Dr Kumar noted that 14 people on Cayman have been recorded with AIDS, which develops in HIV-positive individuals, when symptoms of the disease are manifested in the host.
According to the 2009 AIDS epidemic update in 2008, an estimated 240, 000 people were living with HIV in the Caribbean region, while an estimated 20, 000 people were newly infected and some 12,000 died of AIDS-related illnesses.
The report also suggests that the Caribbean has been more heavily affected by HIV than any region outside sub- Saharan Africa and has the second highest level of adult HIV prevalence.
Heterosexual transmission, often tied to sex work, is the main driver of HIV transmission in the region, the report noted, citing high HIV infection rates among sex workers — 27% in Guyana and 9% in Jamaica in 2005.

See the full article from “Cayman Net News”

I’m thinking a lot of things in fact. Yes, I’m from the next generation of women who were too young to remember when the murders actually took place, but I suppose I belong to the current generation of women who identify themselves with feminist politics and have heard from the foremothers of this movement in Canada about the significance of remembering the day, and to never forget it. They say, “Women Won’t Forget” on December 6th. But as a young, sex working, multiracial, bisexual, two-spirited, Aboriginal woman, I think that sometimes, especially at these December 6th type events, women DO forget a few things.
Sometimes women forget that as Aboriginal women, we are five times more likely to die of violence than any other race of women in Canada, and that women have been going missing and have been murdered in our communities by the thousands, for hundreds of years.
Women forget that while we show up to vigils and talk up a nice speech about some “poor prostitute” who died on the streets, we simultaneously judge, shun, and degrade current sex workers and speak against decriminalization – something that might actually help to protect us.

See the full article from “Rabble.ca”

Today the women’s movement in English Canada is a shadow of its former self and the women’s movement in Quebec is weaker too. I do not believe this has anything to do with the horror at Polytechnique but rather in part because of our success and the feeling of a younger generation that equality had been achieved and in part because of the impact of neo-liberalism and the individualism and consumerism that it promotes.
But while there is a societal consensus against male violence against women today, that violence goes on unabated particularly against marginalized women like those disappeared on the downtown east side in Vancouver or the hundreds of aboriginal women who are disappeared and murdered without much attention from police, or the virtual slavery of desperate women trafficked into prostitution on a global scale.

See the full article from “Rabble.ca”

7. Are any of your sexual activities against the law?
8. Have you made efforts to quit a type of sexual activity and failed?
9. Do you hide some of your sexual behaviours from others?
10. Do you feel controlled by your sexual desire?
11. Have important parts of your life (such as job, family, friends, leisure activities) been neglected because you were spending too much time on sex?
12. Is sex almost all you think about?
13. Do you spend too much time online for sexual purposes?
14. Have you felt degraded by your sexual behaviours?
15. Have you subscribed to or regularly purchased or rented sexually explicit materials (magazines, videos, books or online pornography)?
16. Have you spent considerable time and money on strip clubs, adult bookstores and movie houses?

See the full article from “Canada.com”

7. Are any of your sexual activities against the law?
8. Have you made efforts to quit a type of sexual activity and failed?
9. Do you hide some of your sexual behaviours from others?
10. Do you feel controlled by your sexual desire?
11. Have important parts of your life (such as job, family, friends, leisure activities) been neglected because you were spending too much time on sex?
12. Is sex almost all you think about?
13. Do you spend too much time online for sexual purposes?
14. Have you felt degraded by your sexual behaviours?
15. Have you subscribed to or regularly purchased or rented sexually explicit materials (magazines, videos, books or online pornography)?
16. Have you spent considerable time and money on strip clubs, adult bookstores and movie houses?

See the full article from “The Gazette (Montreal)”

The Dec. 6, 1989, tragedy spurred people across the world to call for action to counter violence against women, and led to an annual day to remember and honour the victims.
Local activities for the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women will be centred at the University of Victoria. Today, a gathering will be held from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the fountain outside the McPherson Library and the Mearns Centre for Learning.
Also, at 11:30 a.m. at the legislature minister Ida Chong will mark the anniversary on behalf of Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Kash Heed.
The UVic event will include presentations by Anissa St. Pierre of UVic’s Women in Engineering and Computer Science, graduate student Rebecca Taylor, Billy Bingaman from the Victoria Women’s Sexual Assault Centre and Tracie Fawkes from PEERS (Prostitutes Empowerment Education and Resource Society).

See the full article from “Victoria Times Colonist”

She said at least 70,000 of the city’s 500,000 residents are considered to be in a high-risk group for the disease.
Sri
said in the past, the red-light district had been concentrated in one
area. But, she said, new prostitution centers had recently sprouted up
across a broad area, such as a burgeoning red light district in the
northern part of the city, known as Jalak Alley in Gilingan.
Sri
said prostitution was rife across the city, with many places using
legitimate businesses as a front. She said many massage parlors,
billiard halls and brothels operating in private homes had cropped up.
Sri said the decentralized sex trade was far more difficult for
authorities to monitor and was a barrier for the city’s efforts, such
as ensuring condoms are readily available, to fight the spread of
HIV/AIDS.

See the full article from “Jakarta Globe”

Twenty years have passed since 14 women were killed by a gunman in the engineering department at Montreal’s école Polytechnique.
The Dec. 6, 1989, tragedy spurred people across the world to call for action to counter violence against women, and led to an annual day to remember and honour the victims.
Local activities for the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women will be centred at the University of Victoria. Today, a gathering will be held from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at the fountain outside the McPherson Library and the Mearns Centre for Learning.
The event will include presentations by Anissa St. Pierre of UVic’s Women in Engineering and Computer Science, graduate student Rebecca Taylor, Billy Bingaman from the Victoria Women’s Sexual Assault Centre and Tracie Fawkes from PEERS (Prostitutes Empowerment Education and Resource Society).

See the full article from “Victoria Times Colonist”

The number of new reported cases in 2007 and 2008 was 109 and 118, respectively. The Republican HIV/AIDS Prevention Center estimates, however, that the number of people with HIV/AIDS in Armenia could be as high as 2,800.
“Real World, Real People” NGO head Hovhannes Madoyan estimates that the number of officially reported cases has increased in the recent period because people leaving for migrant work in Russia are now required to pass a medical test for HIV/AIDS.
“HIV/AIDS treatment is available in Armenia, but its availability for high-risk groups is not provided. I don’t think the motto ‘Availability for all’, by which the world will be guided in the coming year can be translated into action in Armenia,” says Madoyan.
(Prostitutes, intravenous drug users, homosexuals, are traditionally considered to be HIV/AIDS risk groups.)

See the full article from “ArmeniaNow.com”

… In Jakarta, more than 200 female demonstrators urged the government to close down brothels and ban condoms, which they said encouraged ‘free sex and unhealthy behavior.’ One banner read, ‘Prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals are the agents of immorality,’ ” the report read.
The demonstrators also demanded that programs providing free condoms for male and female prostitutes be ended.
Let’s try to look at this from a logical point of view — Jakarta is becoming a modern metropolis, and more and more people of the younger generation are independent and free-spirited and don’t follow the same traditions or rules as their parents. In other words, sex before marriage is becoming more common, and this development seems to be a natural one and unlikely to stop.
…
Also, prostitution is one of the oldest industries in the world. Close down one brothel, and another will open a week later. I don’t support prostitution, but depriving sex workers of free condoms would just put them at higher risk of infection.

See the full article from “Jakarta Globe”