WMP News and Information

Proposed Merger between the Terrace Higgins Trust & the Healthy Gay Living Centre

Discussions have occurred between the Terrace Higgins Trust (THT) and the Healthy Gay Living Centre (HGLC), which seek to improve the services offered by both services to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities. Both services currently serve this community well, THT from a national health promotion perspective, and the HGLC from face to face services within the London area.

It is felt that by merging the two services, the merged organisation will be able to better concentrate on what is really important – promoting good sexual health and well being to at risk LGBT communities. This will allow better co-ordination of actual services (such as outreach work to bars) and ensure that they fit with the national agenda as outlined in the CHAPS (Community HIV and AIDS Prevention Strategy). It also has the potential to improve the range, quality, equity and access to community health services, and the merged organisation will be in a better position to influence policy maker and the general public with regard to HIV, sexual health and LGBT issues.

The merged organisation will be known as the Terrace Higgins Trust, but ‘Healthy Gay Living’ will be used and developed as a programme name for the merged organisation’s health promotion work with LGBT communities.

This proposed merger is currently open for consultation until Friday 13th September, and both THT and HGLC are interested in the public’s view, such as:

- Do you share their vision that health promotion services will be better for the LGBT communities as a result of the merger between THT and HGLC?
- What do you think the priorities for the merged organisation should be?
- How would you like people from LGBT communities to be involved?

Your views and comments are welcome, in writing or by email to:

Nick Partridge – Chief Executive
Terrace Higgins Trust
52-54, Grays Inn Road
nick.partridge@tht.org.uk

Robert Goodwin – Director
Healthy Gay Living Centre
40, Borough High Street
robert.goodwin@hglc.org.uk
London SE1 1XW

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More sex workers using condoms

The Cambodia Daily 27 May 2002
By Matt Reed, Volume 23 Issue 94

Condom use during commercial sex is on the increase while "significantly fewer" men are going to sex workers, the annual behavior survey from the National Center for HIV/AIDS has found.

Close to 90 percent of prostitutes reported that they always use condoms with their clients, according to the survey. That's up from 80 percent in 1999, the last year a comparable behavior survey was done. In 1997, just 37 percent said they always used condoms.

Among beer girls, condom use is lower, with just 56 percent saying they always use condoms. But that is still a significant increase from 39 percent in 1999 and just 10 percent in 1997. Just 20 percent of soldiers said they had visited a prostitute in the month before they were interviewed, down from 47 percent in 1999.

The survey also found that more beer girls are selling sex, with 30.4 percent of those questioned in 2001 saying they had been paid for sex, up from 25.2 percent in 1999. The 2001 survey was conducted among soldiers, policemen and brothel workers - members of high-risk demographic groups - and motorcycle taxi drivers, beer girls and karaoke girls - members of intermediate risk demographic groups.

More than 2,800 face-to-face interviews were conducted in Phnom Penh, Kompong Cham, Sihanouk Ville, Siem Reap and Battambang towns. The annual survey began in 1997 in order to track behavior trends and to find more information on the social conditions behind the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
"More sexual activity is reported in all groups with sweethearts," the survey said. "[But] in all groups, more people are getting tested for HIV." The survey also found that karaoke girls "closely resemble" brothel workers in their behavior, and some brothel workers said they had previously worked as karaoke girls.

The survey hailed Cambodia's prevention efforts, which have caused Cambodia's high rate of HIV to level off in recent years. About 168,000 people, or 2.8 percent of the adult population, were estimated to have HIV in a 2001 government report. The survey warned that condom promotion and risk behavior reduction efforts need to be maintained.

"Conditions haven't changed. There are lots of opportunities for a rebound in infection rates," said UNAIDS Country Programme Adviser Geoff Manthey. Manthey said a more stable economy and more disposable income in Phnom Penh and other urban areas could lead to an upswing in HIV infections rates, with men spending more time in brothels and with "indirect" sex workers - such as beer and karaoke girls - and perhaps not using condoms.

This has been true in wealthy western countries and in Thailand, which saw a small increase in its HIV rate a few years ago after years of positive prevention efforts. "You can slack off, but the virus won't," he said.

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Law aims to stop HIV/AIDS misinformation

The Cambodia Daily 29 May 2002
By Lor Chandara, Volume 23 Issue 96

If passed this week, Cambodia's first-ever HIV/AIDS law would give law enforcement officials "stronger legal power" to prevent misinformation about how AIDS is spread and treated. The law would also control the unauthorized circulation in Phnom Penh's markets of antiretroviral AIDS drugs that can be used to stave off the disease.

Opposition lawmakers called on the government to confiscate fake AIDS drugs from market vendors and pharmacies. Sam Rainsy Party Lawmaker Sam Sundoeun said many Cambodians have been cheated out of their money by buying the drugs.

In recent years, traditional Khmer doctors have told patients they are able to cure AIDS, and have advertised their treatments without government regulation. Many Cambodians do not realize that there is no cure for AIDS. Advertisements concerning HIV/AIDS first must be approved by the National AIDS Authority, the law states. Any advertisement that guarantees HIV/AIDS can be cured is forbidden, unless it abides by measures set up by the NAA and international medical principles.

The draft law also states that housing, education, travel, financial credit, insurance, running for public office, health care and burial ceremonies can not be denied to someone because he or she has HIV/AIDS. The privacy of those who have taken an HIV test will be ensured.

Sam Rainsy Party parliamentarian Son Chhay urged the government to look at the root causes behind the spread of AIDS, such as poverty. The AIDS epidemic in Cambodia, where 168,000 people are estimated to have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has hindered economic development, according to Minister of Health Hong Sun Huot. He said Cambodia has 8,000 hospital beds in which to treat AIDS patients, but needs 20,000 beds.

Meanwhile, National Assembly President Prince Norodom Ranariddh and other assembly members applauded UNAIDS Country Programme Adviser Geoff Manthey, who is leaving Cambodia for post at the UNAIDS office in Geneva at the end of the month after three years of service here.

