AIDS Update, Volume 5, Number 7, July 1990 Page: 2
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Page 2 AIDS Update July 1990
FRENCH FAVOR LEGAL
BROTHELS TO PREVENT AIDSPREJUDICE - A WORLDWIDE
PHENOMENONBy David Crary
Associated Press Writer from AIDS
Infromation Exchange
A former health minister has called for
the legalization of brothels to help fight
AIDS, and a poll made public on June 9-
suggested most French people think it's
a good idea.
Condemnations have come from across
the political spectrum, including women's
rights advocates who say lifting the 44-
year ban on brothels would amount to
state-sanctioned slavery.
But a Louis Harris poll indicated strong
public support for the suggestion by the
former health minister, Michele Barzach,
one of the few women with a high profile
in French national politics.
Of the 1,008 people surveyed, 80 percent
said reopening brothels would help control
AIDS by allowing closer medical
supervision of prostitutes, according to
the poll.
According to unofficial estimates, France
has 75,000 to 90,000 full- or part-time
prostitutes.
About 10,500 cases of AIDS have been
recorded in France since 1982.
Ms. Barzach, a 46-year-old gynecologist,
was health minister from 1986 to 1988 in
the conservative government of Premier
Jacques Chirac, and many of her policies
stirred controversy.
During her tenure, she helped launch
campaigns to reduce tobacco and alcohol
consumption, denounced surrogate
motherhood, cut back on state-paid
medical benefits and led a campaignThe Dallas County Health
Department has announced that the
Men's Cohort Study recently attained its
original goal of one thousand participants.
Because of the usefulness of the data
collected, the Centers for Disease
Control, which funds the study, has
decided to expand the recruitment effort
to reach two thousand participants.
The Men's Cohort Study is a research
project for men who have had sex with
other men. Both men who have been
tested and men who have not been
tested for HIV are encouraged to join the
study. The HIV status of participants is
not relevant to joining.against AIDS that included scrapping a
ban on condom advertisements.
The current furor was set off by an
interview published Thursday in the
newspaper Le Monde, in which Ms.
Barzach discussed the AIDS threat.
"The current situation is unacceptable
and frightening," she said. "It's necessary
to reopen the licensed brothels. Let's
install a genuine health system."
Licensed brothels were shut down on
April 13, 1946, under the "Marthe Richard
law," named for its legislative sponsor, a
World War I spy and World War II
resistance member.
Ms. Barzach now is a deputy to Chirac,
mayor of Paris. He took pains Friday to
say the brothel proposal was only her
personal opinion - not a position of
their Rally for the Republic party.
Within the ranks of the governing
Socialists, reactions varied from cautious
to caustic.
Michele Andre, secretary of state for
women's rights, said she was "deeply
offended" by the proposal to "lock up
women and use them as merchandise."
Health Minster Claude Evin said the
problem of acquired immune deficiency
syndrome extended far beyond
prostitutes and homosexuals, but added:
"I am ready to consider anything that
would help stop the spread of AIDS."
French police officials in the past have
expressed support for relegalizing
brothels, but they made no formal
endorsement of Ms. Barzach's
suggestion. VThe study is anonymous and confidential
and provides access to counseling
services and free HIV antibody testing
every six months. Previous participants
are invited to rejoin the Men's Cohort
Study. For information, call 920-7616. V
r-'-
Do not ingest semen in any form.
Do not fuck without a condom.
Avoid oral-anal contact.
Do not swallow urine.by Roberta Cohen & Laurie S.
