Japan: AIDS Forum Calls for Greater Dignity for Victims

Experts at a recent symposium in Kobe, Japan, called for renewed efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and safeguard the rights of patients. At the Nov. 29 symposium, sponsored by the Yomiuri Shimbun in Osaka and the World Health Organization Center for Health Development in Kobe, speakers discussed new ways to prevent the spread of HIV and protect the rights and dignity of AIDS patients.

Tadao Shimao, director of the Japanese Foundation for AIDS Prevention in Tokyo, said AIDS patients are subjected to discrimination in the same way TB patients once were due to widespread ignorance about the disease. Michael Kirby, an Australian High Court judge and chair of the UNAIDS Expert Panel on HIV Testing of UN Peacekeepers, said treating people with dignity who are HIV-positive or considered most at risk -- particularly homosexuals, prostitutes and intravenous drug users -- was far more effective than simply cutting them off from the wider community. He said changing public attitudes was the only way to create the conditions in which HIV-positive people could lead full lives and others would feel able to get tested.

Masayoshi Tarui, a professor in the philosophy department of Keio University, said: "Fear and prejudice over HIV/AIDS means people are reluctant to get tested, so the progress of the disease cannot be checked. Those who are unaware they are infected may pass the virus on. This is neither effective nor ethical."

Open discussion of HIV/AIDS has been hampered by its association with sexual behavior. Chizuko Ikegami, executive director of Positive Living and Community Empowerment, Tokyo, said women's lower cultural and social positions made condom use less likely. In a recent survey she conducted of 276 Japanese women ages 18 to 25, 38 percent said they regularly used condoms, while 30 percent seldom do. "Their partners are reluctant to wear condoms, so they end up not using them," Ikegami said. "We have to send the message that responsible adults should take control of their sexual health."

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