Use escape clause to allow cheap generic anti-HIV/AIDS drugs

by Koh Lay Chin
May 30:

http://www.emedia.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/Frontpage/20020530152109/Article

The Government can use an escape clause to allow local companies to manufacture generic anti-HIV/AIDS drugs to lower the cost of treatment despite World Trade Organisation restrictions, Malaysian AIDS Council president Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir said. She said the clause in the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) could enable the government to do so in the event of an emergency or if lives had to be saved. There are barriers to generic manufacturing like TRIPS but this can be solved if the government wants to, she told reporters after launching the `Largest Red Ribbon in Malaysia' at Rumah Pengasih here in conjuction with the International AIDS Memorial Day. She said every government had to weigh the pros and cons of doing so. But so far Malaysia has been really pushing for justice in this issue and it is quite heartening to see the determination to try and bring drug prices down, she added.

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HIV/AIDS: Sex between generations worsening Zimbabwe epidemic

http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/current.asp

Tom Clarke, Nature Science Update, May 31

Sex between older men and teenage women is exacerbating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new study whose authors include a top Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) official.

In a survey published Saturday in The Lancet by a team led by Simon Gregson of the University of London's Imperial College, nearly 50 percent of Zimbabwean men aged 30 to 34 were found to be HIV-positive. About 3 percent of 19-year-old men had HIV, but infection rates in their female counterparts were around 17 percent. The researchers blamed intergenerational sex for the disparity between young men's and young women's HIV rates.

"It's like a motor driving this epidemic along," Gregson said. In Zimbabwe, younger women often date and marry older men because of their greater wealth and status, while older men often mistakenly believe younger women are HIV-free. Intergenerational sex has long been suspected as a factor driving HIV rates up, but no data has supported the suspicion before now. "This is the first time we have good evidence-based data," said UNAIDS prevention chief Michel Carael, one of the study's authors.

Judith Glynn, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said young women must be warned about the dangers of sex with older men. It is "something we can potentially do something about," she said.

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HIV infection through sex rising in Europe, says study

http://www.dailyliving.info
(AFP, 05/31)

Researchers have warned that Europeans are becoming complacent about AIDS, given a study which estimates that new sexually transmitted HIV cases in Western Europe have increased by one-fifth over a five year span.

The study, which is founded on new diagnoses of HIV infection as reported by 10 nations to a pan- European AIDS monitoring center, estimates that 540,000 western Europeans have HIV and claims that the cost of treating one HIV infected European adult is between $192,000 to $258,000 due to anti-retroviral drugs which are needed throughout life.

Between 1995 and 2000, new HIV infections through homosexual intercourse decreased from 2,762 to 2,426 per year, while infections due to heterosexual intercourse increased by 48%, from 2,127 to 3,156. In the same period, there was also a huge increase in gonorrhea and syphilis infection rates that suggests a trend of unsafe sex, said Angus Nicoll, head of the Public Health Laboratory Service Communicable Disease Surveillance Center in London. "In theory, this whole trend (of HIV infection) really ought to have been tailing off some time back, but that is not the case," he said. "Even if the rate were flat, that would be a source for concern because that is consistent with ongoing transmission."

http://www.aids2002.com/include/IE_Content.asp?Path=/content/xiulet/argentina.html

Graciela Radulich
Asociación El Retoño

The non-governmental organization El Retoño is currently developing a very special campaign for the prevention of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C and B among drug users in the city of Buenos Aires. A peculiarity of this campaign is that, for the first time, it includes a massive distribution of condoms, information brochures on HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C and B, and pamphlets on safer ways of drug consumption in soccer stadiums and concert and show arenas in the city of Buenos Aires. Besides the brochures already mentioned, the campaign also includes specific material for women drug users dealing with such topics as pregnancy and drugs, domestic violence, prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, among others.

Another significant aim of the campaign is to inform and raise awareness on the prospect of harm reduction among health personnel in hospitals and primary care centers. To this end contributes the distribution of an information card providing guidelines on the actions on harm reduction that can be obtained from public health services. Together with this material, pamphlets on prevention are provided to the users that obtain health care in the contacted centers.

The campaign is set for a three month period and is coordinated by professionals, present and former users of the "Programa de Reducción de Daños de El Retoño" (El Retoño harm prevention program), and representatives of the "Asociación Somos Ciudadanos" (ASOCI), organization that calls for the citizen rights of drug users.

SOURCE : Asian Harm Reduction Network www.ahrn.net

Carding Update for Sex Workers in the Westminster Area - June 2002

Since our last carding update we have had a meeting with the Paddington police to clarify what may happen when they visit the working flats. Their plan, as you know, is to eliminate carding in the Westminster area.

The police may do the following on a visit:

Gathering of intelligence: Because carding is a criminal offence, the police may take details of personal papers, bills, bank details, etc from your flat/home. All of this evidence may be used to prove you have committed the offence of carding (or aiding and abetting. See last month’s update)

Contacting landlords: The police have informed us that they will be contacting your landlord to let him/her know you have been using your residential flat as a place of business. Your landlord can also be charged with living off immoral earnings since his rent wages are coming indirectly from sex work. It would be in your landlord’s best interest to ask you to leave the flat. Because you may have broken the contract by using a residential premises as a business, you may not be entitled to your deposit. The law related to this aspect is called ‘change of use’.

Immigration**: The Police Team assigned to eliminate the carding is also working closely with immigration officers. If you are in the UK under any of the following conditions and are sex working in a flat, it is likely that the Police may arrive with immigration officers or contact immigration whilst on the premises. The result may be immediate deportation if you are in breach of your visa conditions. (with no time to collect belongings, money, or notify friends/family). The following visa may not be considered legal working visas:

Student Visa
No Visa
Tourist Visa

Any other visa that does not give you permission to work in this country or citizenship.

General Points:

The police do NOT need a warrant to enter the flat.

They are monitoring the movement of the flats so if you move into another flat and continue to use cards to advertise it is likely that they will be contacting you at your new premises.

ANYONE associated with the carding, including the working woman and the maid, can be implicated for the carding offence.

It is illegal to card ANYWHERE in Westminster, even if there is currently an emphasis on W2 and W9.

Normally the Police will arrive with several officers for security reasons. Once they have established the premises is safe for their officers they will ask you if you would like some of them to leave (particularly if there is only one or two women on the premises.) You also have the right at this point to request that some of the officers leave so that the visit is not so intimidating. For your own protection, ensure that there are at least two officers present, one as a witness.

It is preferable to have a female officer present, due to the sensitive nature of working flats, but it is not legally vital that the police comply with this. We have been given their assurance that they will attempt to bring a female officer with them on every occasion.

