Wonder where he went to Sunday School?
Soros Foundation Upset Over About Lack
of Sex Workers at AIDS Conference
Open
Society bemoans that U.S. allows HIV Positive visitors, not ‘sex workers,’ drug
users.
Published: 7/24/2012
12:24 PM ET
George Soros’s Open Society Foundation has long been a proponent of the rights of “sex workers.” But the
group was unhappy that the United States didn’t welcome them with open arms to
the 19th International AIDS Conference.
The Washington Post
mentioned the travel ban on sex workers in a negative light on July 19, in line
with these sentiments. The Post finished up its story on the 19th International
AIDS Conference with a shout out to “the situation of sex workers and
intravenous drug users – two populations that have a high incidence of HIV
transmission and who still face restrictions on entering the United States.”
The conference, which opened on July 22 with a march through downtown D.C., is being
attended by many HIV positive from foreign nations, thanks to a 2-year-old
repeal of the ban on HIV positive tourists. The ban on prostitutes and drug
users, however, is still in effect. Soros’s Open Society Foundation faulted the United
States government for not easing the ban on both of these groups, claiming that
they were key participants in previous AIDS conferences held elsewhere in the
world.
Open Society Deputy
Director Jonathan Cohen wrote on July 9 that “Drug users and sex workers
represent the majority of people living with HIV in many countries, and are
among the most at-risk of infection everywhere. The irony of allowing people
living with HIV to the conference while refusing those likeliest to be – or
become – infected has not been lost on everyone.
Toward the end of the
2010 International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Indian activist Meena Seshu
called for a boycott of AIDS 2012, making the self-evident point that it
was unethical 31 years into the AIDS epidemic to discuss matters of AIDS policy
in the absence of those most affected. But the response was muted.”
more
