Inequality is set to kill millions
Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, DECEMBER 3-9, 2021
By Albert Baldeo
Voters in New York State
voted in a historic, constitutional
amendment in 2014 to
implement essential changes
with the intent to achieve a
fair and transparent process
in redrawing the lines of state
legislative and congressional
districts. This pre-eminent
redistricting process occurs
every ten years, based on data
obtained by the Census.
As NYS residents embark
on this for the first time,
we condemn the irresponsible
tactics of the Republican
appointed members of the
unprecedented Independent
Redistricting Commission
(IRC), for illogically drawing
a competing, conflicting version
of maps that defies the
census, law, data and demographic
changes. Their maps
further divide communities
of interest.
This unfortunate impasse
will only result in the unfortunate
reality of incumbents
choosing who they represent,
instead of having constituents
choose who should represent
them. This strikes at
the heart of democracy. We
urge all members of the Commission
to put aside their differences,
and perform their
duties in a fair and objective
way.
Albert Baldeo, United Communities
Alliance
106-11 Liberty Avenue,
Ozone Park, NY 11417
(917) 548-1055
By Winnie Byanyima
GENEVA, Dec 1, 2021 (IPS)
— This week I called out to
the world to warn them that
inequalities are making us all
unsafe. I noted starkly our new
analysis that we face millions
of additional AIDS deaths —
7.7 million in the next decade
alone — as well continued
devastation from pandemics,
unless leaders address the inequalities
which drive them. We
have to treat this threat as an
emergency, as a red alert.
To end AIDS, we need to act
with far more urgency to tackle
these inequalities. And it’s not
just AIDS. All pandemics take
root in, and widen, the fissures
of society. The world’s failure
to address marginalization and
unequal power is also driving
the COVID crisis and leaving us
unprepared for the pandemics
of tomorrow. We need all leaders
to work boldly and together
to tackle the inequalities which
endanger us all.
To tackle inequalities
requires leaders to take these
courageous steps:
Support community-led
and people-centred infrastructure
Ensure equitable access to
medicines, vaccines and health
technologies
Strengthen human rights,
to build trust and tackle pandemics
Elevate essential workers
and provide them with the
resources and tools they need
Ensure people-centred data
systems that highlight inequalities.
At the United Nations General
Assembly High-Level Meeting
on HIV/AIDS in June this
year, member states adopted a
bold new plan to end the AIDS
epidemic, including new targets
for 2025.
We are seeing around the
world examples of the transformative
impact of tackling
inequalities — with some people
and some countries making
progress against AIDS that
many had believed impossible.
These prove that it can be
done, and guide us in what we
need to take to scale worldwide
to end AIDS.
On my recent visit to Senegal,
I saw the power of leadership
in driving down new HIV
infections. In Dakar I met with
the inspirational Mariama Ba
Thiam, a peer educator at a
harm reduction program for
people who inject drugs.
The program helps them protect
their health and to secure
economic independence. Mariama’s
approach works because it
starts by considering the whole
person, connecting the medical
with the social. It rejects
the failed punitive and stigmatizing
approaches taken by so
many, and it instead respects
the dignity of every person.
It succeeds because it
involves frontline communities
in service provision and
in leadership, and because it
recognizes that access to the
treatments grounded in the
best science is a human right
and a public good. We know
what success looks like, and it
looks like Mariama. Thousands
of Mariamas worldwide have
shown the way by walking it.
But in too many cases we
are not only not moving fast
enough to end the inequalities
which drive pandemics, and are
moving in the wrong direction
— tech monopolies instead of
tech sharing, donor withdrawal
instead of global solidarity, austerity
instead of investment,
clampdowns on marginalised
communities instead of repeals
of outdated laws.
Six in seven new HIV infections
among adolescents in
sub-Saharan Africa are occurring
among girls. Gay men and
other men who have sex with
men, sex workers, and people
who use drugs face 25-35
greater risk of acquiring HIV
worldwide.
Progress in AIDS, which was
already off track, is now under
even greater strain as the Covid
crisis continues to rage, disrupting
HIV prevention and
treatment services, schooling,
violence-prevention programs,
and more. Harm reduction
services for people who use
drugs were disrupted in nearly
two thirds (65%) of 130 countries
surveyed in 2020.
We have reached a fork in
the road. The choice for leaders
to make on inequalities is
between bold action and halfmeasures.
The data is clear: it
is being too gradual that is the
unaffordable choice.
Leaders need to turn
this moment of crisis into a
moment of transformation.
Ending these inequalities fast
is what needs to be reflected in
every leader’s policy program
and every country’s budget.
If we take on the inequalities
which hold back progress,
we can deliver on the promise
to end AIDS by 2030. It is in
our hands. But if we don’t act
to end inequalities, we will all
pay the price.
Inequalities kill. Every
minute that passes, we are losing
a precious life to AIDS, and
widening inequality is putting
us ever more in danger. We
don’t have time.
Winnie Byanyima is executive
director of UNAIDS and
Under-Secretary-General of
the United Nations
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A red ribbon memorializes World AIDS Day on the North Portico of the White House in
Washington, U.S. Dec. 1, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File
NY state residents deserve fair districts