If the Police take any of your personal belongings as evidence please ask for a written list of these things that is signed by a police officer and agreed by yourself.
Please ask the police to leave a card with their contact details in case you have any queries about the visit.

We therefore make the following recommendations:

Take your cards down immediately! We have been assured that all flats are being monitored very closely. If you take your cards down at this stage of the investigation, your flat will become a very low priority on the police list, and you could avoid having your landlord find out you are using the premises for a business.

If you are not legal to work in this country, consider taking your business to another part of the city. It is important to be less visible if you don’t want to run the risk of immediate deportation. The next stage of the carding initiative may be arrest. You can try to avoid this by keeping in close contact with the Praed Street Project
(020 7886 1549/1828) about the details of this Police operation and thinking through your choices and alternatives.

- Praed Street Project

On the ropes - Tatchell wins submission from Tyson

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4426783,00.html

By Steven Morris
Guardian
Tuesday June 4, 2002

His previous heavyweight opponents have included Robert Mugabe and Henry
Kissinger. Now the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell is claiming something of a victory over Mike Tyson, the boxer, after confronting the former heavy weight world champion outside his gym in Memphis and demanding that he stop using homophobic language.

Tyson, who is due to fight Lennox Lewis on Saturday, shook Tatchell's hand, hugged another placard-waving protester and insisted that he had nothing against gay people. Challenged to make a positive statement supporting lesbian and gay rights, Tyson said: "I oppose all discrimination against gay people, OK."

The boxer was criticised earlier this year for calling a journalist a "fucking faggot". He said his use of words like "faggot" was not intended as an insult to the gay community. "I might use them but I don't mean them," he said, though he did not promise to stop.

A week of protests planned against Tyson may now be called off. Tatchell said:
"I hope Mike's remarks are sincere and not just a PR move."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002

Australian MPs bid to lower gay sex age limit

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/01/1022569845451.html

By Alex Mitchell, State Political Editor
The Sun-Herald
June 2 2002

For the third time in five years, NSW MPs are to have a conscience vote on
whether to allow 16 to become the age of consent for homosexual as well as heterosexual sex.

At present, 16-year-olds are allowed to engage in consensual heterosexual sex but homosexual sex is illegal until the age of 18.

Labor MP Jan Burnswoods is re-introducing a private members Bill to bring about the change despite suffering narrow defeats in 1997 and 1999. "The law has slipped way behind what people are doing and how they are thinking," she said. "We still have this crazy law that allows teenage girls to engage in lesbian sex at 16 but criminalises boys who have homosexual sex. The current law discriminates on the basis of gender."

"In this day and age when we have the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and we are
preparing for the Gay Games, it seems ridiculous that we have this old-fashioned law."

When the Legislative Council resumes on Tuesday for a four-week session, Ms
Burnswoods's Bill is in a queue of legislation to be called up for debate. In a free vote, Labor and Liberal MPs will be split while the Nationals will join with Fred Nile and his wife Elaine to vote against it. It would be a knife-edged result.

New Liberal leader John Brogden and Premier Bob Carr are both supporters of
a law change but neither will be campaigning for it.

"Some MPs are nervous because an election is coming up," Ms Burnswoods said.
Admitting that outside lobby groups were putting intense pressure on MPs to vote against the legislation, she said: "I wish politicians were less fearful. Similar legislation has been passed in every other State without the sky falling in."

Lowering the male age of consent for homosexual acts from 18 to 16 was one
of the key recommendations made in 1997 by Justice James Wood's royal commission into the police and by a State and Federal Attorneys-General Committee in 1999.

Justice Wood said there was no reason to suppose that a change to uniform age of consent laws in NSW would result in "any behavioural shift" or expose any more children to the risk of pedophile activity than at present. He noted there was a need to recognise changing social mores and practices in which "most adolescents" were sexually active and far better informed on sexual matters by the age of 16 than previous generations.

Source: The Sun-Herald Australia

FIFA spurns condoms for soccer lovers

By PAUL MURPHY
Asahi Shimbun News Service

Lusty World Cup fans looking to score off the field will have to do without the type of FIFA-endorsed condoms that caught the public imagination in France '98.

Afraid of being sued by a user of a faulty condom, the world soccer body has blocked their sale, a marketing chief at the organization's Swiss headquarters told Asahi Shimbun News Service.

Okamoto Industries Inc., one of two firms permitted to make FIFA condoms for the last World Cup, had applied to be considered once again as a licensed producer.

Endorsing condoms carries "ethical and medical liability issues. We cannot afford someone getting AIDS when using a FIFA condom,'' said Guy-Laurent Epstein, head of event licensing for FIFA in Zurich.

The decision has disappointed Okamoto, which gained valuable media attention from its last licensing deal with FIFA. ``We really wanted to do it. We had experience with the last World Cup and expected to become a licensee this time as well,'' said Toshiaki Ishii, of Okamoto's general planning division. "Sales weren't very high, but it was great publicity.''

Okamoto had estimated that it would sell about 9 million soccer condoms this year, more than double its 1998 total and worth a total of around 700 million yen.

Ishii alleges that FIFA turned down the condom deal because "it received large broadcasting fees and doesn't need to bother with revenue from cheap merchandising.''

But Epstein said FIFA may have reconsidered its stance if Okamoto sent a proposal detailing how marketing, financial and ethical issues related to sale of the prophylactics would be dealt with.

Okamoto gave up after its initial approach failed.

Condoms represent a small percentage of the overall market for FIFA-approved
World Cup merchandise. ``It is really a marginal product in the value chain,'' said Epstein.

FIFA estimates that the total retail value of merchandise it endorses will rise 25 percent from France '98 to $1.5 billion (187 billion yen) for this World Cup. The organization will collect in the region of 5 percent of that figure in royalties.

Insignificant as it may be in terms of FIFA revenue, the condom holds special appeal in Japan, which is the largest condom market in the world and home to one-fifth of all married condom users. Almost 80 percent of family planning users in Japan rely on condoms compared to about 5 percent in France, according to figures supplied via the Web site of Johns Hopkins University Center for Communications Programs.

Epstein said that the FIFA condom may make a comeback for the 2006 World Cup
in Germany. But because it is not considered a core product like T-shirts or caps, the organization will remain cautious about the conditions under which it grants
its license.

