Inter Press Service - July 5, 2005
Suvendrini Kakuchi

"The class is very important to my life," she says in an interview on the sidelines of the Seventh International Congress on HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), which ended Tuesday.

Spiritual guidance has helped her to better accept her HIV status and nurtured her ability to help others as well, Samaj explains.

Sarkar Amitava, an Indian transgender with Saathi, a grassroots organisation that advocates better acceptance of transsexuals, says that many people with HIV find shelter in religion because it is not just a health problem but a social disease.

"Religion provides solace for us and I want religious leaders to play a more active role in promoting acceptance," says Amitaya.

In majority-Buddhist Thailand, monks work in programmes that seek to ease stigma and foster understanding of people with HIV/AIDS.

"Buddhism teaches tolerance and carrying for the sick is an important religious act, which is used to promote acceptance of HIV people," explains Buddhist monk Phama Boonchuay, who heads one such programme.

Temples provide people with HIV/AIDS counselling and training for jobs, and monks visit the homes of families of those with HIV to help them cope with pandemic. Those orphaned by AIDS are also looked after in the temples.

But while experts and activists acknowledge the importance of religious leaders promoting tolerance and compassion towards HIV- positive people, they also say that religion needs to be more understanding of people's daily realities, and address the area of prevention.

Many groups of different religious affiliations are involved in HIV/AIDS work, but more attention needs to be paid to changing behaviour for prevention in addition to helping those already sick.

Likewise, "just like for most people, religion provides the foundation of the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS," pointed out Khartini Slamah, coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Network of Sex Workers, based in Malaysia.

Slamah, who provides sex workers with classes in Islam, says: "The problem is that religious leaders can be too judgmental, a position that ignores or isolate sex workers. To expect everyone to practise abstinence is not practical. HIV prevention must be based on respecting human sexuality."

The religious response to the pandemic can be more active than caring, by taking into consideration the needs of the poor and changing the patriarchal traditions of religion, says Esak Faired, an Islamic scholar.

"The AIDS pandemic is a challenge to religious notions and also to religious leaders themselves," he adds.

As expected, among the most contentious issues around the issue of religion and HIV/AIDS at the conference was the lack of support for condom use in some Catholic and Muslim countries, a conservative position that they say puts people at high risk of HIV.

Dr Faran Emmanuel, a researcher involved in HIV/AIDS work in Pakistan, says conservative Islamic regulations in the country have made it difficult to discuss sex openly.

This can lead to disseminating the wrong information about the pandemic, he says. For instance, banners on HIV prevention usually feature a boy and girl holding hands with the title, 'Stay with Your Partner'."

"As a result," says Emmanuel, " our surveys show that 50 percent of those polled believe they can get HIV by holding hands.""

At the same time, some discussions pointed to examples of countries like Senegal, where the mullah have responded positively by discussing sex more openly and supporting the use of condoms as a means to curb HIV/AIDS.

The HIV prevalence rate in that country has stood at three percent of the population for the past 20 years.

"The time has come for religious leaders, who are powerful forces in Asian societies, to face reality such as developing HIV prevention programmes with HIV-positive people," says Syamila, a transvestite working with the Malaysia-based PT Foundation. "Humanity comes first in religion."

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