This week I saw a provocative ad at a bus stop in my Washington, DC neighborhood. A picture of George W. Bush gazing out an airplane window alongside a battered piece of cardboard with “AIDS is DC’s Katrina” scrawled across it. The ad is intended to prod President Obama to act on AIDS, specifically in DC where HIV prevalence rates are at least 3% (higher than in Lagos, Nigeria). This video reinforces the message that “56,000 new US infections each year symbolize neglect and indifference.” Race played a critical role in the devastation in New Orleans and it is a central factor in the HIV epidemic in the US. African-Americans make up 12% of the population yet account for more than 45% of new infections and 46% of people currently living with HIV. AIDS is currently the leading cause of death for Black women ages 25 to 34. On March 10th –National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day – set your phone or computer to alert you every 35 minutes. This is how often an American woman tests positive for HIV. Hurricane Katrina illustrated that natural disasters are neither gender- nor color-blind. The same is true of HIV/AIDS.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation Ad Campaign

In honor of Valentine’s Day I attended a benefit production of Eve Ensler’s award-winning play The Vagina Monologues. This year the V-day global campaign focus is “Stop Raping our Greatest Resource: Power to Women in the DRC.” Over 5.4 million people have died in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since 1998 – currently 45,000 people die each month. Thousands of women experience brutal sexual violence on a daily basis. Thankfully journalists like Nicholas Kristof are keeping the DRC in the news – most recently with this moving video of a Message for President Obama. However, as one Congolese woman says, “we speak but nothing changes.” The Enough Project highlights how our demand for conflict minerals – the material in the cellphone in your pocket – fuels this deadly war. Congolese women and men risk their lives so we can talk on our cellphones, check our email and update our Facebook status. What will we do for them?

When this woman would not be quiet in the face of her perpetrators, they shot her three times. Photo credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The rights of those serving within the ranks of the U.S. military (or employed by its contractors) made the news this week. On Monday, the 2011 Defense budget proposal was released and included prohibitions against defense contracts with companies that deny court hearings for sexual assault victims. The prohibitions mirror Sen. Al Franken’s Anti-Rape Amendment, which was adopted in December in spite of opposition from the Defense Department. On Tuesday, during a Senate hearing top U.S. military officers endorsed the gradual repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” the policy which “forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.” Controversial statements by Sen. John McCain speak to some of the issues at hand: “Many gay and lesbian Americans are serving admirably in our Armed forces, even giving their Lives so that we and others can know the blessings of peace…{this is} military life which is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs and traditions.” How much longer will the U.S. military exempt itself from the very values that it purports to defend?

Photo Credit: Johnny Symons, Ask Not

My thoughts and prayers are with the millions of people impacted by the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday January 13. Print and online media is awash with stories and images of “one of the worst ever natural disasters in the western hemisphere.” No matter how many articles I read or how much live footage I watch the utter devastation, pain, and suffering are difficult to comprehend.

Amidst the endless stream of information detailing the destruction and tireless relief efforts there is also a plethora of suggestions of how and where to send donations, including information about the largest text-based fundraising campaign in history. As with most life-threatening emergencies there has been an immediate outpouring of support (an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review discusses why sudden crises pull heartstrings and loosen purse strings more than persistent, chronic conditions).

The media coverage is focused, in large part, on the current conditions, with only occasional reference to the historical and structural injustices that magnified the earthquake’s devastating impact. A provocative audio slideshow, published online in the July 2009 issue of Guernica Magazine, captures the reality that the current devastation is best understood as the manmade outcome of a long and ugly historical sequence. A May 2009 Times of London article points to the degree to which Haiti’s status as the poorest country in the western hemisphere – mired in historic debt, stricken by flood and famine, and rife with violence and abuse – was simply accepted.

It is critical that the international community confronts these historical and structural injustices as it considers the help that Haiti needs. An online post in Foreign Policy magazine calls on the international community to cancel Haiti’s debt. The Association for Women’s Rights in Development highlights the specific experiences and needs of Haitian women during this humanitarian catastrophe. If we are serious about Haiti’s recovery, we need to be as committed to addressing the country’s systematic injustices and inequalities as we are to emergency relief.

An article in January 4th’s New York Times presents Uganda as the epicenter of the debate on homosexuality in Africa, with American groups on both sides – the Christian right and gay activists – directing support and money to the country. This article comes in the wake of the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill which mandates death for homosexuals, and the imprisonment of anyone who fails to report within 24 hours the identities of everyone they know who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, or who supports human rights for people who are. Since the bill was first introduced on October 14 there has been widespread debate about the role that American evangelicals played in its drafting, and the influence they wield in the general debate over homosexuality in Africa. A recent report by Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals, argues that conservative evangelicals have been immensely successful in depicting the movement for gay equality as the neocolonialist agenda of an imperial West that seeks to undermine African values. Religious and political leaders quote American evangelicals like Rick Warren – saying that “homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right” – to justify discriminatory policies and practices. Warren only recently publicly condemned the proposed legislation through an “encylical video” to the Pastors of Uganda. Meanwhile, on December 16 the BBC launched an online debate: “Should homosexuals face execution?” A senior BBC executive later apologized for treating the execution of gays as a legitimate topic for debate. Personally, as I attempt to discern the growing number of voices in the current debate over gay rights in Uganda, and Africa more broadly, I am particularly struck by this New York Times quote by a gay man at a club in Uganda: “It’s not homosexuality that it is imported. It’s homophobia.”

(Photo credit: Marc Hofer for The New York Times)

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and women’s right advocate Shirin Ebadi released a statement on December 29th declaring: ”my sister Dr. Noushin Ebadi who is a Medical lecturer at Azad University of Tehran was detained by four officers from the counter-intelligence agency of Islamic Republic of Iran.” Dr. Noushin Ebadi is not politically active nor is she a member of any human rights organizations. Her only crime seems to be that she is Shirin Ebadi’s sister. This attempt to silence an internationally-known human rights activist by targeting an innocent family member comes amidst violent crackdowns on protesters and opposition figures in Iran. Several hundred people were arrested following protests during last Sunday’s holy day of Ashura, and at least eight killed. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Reporters Without Borders have up to date information about the systematic clampdown on human rights activists and journalists in Iran. The Feminist School highlights the targeted harassment and arrest of women’s rights activists.