After some close analysis at the turn of the year, the Gender Rights Association became deeply concerned about Taiwan's policies on HIV/AIDS prevention. Whenever the government launches new HIV/AIDS policies or information, it always makes us feel that it is in fact boosting the disease's infection rate, instead of halting it.
What has gone wrong with Taiwan's HIV/AIDS prevention policies? The government, for a long time, has constantly put the focus on so-called "high risk groups," such as homosexuals and sex workers. This view has misled the public into believing that if one is not a member of either high-risk group, one will not be infected with HIV. A policy that distinguishes between people and labels some as "high risk" is a result of the authorities' bias and discrimination against certain groups. This not only has no preventive effect, but has actually caused more damage to these people and ignored the most significant means of HIV/AIDS transmission -- unprotected sex, an issue about which the government simply won't talk.
Such ostrich-like prevention policies are deeply worrisome. Over the past 10 years, the government has kept emphasizing the virtues of having a sole sexual partner in an effort to stop the infection rate from growing with the help of moral constraints, rather than logical concepts and adequate knowledge. Let us examine the results of the above obscurantist policies with some real figures that demonstrate their absurdity.
According to the latest statistics published by the Center for Disease Control (CDC, 疾病管制局) under the Cabinet-level Department of Health, by November a total of 3,856 people in Taiwan had been diagnosed as HIV positive. About 254 of them, approximately 7.2 percent, are female. Meanwhile, the ratio of male to female HIV carriers has come down from 20 male carriers for every female carrier in the past to a current level of seven to one, showing that the threat posed to women by the disease has substantially increased. The ages of most of the HIV carriers ranged from 20 to 39 and about 40.7 percent of these -- the largest portion of the nation's HIV carriers -- were heterosexuals.
When solely emphasizing the importance of morality and loyalty, the government does not pay attention either to the power balance within a relationship or the practicing of safe sex. As we can see from the figures, this resulted in a rise in the infection rates among heterosexuals and women who are loyal and faithful to their partners.
On Dec. 13, the CDC made some shocking remarks in a press release entitled Survey of male HIV carriers' sexual identities and most favored venues for sex. We were astonished that the government could behave with such callousness and ignorance. Not only has the CDC treated HIV carriers as criminals, but it has also invaded their privacy, gossiped about them and spied on them.
The means by which the CDC obtained its survey figures is highly controversial and the reliability of the figures is extremely low because the survey was poorly designed. We cannot help but link the survey to CDC director-general Tu Hsing-che's (涂醒哲) 1995 research paper, entitled Homosexual epidemiology (同性戀之流行病學) -- in which respondents were treated as guinea pigs. That survey triggered strong protests from the gay and lesbian community, human rights activists and scholars.
We wish to respond to the CDC by asking: has the center really thought about the nation's HIV/AIDS prevention policies, apart from using figures to denigrate homosexuals as well as to create and strengthen prejudices against homosexuality and sex in general? What has always frustrated non-government activists is the public's lack of basic knowledge about AIDS. Their unnecessary fear of the disease is even more troublesome, as many of them still worry about transmission of the disease by a mosquito bite or sharing accommodation or household utensils with an HIV carrier.
We realize, from the experiences of other nations, that those who are most actively involved in HIV/AIDS prevention work are themselves either homosexuals or sex workers -- people who have been defined as high-risk groups and are, in the eyes of the CDC, beyond redemption. In fact, these are also the people most actively involved in promoting safe sex. That none of Taipei City's former licensed prostitutes was ever infected with HIV is testimony to this fact. The proportion of homosexuals using condoms during sex, moreover is much higher than that of heterosexuals who do so.
All HIV/AIDS prevention workers know that truly effective prevention must focus on three aspects: prevention, medical care and the human rights of those affected. The DPP government has proclaimed its commitment to upholding human rights, but, in terms of HIV/AIDS prevention, Taiwan's human rights seem to be taking steps in the wrong direction.
Wang Ping is secretary general of the Gender/Sexuality Rights Association Taiwan.
Translated by Eddy Chang
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS