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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 12, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| January 12, 2004 |
HIV/AIDS Medical Discrimination in Japan and Africa –
Ryuhei Kawada and Machingura |
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| (From left) Ryuhei Kawada and Machingura |
Despite coming from different backgrounds, both Ryuhei Kawada from Japan and Machingura from southern Africa work passionately for a common cause - to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Mr. Kawada from non-governmental organization 'Human Rights Activist' joined the ship from Tokyo to Mumbai to support Peace Boat's participation at the World Social Forum 2004. As a university lecturer and human rights activist, he works to fight against all forms of discrimination in Japanese society. Mr Kawada was born with haemophilia, and at the age of ten was infected with HIV by a transfusion of unheated blood products which were contaminated with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He is not alone, 2,000 other haemophiliacs (40 percent of all the haemophiliacs in Japan) were infected this way. Mr Kawada became well-known in Japan in 1995 after he publicly disclosed his HIV positive status as part of his bid to bring a class-action lawsuit against the Health and Welfare Ministry. On January 12 of this year, Mr Kawada celebrated his 28th birthday by holding a dialogue titled "AIDS Medical Discrimination in Japan and Africa" with fellow activist Machingura.
Machingura also joined Peace Boat from Tokyo to Mumbai as a member of the "Artist Ambassadors Project" - an idea that was born from Peace Boat's visit to San Francisco in December 2003. Hailing from Zimbabwe, Machingura uses his passion for music as a driving force and a vehicle to pursue his cause of HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy, working for a non-governmental organization called Health Gap. In addition to pressuring the U.S. government for easier access to treatment for HIV/AIDS patients at home, his organization is engaged in international corporation with NGOs in African countries. As he repeatedly emphasizes, Africa is the "epicenter" of the worldwide HIV/AIDS crisis and 70 percent of all the HIV positives in the world live in the sub-Saharan Africa. In his home country Zimbabwe, 25 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 44 are infected, yet few have access to treatment.
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| Machingura and the Peace Gang choir |
In their dialogue, Kawada and Machingura talked about the realities of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Japan and Africa, and their campaign work, giving examples of what can be done by governments and individuals to alleviate the suffering caused by the epidemic. To answer the question of whether there are any success stories in terms of struggle to increase patients' access to treatment, Machingura introduced South Africa and Brazil, countries where the respective governments have taken action to provide treatment plans and generic medicines for reasonable prices or even free of charge. Both of them emphasized that governments, especially in the North, must cut their political ties with powerful pharmaceutical companies to break the international monopoly over anti-retroviral medicines.
Education was another focus of the talk. Since, in many countries, there is a reluctance to talk about the disease and sex openly, myths around HIV/AIDS are widespread, which contributes to discrimination against people with HIV. The tendency to think of HIV/AIDS as a problem for homosexuals, those who have multiple sex partners, and people with certain diseases such as haemophilia, hinders our ability to fight against HIV/AIDS.
Machingura, who raised the idea of starting a fundraising campaign for donations to be given to the Peace Boat's partner organizations in South Africa, stressed his belief that "an injury to one is injury to all". This is how we must perceive the HIV/AIDS issue and we must create a society where we can talk freely about HIV/AIDS, sex, and who we are without fear or prejudice. In closing, Machingura and the Peace Gang choir performed their original piece "Act Up, Fight Back!!" |
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