"It is a very specific product because it is not directly relevant to football. We want to make sure it is done in the right way and will decide on a case-by-case basis,'' Epstein said.

(IHT/Asahi: May 26,2002)

Kenya to offer free drugs to expectant mothers with HIV

http://www.nandotimes.com/healthscience/story/413282p-3291529c.html

By TOM MALITI
Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya
May 24, 2002; 11:21pm. EDT

Kenya is about to become one of the few African countries offering HIV-positive pregnant women a free drug that prevents transmission of the virus causing AIDS to their unborn children, a health ministry spokesman said Friday.

Selected government hospitals around the country will start administering the drug, nevirapine, next week to expectant mothers, Julius Ndegwa said. Public Health Minister Sam Ongeri said Thursday that nevirapine's maker, U.S.-based Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., will donate one million doses of nevirapine worth about $436,000 to Kenya over the next five years.

The government estimates that between 30 to 40 percent of babies born to infected mothers become HIV positive. Of Kenya's 30 million people, an estimated 2.2 million are infected with the HIV virus.

In April, the South African government said it would begin a national
nevirapine program by the end of the year. This was four months after President Thabo Mbeki's government lost a high court case filed by AIDS activists and pediatricians to force the government to make the drug available.

Under similar pressure, international drug manufacturers last year drastically lowered their prices in Africa on a variety of drugs to treat people with AIDS. In some cases, the drugs were discounted up to 90 percent.

The same pressure groups now complain that the drug companies are not
ensuring that a steady supply of the drugs reaches the African market.

Copyright © 2002 AP Online

Brazil Launches First Anti-AIDS Campaign for Gays

June 05, 2002 12:04:40 PM PST,
Reuters

Brazil launched its first anti-AIDS - web sites campaign aimed specifically at homosexuals on Tuesday to fight a rising infection rate among young, gay men.

Through one of the world's most aggressive AIDS prevention programs, Brazil has reduced HIV/AIDS infection rates to 0.6% of the adult population. But it always avoided singling out homosexuals for fear of fueling discrimination.

"We have never wanted to reinforce that old stigma, that link between AIDS and homosexuality," said Paulo Teixeira, coordinator of Brazil's AIDS program. "But now the time has come to act."

The government campaign developed with gay rights activists aims to raise tolerance toward homosexuals aged 15 through 24, especially among health professionals, educators and parents.

In the centerpiece commercial to air on prime-time TV this week, a young man who has troubles with his boyfriend receives support from his parents. The final slogan reads: "Respecting differences is as important as using a condom."

An ad for magazines says: "Use a condom with your boyfriend...that's something a father should say to his son."

"Homosexuals' self-esteem is one of the pillars of AIDS prevention," said Oswaldo Braga, president of the Gay Movement of Minas Gerais. "That is why we battled for ads that would show the acceptance of families, colleagues and society."

The $1.2 million campaign will also show commercials in gay movie theaters, while pamphlets, posters and key rings will be distributed in gay clubs and bath houses by 80 gay groups.

Since 1996, the number of AIDS cases is growing among homosexual men in Brazil. Between 1996 and 2001, the rate of infection for gay men aged 15 to 24 grew 8.7% compared with 3.4% growth for those aged 25 to 34.

Braga says youths let down their guard on safe sex in the era of the medication cocktail that the government distributes free of charge, allowing AIDS patients to lead normal lives.

"These adolescents have not been through what we have, when a person was infected, became skeletal, lost his hair, developed sores all over his body and then died," said Braga.

The Health Ministry says homosexual men have 11 times higher risk of contracting AIDS than men who only have sexual relations with women. Among homosexual men, the rate of infection is 4.5% compared with 0.4% for heterosexual men.

Source: Reuters

http://199.105.91.6/TREATMENT/HIV+/june2002.PDF

by Anne–Christine d'Adesky
June / July 2002

(Excerpt:)

Like New York City, only more extreme, Mumbai (formerly Bombay) is a tight patchwork of extravagant wealth and dire poverty. Immigrants swarm to its promise of fame and fortune. But this sophisticated metropolis is also the AIDS capital of India. HIV, the ``Bombay plague,'' has spread to over 250,000 Mumbai residents, including half the 100,000 sex workers working in a dusty 12–block district with 10,000 brothels.

Government estimates indicate that a total of four million Indians now have HIV, but frontline doctors scoff at that figure, placing the total closer to 10 or 12 million.

Cipla Enters the Fray

It seems particularly fitting to find the corporate headquarters of Cipla Ltd., the now–famous Indian generic HIV drug manufacturer, located hard by Mumbai's brothels.

Cipla burst onto the world stage one year ago when its maverick president, a chemist named Yusef Hamied, offered a copycat three–drug anti–HIV regimen to developing countries' governments and aid groups like Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors without Borders (MSF) for as little as $350 a year. That is one–thirtieth of the standard price.

The move tipped the scales in a high–pitched battle for global drug access being waged by AIDS activists and groups like MSF against the multinational brand–name
pharmaceutical companies controlling drug patents. These companies denounced Cipla's act as a threat to the international patent system that makes pharmaceutical
research possible. They also warned that Indian knockoffs were likely to be of poor quality and would contribute to drug resistance across Africa and Asia.

Undeterred, Hamied defended his company's reputation and his action as perfectly legal under a 1970 Indian patent act that protects the patents on drug–making processes but not on the final product. Indian companies can create alternative manufacturing steps to copy patented drugs and then legally sell those drugs in India. They can also export their products to countries or markets where no
patents exist for them. Where local laws allow for compulsory licensing, the Indian manufacturers can apply to sell generic versions of patented drugs so long as they pay a licensing fee to the patent holder. That market, it turns out, covers much of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, but not the U.S. and Western Europe. The drugs involved include medicines for lifethreatening opportunistic
infections as well as for HIV.

"What Cipla did was show everyone that the emperor had no clothes,'' stated Bombay
lawyer Anand Grover of the Lawyer's Collective, an advocacy group working on AIDS drug access issues. "For years, the multinationals claimed it cost so much to make their AIDS drugs, and they were so hard to make. Now we know it's simply not true. The generics make these drugs for pennies, and they make other drugs too. So the secret is finally out. The truth is, the profits in this industry have been just staggering.''

