African MP apologizes for call to brand People with AIDS

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(Johannesburg, South Africa) A member of Swaziland’s Parliament has apologized after calling for the branding of people with HIV/AIDS.

Earlier this week at a workshop for MPs, Timothy Myeni said that people with HIV/AIDS should have a warning branded onto their buttocks so that others who have sex with them know of their status.

The suggestion drew outrage from HIV/AIDS action groups.

The tiny landlocked kingdom in southern Africa has the highest HIV infection rate in the world. Almost 43 per cent of the population is believed to be living with HIV/AIDS.

“How can a legislator lobby for the branding of HIV positive people?” asked Swazi AIDS activist Siphiwe Hlophe.

“We do not need legislators who think like him because some of the people who voted for him could be positive, why is he then discriminating them?”

Myeni, an evangelical Christian and sometime gospel singer, said his remark was “not a statement, but a question” that he posed during the HIV/AIDS workshop with government policy makers.

http://www.365gay.com/news/african-mp-apologizes-for-call-to-brand-pwas/

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