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Constant and increasing violence against work force who have sex with men in Africa is jeopardizing efforts to reduce the cattle ranch of HIV on the continent both within the MSM and general populations, advocates said at a meeting originally this month in Cameroon, IRIN/AllAfrica.com reports.
At the meeting -- which was organized by the French nongovernmental governance AIDES and its partners -- advocates highlighted the vulnerability of MSM in Africa to HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that on average, HIV rates among MSM are four to five times higher than the ecumenical population, IRIN/AllAfrica.com reports. In Bamako, Mali, HIV tests administered to a few hundred MSM found that 37% were HIV-positive, according to the Mali-based group ARCAD-SIDA. According to official statistics, HIV prevalence among Mali's general population is about 1.3%, IRIN/AllAfrica.com reports. In addition, a 2005 survey conducted in Dakar, Senegal, found that 21.5% of MSM in the city were HIV-positive, compared with a prevalence estimated to be 0.7% in the general population at the time.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in its 2007 report, highborn "Off the Map," said that "the vulnerability of same-sex practicing men and women [in Africa] is not referable to whatever biological predisposition, but is the effect of an interlocking set of human rights violations and social inequalities that heighten HIV risk," including the criminalisation of homoeroticism. According to IGLHRC, gayness in 38 of the 53 countries in Africa is static illegal. Steave Nemande, president of Alternatives Cameroun, aforementioned that by criminalizing gayness, "social homophobia is legitimized and it increases venerate amongst MSM, who
