This tension was highlighted in report released by UNAIDS last year that found that two-thirds of HIV-infected people in China have not sought treatment because of fear, ignorance and discrimination. UNAIDS’ director, Michel Sidibe, said then that China needed to “break the conspiracy of silence” surrounding HIV/AIDS.

But clearly, it is not just the Chinese government that needs to break the conspiracy of silence; it is also the international donor community. It would be wise to listen to what inmates at any of the approximately 700 compulsory drug detention centers in China have to say.

Human Rights Watch’s research has found that the roughly 500,000 people at these centers are routinely beaten, forced to work for up to 18 hours a day without pay, have no access to drug dependency treatment and are denied even basic medical care. Under China’s 2008 anti-drug law, drug users, even first-time users, are locked up for three to six years, without trial, in “treatment” centers that have a relapse rate of as high as 90%. Our research found that some detention center guards provided drugs to “patients”; and one guard admitted using the mandatory HIV test results to determine which female drug users to have sex with.

The Global Fund, as part of its more than $1 billion in HIV funding to the Chinese government, supports a variety of programs in these centers, including “provider-initiated” HIV testing and training of detention center staff members. The United States supports similar programs in China and Vietnam, without any, as one senior U.S. official admitted, “rules of engagement.” United Nations agencies, such as UNICEF and UNODC, have also funded programs in detention centers in the region.

© Paulina Hartono for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Gao Yaojie, HIV/AIDS, Hu Jia, Wan Yanhai
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China’s fight against AIDS has made progress but suffers from public stigma and a lack of transparency among local governments, a top United Nations health official said in Beijing.

Peter Piot, director of the UNAIDS agency, spoke at a July 17 ceremony where he presented an award to Beijing’s vice minister of health, Dr. Wang Longde, for spearheading a government response to AIDS. He also honored Professor Zhang Beichuan of Qingdao University for his work in raising HIV awareness among homosexual men. Earlier, Piot had visited Henan Province, an area deeply affected by AIDS due to illegal blood collection and home to the famous activist Dr. Gao Yaojie . He met HIV-infected patients and their families, AIDS experts, and officials from the central and local governments. [Full Text]

© Kate Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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- See also “Video: Gao Yaojie, the AIDS Fighters” via CDT: video 1, video 2, video 3, video 4.

© Sophia Cao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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A prominent critic of the Chinese government’s record fighting HIV/Aids is being harassed by the authorities weeks after receiving a major award.

Dr Gao Yaojie exposed a 1990s blood transfusion scandal that infected thousands of people in Henan province.

She was recently recognised for her work by a charity in New York, Vital Voices, sponsored by Hilary Clinton. In the run-up to the event, she was prevented from applying for a visa, and in effect put under house arrest.[Full Text]

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“I am very concerned that the authorities will find new ways to keep me down, when I return. I am particularly worried about my family. Both mine and my son’s e-mail accounts have been closed. I want to publish two books. One is a manuscript that I gave to a publisher in 2004, which has been dragging its feet ever since. Now the material is out of date, so I must update it and reorganize it. That book is called “AIDS Orphans”. Another book is called “10 years in AIDS prevention”. The editor who was supposed to publish that was fired because of it and took it away with him to Guangzhou. So neither book has been published.” “The government-run blood-banks are closed. But not only have the black market blood-banks not closed, they are on the increase again. 25 counties in Guizhou alone are engaged in blood-selling. Recently they discovered some people in Guangzhou who had been selling their blood for 10 years; from midnight to 6 a.m.” [Full Text]

- See also “Meeting between Hillary Clinton and AIDS crusader Gao Yaojie makes the front page at Southern Metropolis Daily” from China Media Project.

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Last month, at the Chinese New Year, officials from China’s central Henan province showed up at the door of Gao Yaojie, an 80-year-old retired obstetrician, blogger and AIDS activist. Previously, provincial officials had come to the house only to harass Gao, who was under house arrest. But this time, on Feb. 17, they came bearing gifts — flowers, balloons and a huge vase.

The provincial officials’ turnaround was a result of international pressure; Gao was told she would be permitted to travel to Washington to receive the Vital Voices Global Leadership Award, which was presented to her here last night.

