Aids In Jamaica-World Aids Day

Jamaica’s leading gay rights activist, was murdered in his home, his body mutilated by multiple knife wounds. Within an hour after his body was discovered, a Human Rights Watch researcher witnessed a crowd gathered outside the crime scene. A smiling man called out, “Battyman [homosexual] he get killed!” Many others celebrated Williamson’s murder, laughing and calling out, “let’s get them one at a time,” “that’s what you get for sin,” “let’s kill all of them.” Some sang “boom bye bye,” a line from a popular Jamaican song about killing and burning gay men.

The Aids epidemic in Jamaica is on the rise, primarily because of the silence. It has more to do with ignorance then anything else. Aids is not a "GAY DISEASE." It is a disease that can affect anyone, kids,women or men. With the rise of drugs in Jamaica, sharing the needle is also sharing the disease.

Because HIV/AIDS and homosexuality often are associate, people living with HIV/AIDS and organizations providing HIV/AIDS education and services have also been targeted. Both state and private actors join violent threats against gay men with threats against HIV/AIDS educators and people living with HIV/AIDS. In July 2004, for example, the Jamaican Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG) received an email threatening to gun down “gays and homosexuals” and “clean up” a group that provided HIV/AIDS education for youth. In a 2003 case, a police officer told a person living with HIV/AIDS that he must be homosexual and threatened to kill him if he did not “move [his] AIDS self from here.

In interviews with people living with HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch found that health workers often mistreated people living with HIV/AIDS, providing inadequate care and sometimes denying treatment altogether. Doctors failed to conduct adequate medical examinations of people living with HIV/AIDS, sometimes refusing even to touch them. And, in some cases, lack of treatment in the initial stages made it even less likely that people living with HIV/AIDS would receive health care services at a later date. Visible symptoms heightened the discrimination they faced, which in turn created further barriers to obtaining treatment. People suffering from visible HIV-related symptoms were sometimes denied passage on public and private transportation, making it difficult to obtain any medical care at facilities beyond walking distance.

People come and visit Jamaica and see the beauty of the island, while the truth remains hidden. The ugly side of hatred and fear borne from years of misconceptions and lies. Jamaica’s failure to take action to stop human rights abuses committed by state agents, to take measures to protect against abuses by state and private actors, and to ensure access to HIV/AIDS information and services to all Jamaicans violate its obligations as a state party to regional and international human rights treaties.