WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-12-01 Time: 01:00:05 Posted By: News Poster
By Asunta Wagura
Nairobi – Today (Wednesday) is World AIDS Day. The theme is “Universal Access and Human Rights”. Global leaders have pledged to work towards universal access to HIV and Aids treatment, prevention and care, recognising these as fundamental human rights.
Valuable progress has been made in increasing access to HIV and Aids services, yet greater commitment is needed around the world if the goal of universal access is to be achieved.
The protection of human rights is fundamental to combating the global HIV and Aids epidemic. By promoting individual human rights, new infections can be prevented and people who have HIV can live free from discrimination.
I always say that promoting individual human rights is one thing; changing deeply-entrenched social constructs is another thing altogether. I’m not a party-pooper, but the former can take a day in the office, while the latter can take a term in office.
I’m passionate about access to treatment and human rights because, in a nutshell, this theme forms the basis of what I have been advocating for the past two decades. For starters, it is access to care and treatment that has given me longevity and allowed me to outlive some of my peers.
I remember in the early days when HIV infection was akin to a death sentence because people did not know where to start a treatment plan, if there even was one.
Treatment involved shooting aimless darts, “guesstimating”, and trying anything that anybody swore would kill the virus in our bodies. I remember one time someone told us that drinking the urine that one passes first thing in the morning, for seven days, would kill the virus.
From where I was standing, it looked sensible. Why not? Sure enough, for the next seven days my breakfast consisted of a waste product that is secreted by the kidneys and discharged through the urethra! Those were desperate times and they called for desperate measures.
I am sober to the fact that, even today, there are some people living with HIV who cannot access treatment and have to make do with, well, nothing. We are still a long way from reaching the goal of providing treatment to all the people who need it at the right time because with HIV, time is of the essence.
That’s why it’s time for each one of us – – because we’re all affected – – to picket the government and urge it to keep its promise of providing access to care and treatment. It’s not a favour; it’s a basic human right.
The other thing that is close to my heart is the issue of human rights. There’s a general thinking that, with awareness having touched almost all corners of our country, things like stigma and discrimination are behind us.
But I have been to some parts of our country, and even neighbouring countries, where there still are misconceptions about HIV.
I am marching on to the future because I can’t go on living in a past that was filled with stigma and discrimination. After HIV infection, stigma and discrimination were the two worst things that happened to me, and made me feel less of a human being.
Some of the things that were done to me killed me, and the years that followed I was a living dead, even though I tried to put on a façade.
Each time I come across stigma, whether it’s directed at me or at another person, I have to pinch myself because I can’t believe that this is still happening. Not in 2010. Not now when, in almost every corner, there’s a positive message that’s supposed to kill the negativity.
That’s why today it’s incumbent upon all of us, HIV-positive and negative, to promote individual human rights; to let the infected and affected know that, as Dr Martin Luther King once said, “We are saying that we are God’s children. And that we don’t have to live like we are forced to live.”
This World Aids Day, universal access and human rights starts with me, because – – although I’m on treatment and I can’t remember the last time my human rights were violated because of my HIV status – – I know where the stiletto pinches because I have worn it for the past two decades.
And it starts with me, not just pinning the red ribbon on my lapel, but pinning the notice on every available space to tell our leaders, and whoever else cares about this cause, that we need change as soon as yesterday.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 30 November 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201012010132.html?viewall=1