Wiseberg
Reprinted from Double Jeopardy - Threat
to Life and Human Rights: Discrimination
Against Persons with AIDS
Soviet Union: A member of the Academy
of Sciences described how the individual
with AIDS "finds himself alone, deprived
of public compassion and support - not
a patient, but an outcast. Long-
established discriminative attitudes
remain unshaken," he said. When AIDS
broke out in Elista in 1988, persons from
the city were shunned and cars stoned
when venturing outside the city. (Danish
Center of Human Rights [DCHR] 1988;
Washington Post, Jan. 11, 1990)
Romania: Under Ceausescu, where
homosexuality was a crime punishable
by up to five years in prison, police
arrested and beat up homosexuals
following the discovery of AIDS in the
country. Although most of the AIDS
cases did not involve homosexuals, the
police in October 1988 raided the town
of Arad, arrested 60 homosexuals, and
beat up several of them in order to
extract information about other
homosexuals. (Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, Vol. 14, No. 24, Part 4, June 16,
1989)
German Democratic Republic: An
East German AIDS expert working in
Sweden declared that AIDS was "nature's
revenge for overstepping moral and
biological boundaries." (DCHR 1988)
South Africa: Foreign Minister Pik
Botha used fear of AIDS to stigmatize
and smear opponents of the government.
According to a leading South African
newspaper, Botha asserted that
members of the African National
Congress were doubly dangerous
because they carried both deadly
weapons and AIDS bombs in their bodies.
(Cape Times, March 21, 1987)
Nigeria: Public health officials admitted
that up to 12 persons who had
"disappeared" in Lagos were in fact killed
because they had AIDS. (Anonymous
source)
liberia: A newspaper article described
the pariah status of a woman who
contracted AIDS and died in Freetown.
Marianna Sannoh "was abandoned by
her parents, relatives, and friends." While
at the Bo Government hospital,
"thousands of people converged...to
catch a glimpse of her" and had to be
constrained by the police. Because of
the crowds, she "was removed to an
unidentified area where she remained
until her death." She was buried as "a
pauper," abandoned by everyone.
(Richard Margao, "Panic In Bo...,"Tolongbo, Freetown, February 18,1988)
Botswana: An HIV-positive woman
wrote a play "from her own personal
experiences in which she described the
pain of losing a job, losing her friends,
and finding that even her daughter had
been rejected by playmates."
(Ecumenical Documentation &
Information Center of Eastern & Southern
Africa [EDICESA], Document No. 14,
September 1989)
Zimbabwe: At a seminar on AIDS in
Harare, it was suggested that all HIV-
positive individuals be identified on
television, so that the public could avoid
them. (EDICESA, Document No. 14,
September 1989)
Uganda: When a group of local
businessmen, also known to be
smugglers, died of AIDS, people believed
they were being punished for their ill
deeds. There was little compassion or
caring for them in the fishing village of
Kasensaro on Lake Victoria. It was not
until the disease had spread to other
people and areas that attitudes began to
change, observed the head of Uganda's
AIDS control program, Dr. S.I. Okware.
Nonetheless, social stigmatization and
ostracism of persons [living] with AIDS
is reportedly still widespread in Uganda,
and some families have felt pressured
into rejecting their sick members. In
other parts of East Africa as well, families
with AIDS patients have found
themselves shunned in church or at
communal watering areas. (New York
Times, June 3, 1987; Panos 1990)
Ghana: Among the Krobo people, heavily
hit by AIDS, prostitutes were blamed
and vilified for casting spells that spread
the disease. (EDICESA, Document No.
14, September 1989)
Malaysia: The family of a seven-year-
old boy who contracted AIDS was
ostracized by everyone in their [sic]
village. (Panos, WordADS, No. 1,
January 1989)
India: In Calcutta, in 1989, a blood
donor, Swapan Ganguly, was kept in
solitary confinement in a prison after it
was erroneously reported that he was
HIV-positive. The rationale for his
confinement was "the law and order
situation" in Ganguly's neighborhood
should he be released. The newspapers
printed his name and picture, and
neighbors' threats obliged his parents,
wife, and son to leave the area. (The
Lawyers Collective, Bombay, October
1989)
USA: In Arcadia, Florida, in 1987, the
homeof three HIV-infected hemophiliac
Continued on Page 22.COHORT STUDY ATTAINS
GOAL AND EXPANDS
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AIDS Resource Center (Dallas, Tex.). AIDS Update, Volume 5, Number 7, July 1990, periodical, January 1990; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1584326/m1/4/?q=%22%5B1990..%5D%22: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.