The potential market for anti–HIV drugs in developing countries is a minimum of $2.3 billion per year. This total is based on a United Nations estimate of the number of
people living with HIV outside the U.S. and Western Europe -- some 38 million -- and the percentage who need immediate antiretroviral treatment to avoid AIDS-defining
illnesses -- around 15%. So at least 5.7 million people are eligible to receive HIV drugs, at an annual price of around $ 400 per person for the generic drugs.

Obviously, total sales could soar if people with HIV are granted access to drugs earlier in the disease process.

Keeping Generic Drugs out of International Trade

The conflict over HIV generics reached a peak at last November's World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Doha, Qatar, when the 142–member body ruled that developing countries can override drugs patents in cases of national health crises.

They can import generic medicines or issue a compulsory license to local companies to manufacture them and pay royalties to the patent holders. But the Doha Declaration requires each developing country to establish its own manufacturing base if it wishes to use generic drugs. The Declaration has no provision allowing export of these drugs. An infrastructure for producing drugs takes years of preparation and a lot of money. Doha's failure to cover exports, declared Vinod Lulla, Cipla's outspoken Joint Managing Director, ``is a complete eyewash and there is no gain. Not allowing exports is a major deterrent.''

Indian companies will lose their legal advantages when a new WTO Trade–Related Intellectual Property Rights policy goes into effect in 2005. It calls for India and other
member–states to respect 20–year patents on new products from then on. The Indian pharmaceutical industry is rushing to introduce as many generic drugs as possible before the 2005 cutoff point.

As Grover points out, the patent battle has revealed the real stakes at hand. It is not really the African HIV market, which in fact represents only one percent of sales for the brand–name companies, but ``their hegemony in the multibillion dollar global pharmaceutical industry.'' The patent–holding corporations worry that AIDS provides a wedge for foreign generic producers to gain legitimacy and a foothold in other markets.

It is a legitimate concern: Cipla, the third–largest drug maker in India, is an 87 year old company with 1,023 generic products in 130 markets; its US marketing partner is Andrx. Cipla's eight HIV drugs are making money, but it sees bigger profits in topselling U.S. drugs like Xanax to control anxiety and cholesterol–lowering Lipitor, whose patents are expiring soon.

While HIV drugs have caught the world's attention, the Indian generic companies have made steady gains in major drug markets including the U.S., Germany, Britain, Brazil,
China and Japan. Hetero Drugs, for example, recently applied to the FDA to market four generic products, omeprazole, kezamindine, co–trimoxazole and itraconazole.
The latter two are used to treat, respectively, HIV–related pneumocystis pneumonia and fungal infections. Ranbaxy now has FDA approval to sell lisinopril and hydrochlorothiazide, a generic version of Merck's Prinizide, as well as pediatric midazolam hydrochloride.

European Court Grants Transsexual Right To Be A Woman

A male-to-female transsexual has won the right to be recognised as a woman
and to marry under British law, in a landmark ruling by the European Court
of Human Rights yesterday.

The Independent examines how a female-to-male transsexual will be affected
by the ruling.

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FT report on AIDS

The FT reports that AIDS is making a mockery of the development goals of
many African nations, with the International Aids Conference hearing grim
predictions about life expectancy falling to 19th century levels, a huge
decline in economic output and essential public services incapacitated by
the deaths of key staff.
The Times reports on the way in which the famine in Zimbabwe is worsening
the effects of Aids there.
Columnist Armando Iannucci writes a spoof report from the Vatican
representative at the International Aids Conference.

Indian & BBC World Service HIV Campaign

BBC launches one of the world's largest HIV/AIDS media campaigns in
partnership with Indian broadcaster

One of the largest ever broadcasting campaigns aimed at increasing awareness of HIV/AIDS in India is being launched by the BBC World Service Trust today (Tuesday
9 July).

The initiative is in partnership with India's National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and the national television service - Doordarshan - and All India Radio. It is supported by the UK's Department for International Development (DfID).

India has the second highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in the world after South Africa, with an estimated four million cases in 2001. The mass media campaign is part of Britain's contribution to the partnership to prevent a worsening HIV/AIDS epidemic in the northern Indian states.

NACO estimates that in India 83 per cent of HIV cases are spread through sex, yet a recent BBC World Service Trust survey found that only five per cent of people surveyed had ever discussed sexual matters.

The mass media campaign has been welcomed as an innovative, effective way to tackle HIV/AIDS in a country where talk about sexual health issues is still considered taboo.

An interactive detective drama, a "reality TV" youth show and a radio phone-in programme are part of a unique media partnership between the BBC World Service Trust and Doordarshan to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.

More than 1,000 individual broadcasts will be aired to reach more than half the Indian population. More than 3,500 video screenings of the programmes are also planned for
villages with limited access to TV and radio.

The BBC World Service Trust and Doordarshan have teamed up to create cutting-edge interactive television and India's first audience participation drama. The programmes will include:

· a detective drama, Jasoos Vijay, three times a week
· a weekly "reality" youth show called Haath se Haath Milaa
· Chat Chowk, a weekly radio phone-in on personal health issues
· advertising spots running three times daily on both TV and radio for the ten months duration of the campaign.

The Rt. Hon. Clare Short MP, Secretary for the Department for International Development (DfID), Dr Quraishi from Doordarshan together with the BBC's Director-General Greg Dyke will launch the HIV/AIDS campaign in the UK in London today. The two year project is funded by DfID.

"I'm delighted that the BBC World Service Trust has been able to team up with Doordarshan, the National AIDS Control Organisation and DfID to bring this critical project to life," said Greg Dyke. "The continued spread of HIV/AIDS in India, could, if not curbed, lead to as many as 50 million cases - almost equivalent to the population of the United Kingdom. It is vital that this is not allowed to happen. I believe that the BBC's unrivalled expertise in programme-making channelled through the World Service Trust, working with Doordarshan and NACO, will deliver a campaign that will reach many millions of Indians to help to educate and inform them about HIV/AIDS. By doing this, we will really make a difference."

Dr.S.Y Quraishi, Director General, Doordarshan, who has guided the project since pre-production began at the start of 2002, said: "Doordarshan's growing partnership with the BBC is of great importance to us in India. We share the same values of public service broadcasting and there can be no more vital public service work than mounting a campaign like this to head off the threat of AIDS to our country's social and economic development."

