PHA-Exchange> U.S. drops requirement that overseas AIDS groups oppose sex work

[Claudio]

From: "Vern Weitzel" <vern.weitzel at 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
recipients 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 implemented a policy
forcing all recipients of U.S. AIDS funds, including
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 workers. 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 severely hampered their HIV prevention and
education work among sex workers, which typically have
some of the highest HIV prevalence 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 annual 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rescinded.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 signatures
"is not one I have seen and considered," and added
that his office does not intend to invoke such a
pledge in the future. It was unclear, however, whether
other HHS or Bush administration officials would
attempt to resurrect the sex-work pledge for Global
AIDS Fund grant recipients.

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