate and anxiety on the implications of the passage, especially as it affects HIV programming for the LGBT community.
“ A perusal of the  Same Sex Marriage Act 2013, makes clear that the provisions thereof do not have any negative effect on the HIV/AIDS Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support Programmes or any other such programmes currently in operation in Nigeria.

Nothing in the same sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2013 refers to or prohibits programmes targeted at Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support for  People Living With HIV or affected by AIDS in Nigeria. No provision of this law will deny anybody in Nigeria access to HIV treatment and other medical services.
“The Government of Nigeria remains fully committed to improving the health of Nigerians and preventing all AIDS related deaths, and therefore will continue to ensure that Nigerians have access to the requisite services that they may require as guaranteed by the constitution”  he added.

Asylum seekers: Meanwhile, gay asylum seekers  to Canada may have hit a brick wall, as the country’s immigration laws does not allow  those seeking  refugee status to apply directly from their country of origin.
Head  of Communications,  Canada Citizenship and Immigration Bureau,  Sonia   Lesage, told Good Health Weekly  that “Individuals cannot make asylum claims at Canadian embassies.  Canada has a fair and generous immigration system. Refugee claims are heard by the Immigration and Refugee Board, IRB.

The IRB is a quasi-judicial, independent body, which provides a fair hearing to asylum claimants. Extracts  from Canadian immigration laws, made available to Good Health Weekly  observed thst to be granted asylum in Canada as a refugee, a person must be outside his or her home country and have a well-founded fear of persecution.

According to the Geneva Convention, the fear must not only be well-founded, the persecution must also be based on reasons of race, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. However, a less restrictive interpretation of the feared persecution may also lead to refugee status.

Diplomatic sources confided that most Nigerians seeking asylum to Canada usually start the process from neighboring Ghana, so as to meet the criteria set by the Canadian government. “At year end 2013, 20 applications for asylum seekers from Accra, Ghana had reached 80 percent completion. Majority of these applicants were Nigerians. Nigeria’s LBGT community may likely  go the same route,”  she said.

Projekthope faults NACA’s position
In a related development,  Projekthope Nigeria, an NGO focused on HIV treatment and prevention as well as on the rights of People Living With HIV/AIDS, has faulted NACA’s official  position on the Same Sex Marriage Act.

In a statement entitled NACA’s DG Misrepresents Facts on the Same Sex Marriage (prohibition) Act“, the  Coordinator, Projekthope Nigeria, Mr Steve Aborishade,  issued a rebuttal to statements credited to the NACA DG.

According to Aborishade, who is also Founder/Editor-in-Chief, HIV Info: “To us, Prof. Idoko’s statement and NACA’s position represents the height of hypocrisy and insensitivity by an agency in charge of the national HIV/AIDS intervention of a country like Nigeria which bears the second largest global burden of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

“Even when the issue involved is as sensitive and touchy to majority of Nigerians and its government as it is, we had expected that NACA and Prof. Idoko could at least be guided in their response by prevailing facts on the situation of things which makes a mockery of their assertion and is a direct contrast to their advertised position.”

In his response, Aborishade said; “To say that a law which criminalizes an identified Most At Risk Population and prescribes jail terms for those who work with them will not ‘deny anybody in Nigeria access to HIV treatment and other medical services’ is in the least, a disservice to the spirit of the efforts to curtail the impact of HIV/AIDS in our country.

“We were not expecting Prof. Idoko and NACA to deny the negative impact that criminalization and prejudice poses for individuals who already face all forms of blackmail, family rejection and brutality without a reprieve from our security apparatus. We expect that NACA should also know how difficult an effort it is to establish HIV initiatives for most-at-risk groups in the face public hostility.

“The proposed bill, for emphasis, goes beyond the banning of gay marriages (it are already illegal in our constitution), but what it actually does is to spell new crimes of homosexuality while criminalising HIV/AIDS services to sexual minority.”

Threat
Aborishade said it is ironic that NACA and Prof. Idoko’s view is contrary to the views expressed by majority of service providers that the law seriously threatens the fragile health and community based HIV initiatives for the community which are sprouting up across the cities of Nigeria.

“The general consensus, if NACA cares to listen is that the future of these projects is now in jeopardy,” he noted.
Arguing that HIV/AIDS prevalence amongst the gay population is above 12 percent compared to the 4.1 percent in the general population, he lamented:

“The intersection with the general population where about 50 percent have ongoing sexual interaction with the general population in the light of the high HIV prevalence in the group, to us, is enough reason to reappraise the kind of access they have to HIV services.

“We must be mindful that the gay population in Nigeria is speculated at about 15.4 million. This important intersection with the general population is something this law has ignored.

Expectation
“With this background, and given our inability to treat our people who require HIV treatment, our failure to halt new infections in both children and adults and with our faltering ART regime, our take is that NACA must be seen as concerned that in the real sense we have a long way to go, while such journey calls for more openness and sensitivity to the real challenges bedeviling our programmes.

“Our expectation is that NACA and its leadership will join the clamour by concerned civil society groups that there is a compelling need for our government to revisit several provisions of this law which are a direct threat to the modest gains of our public health intervention,” Aborisade argued.