The HIV/AIDS media campaign follows a successful World Service Trust campaign in India and Nepal to eliminate leprosy, which demonstrated the power of integrated media campaigns.

The campaign resulted in 200,000 people seeking treatment for leprosy and helped to dispel misconceptions about the disease.

More information on this campaign is available on http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/trust

BBC World Service Trust is a registered charity established in 1999 by BBC World Service. It promotes development through innovative use of the media in the developing world. The Trust presently works in 23 countries worldwide, tackling health, education and good governance.

The UK campaign launch is taking place on Tuesday 9 July at 3.30pm at the Commonwealth Club, London.

Gay Rights in Brazil

On April 27, 2002, at 1.30 pm, the President of Grupo Habeas Corpus Potiguar - a non-governmental organization working with lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender people, and sex workers - Jose Dantas, was interviewed by the TV program "Tropical Comunidade". An unidentified person phoned the station with a message for Mr. Dantas. He had better stop defending transvestites, it threatened: if not, "White Hand" might be back. "White Hand" was a death squad active in Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, some time ago. They targeted homosexuals, transvestites, Blacks and poor people. Often linked to Neo-Nazi groups, death squads are a constant danger in Brazil - they have been responsible for some murders, like that of bisexual city councilor Jose Renildo dos Santos (1999) or gay man Edson Neris da Silva (2000).

GHAP has been advocating for transvestites rights for some time, but their demands have grown more vocal in the last two weeks. On April 10, 2002, the Public Prosecutor Office and the city Police in Natal came to an agreement about prosecuting transvestites and sex workers who took off their clothes while working at Engenheiro Roberto Freire Avenue -in the area known as Ponta Negra street. Mr. Paulo Roberto Dantas de Souza Leao, head of the Office, explained that those actions were not intended to discriminate against transvestites or female sex workers but to answer complaints to his office and to the police station about nudity in the streets. Two new officers were assigned to the task of policing the area and arresting those transvestites or women who were showing off "their intimate parts".

GHAP considered the operative motivated by "the authorities' fake morality" and not by a genuine intention to fight against denounced obscene exhibitions. GHAP agrees with the Prosecutor Office that transvestites and sex workers should not take their clothes off to attract customers in the street. But the organization suggested that, instead of implementing a repressive operation carried by armed policemen, the Prosecutor Office should come together with social organizations working on the issue to provide orientation to transvestite sex workers. According to GHAP's President Jose Dantas, most transvestites working at Estrada de Ponta Negra are almost illiterate and are "cruelly" discriminated against at all levels. "To bring the police against them will be still another torture, and will not solve the problem", said Mr. Dantas.

Wilson Dantas (brother of Jose, and Event Coordinator for GHAP) denounced that transvestites at Ponta Negra are being victimized by people who pass by in their cars and throw stones and other objects at them. He also pointed out that transvestites are usually expelled from their homes at an early age and then "there are only three professions available to them: domestic servants, beauticians or sex workers". GHAP has submitted different projects to the city and state governments for education and work training of transvestites, to no avail. On the other hand, the Federal government has recently approved funds for a an educational program aimed at transvestites and coordinated by GHAP.

Jose Dantas also pointed out that there are "obscene exhibitions" happening at other areas in the city that go unnoticed because those who commit them are heterosexuals. He mentioned "Praia do Meio" and the statue of Iemanjá as two locations where people engage in masturbation and nudity, unmolested by the Prosecutor Office or the police.

GHAP has also documented the homophobia-motivated murders of some transvestites and gay men in the state of Rio Grande do Norte.

On May 2, 2002, GHAP will organize a Rally Against Homophobia and For the Human Rights of Homosexuals, in front of the Governor's offices. During the rally, GHAP will ask for a meeting with Governor Freire. The goals for that meeting are:

- To deliver a dossier on documented gay murder in the state
- To discuss public policies for gay inclusion in the job market
- To sign an agreement for providing human rights and sexual diversity training to civil and military police.
- To sign an agreement for a work-training project aimed at transvestites and sex workers

There is a relationship already established between Grupo Habeas Corpus Potiguar and some governmental agencies, in a common effort to promote visibility for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender people, as well as to protect some of their rights. For instance, the State Secretary of Health will financially support this year's Pride Parade, organized by GHAP. The Secretary is already funding three programs run by GHAP on health education and disease prevention.

Also, on April 25-26, 2002, GHAP organized the First Seminar on Human Rights and Citizenship for Gays, Lesbians and Transvestites, at the Natal City Council. Public officers, academics and activists spoke at the different panels. The Seminar was attended by 275 people and considered a success by the organizers.

In The Law

The Brazilian Constitution protects the right to equality before the law and affirms the rights to "life, freedom, equality, safety…" (Article 5). It also states that "any discrimination that attacks human rights and fundamental freedoms will be punishable by law (Article 5. 41). It also protects the rights to "health, education, work…"
(Article 6).

Right to equality and non discrimination is protected by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR, Articles 1,2 and 7), by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, Articles 2 and 26), by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, Article 2) and by the Interamerican Human Rights Convention (IHRC, Article 1.1 and 24).

Right to life is protected by the UDHR (Article 3), ICCPR (Article 6) and IHRC
(Article 4).

Right to be free from arbitrary arrest is protected by the UDHR (Article 9), ICCPR (Article 9) and IHRC (Article 7).

Right to work is protected by the UDHR (Article 23) and ICESC (Article 7)

Right to education is protected by the UDHR (Article 25) and ICESC (Article 13).

Source: International Union of Sexworker Projects

Researchers hail success of monkey HIV vaccine

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_597840.html?menu=

Wednesday 29th May 2002
Ananova

Researchers say trials of two vaccines against the monkey version of HIV
have been a success.

The team of Japanese and Thai health experts innoculated three monkeys
before infecting them with SIV. After several months, they found two of the monkeys had no detectable levels of the virus. The third monkey had low levels of the virus but did not develop further symptoms.

The Japan Times reports the team hopes to carry out clinical tests on people
infected with HIV and Aids as early as next year.

The two vaccines have been developed by the Thai public health institute and a group led by Mitsuo Honda of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. Researchers say they spliced HIV genes with tuberculosis vaccine BCG and a smallpox vaccine. They claim the vaccines boost the immune system and are free of risk.

