wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Justice is at heart of HIV commitments, multi-faith conference hears

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>World Council of Churches - News

JUSTICE IS AT HEART OF HIV COMMITMENTS, MULTI-FAITH CONFERENCE HEARS

>For immediate release: 19 July 2010

A multi-faith meeting on the eve of the 18th International AIDS
Conference in Vienna has heard calls for faith communities to keep
commitments they have made to promote universal access to HIV treatment,
care, support and prevention.

“This has to do with a basic issue of justice, not at least  gender
justice,” the general secretary of the World Council of  Churches, Rev.
Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, said in an address to the 17 July multi-faith
conference at Vienna’s Technical University.

The conference gathered more than 250 people, including leaders  of
religious groups, networks of people living with HIV and international
organizations, under the theme, “Rights Here, Right Now:  What’s faith
got to do with it?”

Tveit was part of an opening panel looking at how faith traditions  promote
work towards universal access to HIV treatment, care, support and
prevention.

He recalled that back in 1987 the main governing body of the WCC  had
affirmed the “right to medical and pastoral care regardless  of
socio-economic status, race, sex, sexual orientation or sexual
relationship”.

“We should keep our commitments to do what we know we have  to do,” said
Tveit.

Leadership by faith communities in the struggle against HIV and  AIDS,
“doesn’t come just like that”, said Hany  El Banna, the Egyptian-born
founder and former president of Islamic Relief. “It comes  with
responsibility.”

Faith communities, he said, are able to mobilize people at the “g rass
roots”, in mosques, churches, synagogues and temples.

“We shouldn’t be afraid of religion,” El  Banna stated. “We should
be afraid of ignorance and a lack of knowledge.”

The International AIDS Conference is held every two years and draws  more
than 20,000 medical professionals and scientists, policy makers,  persons
living with HIV, and others working in the field of HIV and AIDS.  In 2010
it runs from 18 to 23 July.

Jan Beagle, the deputy director of UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS, said faith communities can help bridge a
“disconnect” between the scientific world and the  world of culture,
religion and communities.

“We are not asking religious leaders to hand out condoms,  unless that is
acceptable within your traditions, but to partner with us in approaches  to
HIV prevention education, health care and referral,” she  said.

Beagle called for an end to “punitive laws” that  criminalize men who
have sex with men, sex workers and their clients, and people who  inject
drugs.

“We hear the framing of ‘innocent and guilty’  returning to public
debate,” she said. Such language, she warned, is an “affr ont to
universal human rights”, and risks driving underground those  most at
risk for fear of isolation and institutional injustice.

WCC general secretary Tveit in his address said faith leaders need  to
exercise care in the way they use religious language and writings.  This
means, “not only being accountable about what pieces of  our faith texts
we quote but how we use these text”.

Prudence Mabele, who in 1992 became the first black woman in South  Africa
publicly to reveal her HIV-positive status, said in her society,
traditional healers offer care “holistically” to  people with HIV.

“We deal with the spiritual guidance and the emotional life  of a human
being,” said Mabele, the founder and executive director  of Positive
Women’s Network, who provides support to women living with  HIV in South
Africa.

Mabele recalled how she became aware of her gift as a healer when  she was 8
years old, but at first tried to renounce it. It was when she discovered
at the age of 19 that she had been infected with HIV she “accepte d her
calling”.

Traditional healers, Mabele said, work closely with doctors and  medical
professionals, and she criticised healers “who have promised  false
cures”.

Mabele recounted how traditional healers see the barriers that people  with
HIV face when they seek treatment. “They don’t have  food. They don’t
have the money to pay for the most simple service,” she  said.

The multi-faith conference began with songs from the Zimbabwean  Betseranai
Choir, made up of about 20 people living with HIV, which uses music  and
songs to mobilize people in the struggle against AIDS.

The conference was organized by a multi-faith working group convened  by the
Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, an international network of churches  and
church-related organizations.

“The world expects people of faith to be working together,  said Richard
Fee, the alliance’s chairperson. “We have recognized  that and it is
time we started doing that.”

>(Stephen Brown reported from Vienna)

More information about faith-based advocacy at the International  AIDS
Conference (Link: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=b0da61ed38dce 650bc98 
)

WCC work for an HIV-competent church (Link:

http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=fa15f163e938f173ad01 )

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,  witness and 
service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship  of churches 
founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant,
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560  million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the  Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse  Tveit, from 
the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

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