Rights-based public health measures should seek to protect all people from HIV infection, and provide those who are HIV-positive with the tools to live healthier lives.
![Joyce Banda. [img src]](http://rhrealitycheck.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/../../files/teaser-images/2012-04-24-mack-187x125.jpg)
With all due respect to the late President Bingu, his death opened a rare window for reform Malawi, and golden opportunity – especially for Malawi’s women. Joyce Banda is a widely respected and heralded champion for women’s rights and health, and has never been shy to speak her mind about it.
The architectural design of two newly built public maternity hospitals in Malawi, which has one of the world’s highest rates of women dying in childbirth, seeks to respect the human rights of birthing women and has had a significant impact on Malawi’s maternal health care system. Ill-designed government-run maternal health centers litter many poor countries and contribute to unacceptably high maternal death rates. There’s a pressing global need to design public maternity units that uphold the dignity of socially disadvantaged women.
This interview with Chrispine Sibande, a lawyer and Deputy Director for Legal Services of the Malawi Human Rights Commission, is part of the Behind Bars series by Kevin Osborne and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
The mainstream media is notorious for misgendering trans people; when trans women are written about, they are described as being “men dressed as women” and referred to persistently as “he.” And although many gay rights groups include the letter “T” in their acronyms and claim to be inclusive of diversity in gender identity, they don’t hesitate to blatantly disregard gender identity when it serves their purpose of arguing for “equality” in the treatment of gays.
Hate crimes against homosexuals are connected to the political, social and legal environment in which they live. And in Africa religious groups are talking about morals but simultaneously stirring hatred directly leading to violence against homosexuals.
Malawi appears to be following Uganda’s and Rwanda’s lead on virulent homophobia with the arrest of two men charged with “carnal knowledge of a person against the order of nature.”
Malawi has some of the harshest laws in all of Africa criminalizing homosexuality. Many religious groups actively support discrimination against gay, lesbian, and transgender persons and in turn are fanning the spread of HIV.