They say the monkeys given no vaccine, or only one of the vaccines, had virus levels which couldn't be suppressed.

Source: Ananova

Carribean deal aims to cut the cost of treating AIDS

Several Caribbean countries and six leading pharmaceutical companies, GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-La Roche, Boerhinger Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck and Abbott Laboratories, are to sign an agreement today that will significantly reduce the cost of drugs for HIV/Aids patients in the region that has the world's second highest incidence of the disease after sub-Saharan Africa.

AIDS remains an elusive enemy

The FT comments on the recent hype over the apparent discovery of an Aids vaccine and says that scientific difficulties and commercial pressures are likely to delay the arrival of a vaccine.

Ex-Soviet Bloc faces AIDS on African scale

The Aids epidemic in the former Soviet Union, which is growing faster than anywhere in the world, threatens the same sort of devastation as in sub-Saharan Africa and could soon menace the rest of Europe, the International Aids Conference in Barcelona heard yesterdays.

Women hit hardest by spread of HIV

Men could outnumber women by two to one within a generation within parts of Africa as a high number fall victim to the Aids virus. Peter Piot, the executive director of Unaids, told the International aids Conference in Barcelona yesterday that the epidemic was having a devastating effect on women because of their biological vulnerability and social circumstances.

4million children are AIDS orphans, says report

The number of children orphaned by HIV/Aids has risen three-fold in six years to reach an all-time high of 13.4million. Many are growing old before their years, looking after younger siblings, working to earn money and sometimes living on the streets, a report by Unaids and UNICEF said yesterday. The investigation revealed that India has the largest number of Aids orphans of any country in the world, standing at 1.2m in 2001, and predicted to rise to rise to 2m in five years.

A new response is needed to the international AIDS crisis

In a letter to The Independent, Tony Baldry MP, comments in response to the devastating report from Unaids, which demonstrated the urgent need for a renewal of HIV/AIDS policies in both the developed and developing worlds. Saying it is the responsibility of richer countries to prevent HIV/Aids, as it is clear that the Global Health Fund isn't working.

HIV vaccine 'could be on market in five years'

A vaccine against Aids could be available within five years if it is shown to prevent HIV infection in at least a third of the people taking part in two clinical trials due to end next year, Vaxgen said yesterday. Vaxgen's vaccine is based on a genetically engineered HIV protein, called gp120, which the virus uses to break into human cells, where it takes over the genetic machinery to make copies of itself.

Cocktail therapy will never be a cure for AIDS

AIDS will remain intrinsically incurable unless there is a new approach to designing drugs, according to Robert Siliciano, Professor of Medicine at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. Professor Siliciano told the International Aids Conference that anti-retroviral drugs were good at controlling HIV, but they would never be capable of eliminating the virus from the body. Scientist must therefore rethink their approach, rather then tinkering with something that will never work.

New hope for those short of options

A new type of HIV drug developed by Roche, T-20, will bring new hope to hundreds of patients who no longer respond to standard treatments for the virus, scientists from Pujol Hospital, Barcelona said yesterday.

Brazil plans to help developing countries copy AIDS drugs

Brazil issued a new challenge to the pharmaceuticals industry yesterday when it announced a plan to help other developing countries build up their own manufacturing capacity to produce copies of Aids drugs. Brazil is the only developing country to provide expensive Aids drugs to people that need them and has reduced the cost of producing many of the treatments in state-owned laboratories and plants.

More gay and black officers for The Bill

The Bill is planning to recruit more black and gay police officers.
The show is also axing two of its regulars as part of a shake-up.
Suzanne Maddock, who plays WPC Rickman, and George Rossie, who is DC Lennox,
are both leaving Sun Hill.
Executive producer Paul Marquess told the Sunday Mirror: "The Bill is
fantastic but it has got a bit tired.
"It is not 'smelling true' of what it is like to be a copper in London.
"It needs to be less rarefied. There are not enough black, gay or lesbian
coppers."
Story filed: 09:01 Sunday 19th May 2002
SOURCE : Ananova:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_590867.html?menu=

Transsexual wins right to marry

By Ananova

Transsexual Christine Goodwin has won her battle in the European Court of Human Rights to be recognised as a woman and to marry under British law.

The judgment delivered in Strasbourg unanimously held that the UK's failure to recognise her new identity in law breached her rights to respect for private life and her right to marry under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Former bus driver Miss Goodwin, 64, who has lived full time as a woman since 1984 and had irreversible gender reassignment surgery in 1990, was awarded £14,685 for costs and expenses.

Ms Goodwin also complained that she could obtain a passport, driving licence and national insurance card in her new identity, but was refused a retirement pension at the age of 60 even though she had paid all her contributions because the law continued to treat her as a man.

She was also unable to bring proceedings against an employer for the sexual harassment she said she suffered during the early 1990s because the law, which has since been changed, treated her as a man.

Ms Goodwin's solicitor, Robin Lewis, said: "The court has said that the Government's stance falls far short of the standards for human dignity and human freedom in the 21st Century.

"Christine Goodwin's victory will be seen as a milestone on the road to change."

Copyright Ananova 2002 all rights reserved

UN soap opera fights HIV/AIDS

By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

The grave of Noah Meli, whose death starts the soap

The United Nations has turned to showbiz to spread warnings about HIV/AIDS in Africa. It has commissioned a soap opera, Heart and Soul, aimed at an audience of hundreds of millions of people.

The weekly drama will be broadcast on both television and radio.

It will also carry other UN messages, though its producers insist it is first and foremost entertainment.

Twenty-four UN agencies are supporting the soap, intended to address "the key development aspects of five broad themes".

Click here to watch an introduction to Heart and Soul.

As well as HIV/Aids, they are poverty reduction, environmental protection, governance and human rights, and gender.

High praise

Other supporters include the World Bank, the British Council, and the BBC.
The model for Heart and Soul is a South African soap, Soul City, on air since 1992. Research found that 95% of people exposed to it said they had learnt something, and knowledge about HIV transmission increased significantly among young people.

The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has called Heart and Soul "an excellent venture".

It starts with a run of three-minute pre-series "teasers" about Noah Meli, patriarch of one of the soap's families. He is dying of Aids, but will not admit it. The teasers go out daily during the World Cup, shot on the day of broadcast to make them as topical as possible.

The series itself starts in July with Noah's funeral, and to heighten interest the producers will place "obituaries" in mass-circulation newspapers.

