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CAPACITY
BUILDING
The
Seven Sisters organised a Gender and Sexuality Consultation from 12-13 May 2003
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Seven Sisters' Gender and Sexuality Consultation
was conceived by its members to help consolidate their work on the issue of gender
and sexuality. This was in line with the coming together of Seven Sisters to identify
cross-cutting issues that could be worked on together. The consultation would
be the first step towards greater understanding of gender and sexuality by the
network members themselves as not all of them are working exclusively on gender
and sexuality issues at this present time.
The
objectives were to identify ways in which issues of sexuality and gender intersect
with issues of HIV that the Seven Sisters are working on and how they affect the
communities and projects that the Seven Sisters work in; to improve capacity and
knowledge on sexuality and gender, and to provide a bridge between discussions
at the 6th and 7th ICAAPs' programme track on gender and sexuality.
Prior
to the consultation, a working group consisting of three members of the Seven
Sisters was formed to work on a concept paper / background paper for the consultation
with assistance from the Seven Sisters Secretariat. A draft agenda and identification
of resource people were the outputs from the working group. Furthermore, discussions
with the resource persons were held through two tele-conferences which resulted
in the re-drafting of the agenda and how the consultation should be facilitated.
A pre-consultation questionnaire was circulated to participants to assist the
resource persons in gauging the participants' knowledge of gender and sexuality.
Two resource
persons, Associate Professor Anthony Smith and Deputy Director of the Australian
Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University and Ms. Reena
Marcelo, Gender, Reproductive Health and Development Consultant from the Philippines
facilitated the consultation. The
consultation was structured into eight sessions. The first session focused on
levelling off the understanding of gender and sexuality from the participants
using their personal knowledge and experiences. Here, the participants concluded
that gender does not refer to a biological make up but to socially constructed
roles and expectations about men and women and their relationships. Power dynamics
were central to the construction of gender as it occurs on a personal level, within
relationships and at the community level. The discussions from participants' experiences
and stories showed the different manifestations of gender constructions and it
is these differences that have to be considered when working on HIV/AIDS at the
community level. In terms of sexuality, it was appreciated that biology and gender,
through social constructed roles and physical capacity, can set limits on how
one represents one's sexual identity, orientation and behaviour. Participants
discussed different scenarios of so-called conflicting sexual orientations and
identities (e.g. heterosexual men practising MSM) and recognised the complexities
surrounding these issues.
Sessions
2 to 5 focused on identifying programme interventions as well as cross-cutting
issues for the Seven Sisters. The sessions were conducted in a group work manner
with the different groups coming together to share at the plenaries. Current activities
of the Seven Sisters were also highlighted to see how gender and sexuality are
currently reflected in their programmes and work plans. Based on the sharing,
some possible issues that surfaced included resistance in one's day to day life
and violence (within relationships and coercion of sex workers). In terms of programme
interventions that were needed, several issues were identified:
| • | Access
to resources, lack of resources (information and funding) |
| • |
Capacity building according to the needs of each network to integrate gender and
sexuality into their work | | • |
Bilateral collaboration (as opposed to involving all seven networks at once) |
| • | To
develop a clear framework on gender and sexuality and how it intersects with different
issues (e.g. migration etc) so that it be incorporated into the day-to-day work
of the organisation and their focal points |
| • | To
map out the work of the different networks in the region and who their partners
are. | | • | To
have more respect for choices and diversity that exists. | Coalition
members also developed a six-month work plan that attempted to integrate gender
and sexuality issues in their work.
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NEW - (Colombo, 19 January 2007) The AIDS Society of Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) and UNAIDS have met today in Colombo, Sri Lanka as members of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) to the 8 th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) which is scheduled to be held in Colombo between 19-23 August 2007. 