Gao, a diminutive woman with feet tiny from having been bound when she was a child, has been credited with saving a million lives, if not more, according to public health specialists here. In the mid-1990s, she single-handedly led a crusade that exposed a catastrophic blood plasma donor business that had triggered an HIV/AIDS epidemic in Henan province. [Full Text]

A US based Chinese news website duowei.com published a lengthy interview with Gao Yaojie, entitled “I am a failed person.” See the video on Youtube (in Chinese.)

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Translator’s note:

Dr. Gao Yaojie will receive a Global Leadership Award from Vital Voices on March 14 at the Kennedy Center.

Last night I ran across a March 6, 2007 newspaper article discussing Dr. Gao’s current campaign about exposing and stopping unsafe blood collection and transfusion practices. Dr. Gao is best known for exposing the HIV epidemic in Henan and other provinces and for helping AIDS orphans. Now she is very concerned about many recent cases of people getting HIV from blood transfusions in Henan Province.

She has been collecting cases about these infections and their spread. She has linked 40 cases of HIV/AIDS to one hospital in central Henan and has been collecting information about a cluster of cases at two other Henan hospitals and reports of other cases around the province. Dr. Gao has been describing these cases on her blog, using pseudonyms for the AIDS patients. She finds that listing case after case after case will prove that she is not exaggerating that blood borne spread of HIV/AIDS remains a problem in Henan. It is for this work compiling and publicizing these cases on her blog that resulted in her recent soft arrest/home detention in Zengzhou, Henan.

(...)
Read the rest of Gao Yaojie is Not Sensationalizing the Problem – Yan Lieshan (China Business Herald) (1,535 words)

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
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A 79-year-old prominent Chinese AIDS activist is to fly to the United States as early as Sunday to receive a human rights award after she was freed from house arrest thanks to U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Gao Yaojie is to receive the Vital Voices Global Women’s Leadership Award for Human Rights in Washington in March for helping bring to light official complicity in the spread of AIDS in her home province Henan in central China, where thousands of poor farmers sold blood in the 1990s and have been infected. To prevent her from going and embarrassing China, police in Zhengzhou, provincial capital of Henan, placed Gao under house arrest on Feb. 1. The move sparked an international outcry. Henan authorities relented and freed her on Feb. 16, days after Clinton, a Democratic presidential-hopeful, wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Vice Premier Wu Yi, urging them to intervene and let Gao leave for the United States.[Full Text]

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Re “China Covers Up AIDS Doctor’s Detention” and “China Relents, Allowing AIDS Doctor to Visit U.S.” (news articles, Feb. 16 and 17):

Dr. Gao Yaojie has long worked for H.I.V./AIDS prevention, treatment and assistance in China. Her services and achievements have won full acknowledgment from the Chinese government and people.

The allegation that Dr. Gao was “under house arrest” is totally irresponsible. As for Dr. Gao coming to the United States to accept the relevant award, the Chinese government fully respects her personal will.

Chu Maoming

Press Counselor and Spokesman

Embassy of China

[Full Text]

- Related report China Covers Up Detention of AIDS Doctor from The New York Times

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Hu Jia (ËÉ°‰??), an AIDS activist, reported that Gao Yaojie arrived in Beijing yesterday (Feb. 22) afternoon. Hu and his wife Zeng Jinyan picked her up at the airport.

Last night, Professor Gao met with Shu Haiyun, secretary of the Politics Department of the German Embassy. When Gao was confined at home, the German Embassy expressed their concern. At 8 pm last night, Wang Longde (ÁéãÈôáÂæ?) Vice Minister of Health, and Hao Yang (ÈÉùÈò?), head of Disease Control Section of the Ministry of Health, paid Professor Gao a visit in her hotel room, on behalf of Vice Premier Wu Yi. The three talked for 90 minutes with harmony and honesty. Wang said he is willing to obtain true information from the grassroots from Professor Gao.

Professor Gao will go to apply for the visa at the US Embassy today at 3:30pm.

-Click here for the original news (in Chinese)

- Click here to listen the phone conversation between AIDS activist Hu Jia and Gao Yaojie on 20:02 Feb. 17, 2007, via Boxun.com. (in Chinese)

(Photo: Gao with Wang Longde, Vice Minister of Health, and Hao Yang, head of Disease Control Section of the Ministry of Health)

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