The six programmes will be broadcast on radio in English and Kiswahili in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The TV programmes, broadcast simultaneously, will be transmitted in 22 countries by TV Africa, a private South African station. They will be in English, though there are plans for French and possibly Portuguese versions when Heart and Soul returns in December for another 12 weeks.

The project will cost more than $1m - enough to pay for a week's production of the BBC soap EastEnders. About a third has been raised, including $100,000 from the UK's Department for International Development.

Although the soap is set in no specific country, all the actors and scriptwriters are Kenyan.

Heart and Soul is the brainchild of Tore Brevik, former head of communications at the UN Environment Programme (Unep). He told BBC News Online: "I thought we should use the many very good African actors and musicians to give people messages to improve their lives, not bureaucrats in suits."

No preaching

"Getting all the UN agencies involved was like pulling teeth. I hope the programmes will be eye-openers, a spark to get people saying 'I never knew that'."

Matthew Robinson of the BBC, a seasoned drama director who calls himself "the pope of soap", leads the international consultants' team. He told BBC News Online: "This is meant to engage people. If the UN had wanted something totally message-based, I wouldn't have been interested.

"Sam Goldwyn once said: 'Films are for entertainment. Let Western Union deliver messages', and I agree. "That said, my own awareness of HIV/Aids has been sharpened and my conscience pricked."

Images courtesy of Matthew Robinson
Source: BBC News On-line Saturday 1st June 2002

AIDS2002: Sex Workers Protest 100% Condom Use Policy

AIDS2002 Conference
Barcelona, July 7-12, 2002

The Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) organised a demonstration outside the offices of UNAIDS on Thursday. NSWP was protesting the promotion of "100% condom use programmes" as a best practice. UNAIDS and other leading HIV institutions are promoting these as a "best practice". NSWP was formed in 1991 and since then has enabled sex workers and NGOs in more than 40 countries to share information, influence policy, and support the meaningful involvement of sex workers in programme-planning and policy-making processes in HIV prevention and care.

According to NSWP representatives, sex workers organisations have had no role in any aspect of developing these programmes and policies at local or international level.

According to Carole Jenkins, HIV Advisor to USAID, "the bottom line is that affected and vulnerable communities have to have a voice in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programmes. Practically speaking, when/if someone accuses a programme of abuse or misconduct, the only safeguard you have is the real and democratic participation of the affected communities."

According to NSWP, through these 100% condom use programmes, brothel owners "require" sex workers to use condoms and ensure that all their workers are identified, registered and present for mandatory STD testing. Condom training and information are meant to be available to women. These programmes don't work, NSWP says. They are leading to a range of human rights abuses such as women being taken to STD clinics under police "escort" and photos of women being displayed so that men can identify any woman who he alleges infected him or agreed to sex without a condom with him.

Typically, these programs are supervised by a local committee of "police military and local authorities." They send men to the brothels to pose as clients to try to entrap women into providing a service without a condom.

The women are meant to refuse to have sex with a client who doesn't want to use a condom and return his money to him, even if he has already had time with her (just because the client hasn't had penetrative sex, doesn't mean that the client isn't obliged to pay for time and attention).

Advocates of 100% condom use programmes claim that registration and mandatory testing empowers sex workers and improves their access to health care by compelling brothel owners to allow women to go for STI checks.

These programmes do not prevent clients who want high risk services from purchasing them, they just shift and hide the demand and supply of unprotected services.

Apart from the human rights violations associated with the 100% condom programme, there are a range of technical flaws that render it useless even from a purely public health perspective.

Safe sex is defined as penetrative sex with a condom, which ignores the crucial role of non-penetrative safe sex skills which don't require a condom. The supply and quality of condoms is not guaranteed and has often been totally inadequate in many places.

Sex workers usually still have to buy condoms, either at reasonable prices from condom social marketing companies or at exhorbitant prices from brothel keepers.
Where workers have rights employers are required to supply health and safety equipment from their profits. Sex workers with HIV are excluded from brothels and have no access to health care at all. The "evidence" that these programmes work is based on weak and seriously flawed monitoring and evaluation techniques.

All this has obvious origins in misogynist public health approaches. It is an attempt to find a way to reduce STI/HIV among female sex workers so they do not infect men without recognizing sex work as a legitimate occupation, and sex workers having full legal and civil rights. Only the full recognition of sex workers rights can lead to safe workplaces for commercial sex.

Sex workers demand the following:
1. An end to coercive, HIV and STD programmes like the 100% condom use
programme
2. An end to criminalisation, imprisonment and deportation of sex workers
with HIV and STDs
3. Access to free, quality condoms and water based lubricants
4. Empower sex workers, not those who exploit them
5. Support health and safety programmes for sex workers who are threatened
by the anti-trafficking and anti sex-work lobby
6. UNAIDS hold an international conference for sex workers with adequate
translation
7. Full recognition of sex workers' rights

A posting from SEX-WORK (sex-work@healthdev.net)

Trafficking in Sweden

A new crime will be introduced in the Swedish Penal Code 2002-07-01:
"Trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes". The purpose is to strengthen the criminal law protection against bordercrossing traffick with human beings for the purpose of subjecting the persons for sexual exploitation. The decision constitutes a first step in the direction towards an increased criminalisation of all forms of trafficking in human beings.

"A person who uses unlawful coercion, deception, or other improper means to recruit or transport a person from one country to another, for the purpose of subjecting that person to a crime according to chapter 6, § 1, 2, 3, 4, ( rape, sexual coercion, sexual exploitation and sexual exploiatation of a minor), made use of for casual sexual relations or otherwise made use of for sexual purposes, is sentenced for trafficking in
human beings for sexual sexual purposes to imprisonment for at lowest two years and at most ten years."

For trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes is also sentenced a person who recieves, transports or harbors a person who has arrived to a country under circumstances mentioned in the first part, if it occurs with use of the kind of improper means means and with the purpose stated there.

A person who commits a deed that is referred to in the first or second part, to a person that is not yet eighteen years of age, will be sentenced for trafficking in human beings for sexual purposes even if unlawful coercion, deception or other improper means are not being used.

If a crime that is being referred to in first-third parts is less severe, the sentence will be imprisonment for at most four years."

Source: EUROPAP Swedish Partner

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