V. Consequences of Police Abuse for the HIV/AIDS Epidemic
Despite its being a young epidemic, Papua New Guinea has 90 percent of all HIV infections reported in the Oceania region to date outside of Australia and New Zealand.79 As many as 140,000 people—including 4.4 percent of adults ages 15-49—were living with HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea in 2005.80 The epidemic is considered generalized in the population, and prevalence rates are as high as 30 percent in some areas, according to the government.81 Access to antiretroviral therapy is limited,82 and few have the information or tools to protect themselves from infection. Violence and discrimination against women and girls likely fuels the growing epidemic; for example domestic violence makes it difficult for women and girls to negotiate safe sexual practices or to seek treatment.83 People living with HIV/AIDS may face violence and discrimination in their communities. The types of abuses we report above—sexual violence, fear of police that impedes the reporting of sexual violence and other crime, and prison conditions that may facilitate risk behaviors rather than provide information and the means for HIV prevention—are not only problems in themselves; they also undermine HIV/AIDS prevention work and contribute to the spread of HIV in Papua New Guinea.84 Sexual abuse increases the risk of HIV transmission. Violence and stigmatization of sex workers and men and boys who engage in homosexual conduct drives these persons underground and away from information on HIV prevention and health services. Police harassment for carrying condoms, described below, may also deter their use. Harassment for Possessing CondomsPolice in several areas have received training on HIV/AIDS, and some police stations in Lae and Port Moresby have condoms available in conjunction with an NGO HIV/AIDS awareness project. However, women and men still described being harassed by police in 2005 and 2006 for carrying condoms. Several persons reported being forced to chew, swallow, or inflate condoms. These actions by police and their reported accompanying comments suggest that they see condoms as implicated in the transmission of HIV, rather than as tools for its prevention, and an indication of promiscuity. A man who distributes condoms as part of an NGO HIV/AIDS outreach program described an encounter with police in Horsecamp settlement in Port Moresby in April 2005. The police stopped him at around 9:30 in the morning, he said, searched his bag, and found condoms inside.85 He explained that he was working with the NGO, but they slapped him in the face and forced him to eat three of the condoms and the plastic wrappers. “I did it because I was so scared,” he told us.
Another man described a raid on the old Lae airstrip in May 2006, carried out by mobile squad officers in dark blue uniforms:
Fourothermen and women in Lae also described police harassing them for carrying condoms, including forcing them to chew, swallow, or inflate condoms.88 “I’ve seen it with my own eyes— police guys making women blow [up] condoms,” one woman said. “I had to [do it]. This was around Christmas last year [2005].”89 Staff of one NGO report that in Lae some police officers have improved their behavior, following condom distribution and education.90 One peer educator described the following encounter in February 2006 to illustrate this:
In contrast, another HIV/AIDS educator described trying to help a sex worker file a complaint with police in November 2005. The woman had been beaten up by a client when she refused to have sex without a condom. The HIV/AIDS educator went with her to Lae’s Town police station. “The police made a joke, laughing, saying, ‘You should have let him have sex with you because he is paying you a lot of money,’” she said. “I scolded them and told them to stop, but they didn’t do any follow up on the beating. They said, ‘You are promoting condoms and it brings HIV.’”92 The testimony of another Lae woman who said she was forced to chew condoms in 2003 illustrates the long-term effects of harassment, even if individual officers change their behavior. “When we see the police, we throw the condoms away because we know that they will make us chew them because it happened before,” she said. In July 2006, she told us, police arrested her in a raid on the old airstrip, but an officer at the station intervened and had her and the other women arrested with her released. The officer also advised them not to throw their condoms away “because it’s your right. When the police do that, you tell me.”93 Prison staff members in Papua New Guinea do not distribute condoms, even though sex and sexual violence are common in prisons. 79 UNAIDS, “2006 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic,”May 2006, p. 10. 80 Ibid., p. 427. 81 See Ray Lilley, “Health Minister: Up to 30 Percent Have HIV Infection in Remote Papua New Guinea,” Associated Press, September 18, 2006 (quoting Minister of Health Sir Peter Barter). 82 Minister of Health Sir Peter Barter told journalists in August 2006 that only 800 persons were receiving antiretroviral therapy although additional drugs were being stored in government warehouses and not dispensed to hospitals—see “AIDS Patients Denied Vital Drugs,” Pacnews, August 15, 2006; and “‘Nearly 99.9 percent’ of Papua New Guinea HIV Patients Denied Therapy,” The National, August 15, 2006. 83 See, for example, Human Rights Watch, Policy Paralysis: A Call for Action on HIV/AIDS-Related Human Rights Abuses Against Women and Girls in Africa, December 2004, December 2003, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/africa1203/africa1203.pdf; and Human Rights Watch, A Dose of Reality: Women’s Rights in the Fight against HIV/AIDS, http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/21/africa10357_txt.htm. 84 See Human Rights Watch, Making Their Own Rules,pp. 76-81. 85 Human Rights Watch interview, Port Moresby, September 3, 2005. 86 Ibid. 87 Human Rights Watch group interview, Lae, August 5, 2006. 88 Human Rights Watch individual interviews, Lae, August 5 and 6, 2006. 89 Human Rights Watch interview, Lae, August 6, 2006. 90 Human Rights Watch interview, Lae, August 5, 2006. 91 Human Rights Watch interview, August 6, 2006. 92 Human Rights Watch interview, Lae, August 6, 2006. 93 Human Rights Watch interview, Lae, August 6, 2006. |