It’s been slightly over two months since Kony 2012 (I was going to hyperlink to it, but realized, if you haven’t seen it yet, you probably don’t have internet) first awed, inspired, angered, and exhausted different parts of the world. I was one of the 80 million+ people who saw the film (and blogged about it), and I’m one of probably a few thousand who are wondering what is going on now with the campaign. Continue reading
It has been over 30 years since the first cases of “Slim” started appearing in men and women from the villages dispersed near the border of Uganda and Tanzania. Since then, the world has made progress- “Slim” was recognized as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, the progression of HIV to AIDS was more clearly understood, the science behind HIV transmission dispelled xenophobic notions (for the most part), antiretroviral therapy was discovered and is improving, researchers have demonstrated a functional cure via stem cell transplant, and the results of a recent multinational trial presented at the 2011 Intl. AIDS Society Conference have finally confirmed the highly effective duality of treatment as prevention. The statistics reflect these advances- nearly 50% of ARV eligible people now have access to treatment, in 2010 there were only 1.8 million AIDS-related deaths as compared to 2.2 million in 2005, and there has been a 15% reduction in new infections per year over the last decade, with 22 African countries now reporting incidence rates which are 25% lower than in 2001 (UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report 2011).
What are Ugandan women doing in Iraq? A March 2011 BBC article reports undercover labor trafficking in which hundreds of Ugandan women have been tricked into well-paying jobs in US Army bases in Iraq. The company which has trafficked them, Uganda Veterans Development Ltd., is operated by a high-ranking government official (now retired Colonel Chris Mudola) who has denied the trafficking allegations and ensured that the Ugandan Ministry of Labour does not stop the operations.
Image credit: Forum for African Investigative Reporters
