Uganda: Human Rights Watch Honors Ugandan AIDS Activist

For immediate release:

Human Rights Watch press release

Human Rights Watch Honors Ugandan AIDS Activist

Outspoken Defender of Women Living with HIV/AIDS

(New York, October 27, 2005) — On November 8, Human Rights Watch will
give its highest recognition to Beatrice Were, a leading advocate for
the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda.

Ms. Were was one of the first Ugandans ever to declare her
HIV-positive status publicly. She is a founder of the National
Community of Women Living with AIDS (NACWOLA), a grassroots
organization that provides services to over 40,000 women in 20
districts of Uganda. She has defended the rights of people living
with AIDS against controversial shifts in the country's AIDS policy,
including the recent adoption of U.S.-funded
"abstinence-until-marriage" programs.

"Beatrice Were is the human face of AIDS in Uganda," said Jonathan
Cohen, researcher with Human Rights Watch's HIV/AIDS Program. "She
has transformed her personal struggle with AIDS into a courageous and
inspiring brand of activism."

A mother of three, Ms. Were learned she was HIV-positive following her
husband's diagnosis with HIV in the 1990s. When her husband died, his
family attempted to grab her property and take custody of her
children. Ms. Were successfully fought back, later becoming an
activist to protect other women from similar abuses.

After disclosing her HIV status to her children, Ms. Were founded the
highly successful Memory Book Project, which encourages HIV-positive
parents to prepare their children for bereavement by recording family
memories in an album.

"At every step, Beatrice Were has chosen to break the silence around
HIV/AIDS rather than to live privately with her illness," said Cohen.
"By bringing HIV/AIDS out into the open, she has brought hope to
countless Ugandans."

Since 2004, Ms. Were has worked with Human Rights Watch and other
organizations to highlight Uganda's recent and dramatic backslide in
HIV-prevention policy. Uganda earned international praise for its
highly successful HIV prevention programs in the 1990s. But the
country has recently embraced U.S.-funded "abstinence-until-marriage"
programs which deny young people information about any method of HIV
prevention other than sexual abstinence until marriage, including
information about condoms.

Ms. Were contracted HIV from a husband who to whom she had been
faithful. She has devoted much of her career to counseling young
people about HIV/AIDS and promoting a full range of HIV-prevention
options.

"Beatrice Were is living proof of the dangers of
'abstinence-until-marriage' approach," said Cohen. "Her struggle shows
that HIV/AIDS is not solved by promoting marriage, but by promoting
the human rights of women."

For more information on HIV/AIDS and human rights:
http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=hivaids&document_limit=0,2

For more information about human rights in Uganda:
http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=uganda

For more information, please contact:

In New York, Charles Tate: +1-212-216-1289

In New York, Jennifer Nagle: +1-212-216-1831

In New York, Minky Worden: +1-212-216-1250