CAPE TOWN (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Beneath a bridge in the Cape Town suburb of Woodstock, a strung-together network of blankets serves as a refuge for a group of women fighting stigma on many fronts.

SistaazHood, a group of about 40 transgender women, most of them homeless and sex workers, has become a growing voice on issues such as transgender homeless shelters, the legalization of sex work and better access to healthcare.

Local rights groups credit the Sistaaz – who were labeled male at birth but identify as female – for challenging the police’s relationship with the trans community and motivating a major court ruling on transgender prisoner rights.

“The Sistaaz contributed their experiences to the drafting of the police service’s Standard Operating Procedures, outlining concerns about harassment of transgender people,” said Liberty Matthyse, head of transgender rights group Gender DynamiX.

For 45-year-old Netta Marcus, who founded the Siztaaz with five other women in 2010, “stigma follows us wherever we go”.

“But we are showing people that we are not a story made up in their minds,” she added, adjusting her blue headscarf. “We are here, and people are starting to listen.”

South Africa was the first country in the world to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1996 and is still the only African nation to allow same-sex marriage.

Yet, transgender activists say their community has largely been forgotten in the fight for equality.

A core issue for the Sistaaz is safe and affordable housing, which they say goes hand-in-hand with the struggle for their rights as transgender people and as sex workers.

Homeless shelters usually assign them to male dormitories, where “men always want sexual favors”, said one group member, who asked to remain anonymous.

Many end up living in makeshift shelters where they are vulnerable to being robbed, attacked or having their homes dismantled by law enforcement, the Sistaaz said.

The lack of housing limits the women’s options, making it difficult for those working as sex workers to make a living any other way, explained 32-year-old Lemeez Oliver, another member of the Sistaaz.

“Without proof of residence, we cannot open bank accounts. We cannot get jobs,” she said. “It all comes back to housing.”

Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for community services and health Zahid Badroodien noted in emailed comments that when the city launched a new homeless shelter last year, it allocated a section for transgender people.

VICTORIES

Statistics on South Africa’s transgender population are hard to come by.

LGBT+ rights group The Other Foundation estimated in a 2016 report that about 430,000 men and nearly 2.8 million women in the country present themselves in public “in a gender non-conforming way”.

The country’s constitution protects against any discrimination based on sex, gender and sexual orientation.

But the Geneva-based International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) says South African transgender people often face obstacles in exercising their equal rights.

For example, ILGA said in a 2017 report that the process someone has to go through to change their gender on official documentation is filled with “arbitrary obstacles”.

That could include requiring proof of gender reassignment surgery, which not all transgender people can or choose to go through.

But Marcus noted that in September, a new transgender clinic opened in the Cape Town suburb of Bellville where transgender people can use their preferred names and gender in their medical files.

And the transgender rights movement got a further boost that month, when the Equality Court granted a transgender woman held in a male prison outside Cape Town the right to wear makeup, grow long hair and be addressed with female pronouns.

Matthyse of Gender DynamiX said that SistaazHood was integral to the protests outside the court before the ruling.

“They showed that the individual is connected to the collective,” she said at her office in Cape Town.

“But we still have a long way to go for creating safe spaces for trans bodies.”

That includes transgender-specific shelters where women like the Sistaaz can still practice sex work freely, said Marcus, as well as the decriminalization of sex work.

Only a few countries – including Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands, Senegal and Peru – recognize sex work as legal, leaving sex workers elsewhere vulnerable to abuse.

PRIDE

Mia Lukas, a 35-year-old SistaazHood member, takes pride in the fact that “in spite of transphobia”, the group’s activism is yielding results.

She pointed to the slowly improving relationship between police and the city’s transgender community.

For example, the Sistaaz have contributed to the police service’s guidelines on how to interact with homeless, transgender people, noted Matthyse.

Lukas agreed, saying that “I can see change is happening because law enforcement officers have started addressing us as ‘she’ instead of ‘he’.”

“The conversation is changing, even if it doesn’t happen overnight. And I love it.”

Alderman JP Smith, a member of the mayoral committee for safety and security, said that “generally speaking, the department is duty-bound to enforce the city’s by-laws as they apply equally to all residents.”

The Sistaaz got a shot of glamor in August 2019, when some of the members appeared in a magazine highlighting their stories and their advocacy.

Called “Sistaaz of the Castle”, the magazine was the creation of Dutch photographer Jan Hoek and fashion designer Duran Lantink.

The “castle” of the title refers to a 17th-century Dutch colonial fort – The Castle of Good Hope – outside which SistaazHood first started living together as a group.

There were 1,500 copies of the magazine published, said Hoek, with the proceeds funding the group’s work.

In the nearby suburb of Observatory, 36-year-old SistaazHood member Celine Dion rested beneath a tree in a park.

“The magazine showed that we may be homeless, but we are also talented and beautiful,” Dion said.

Spurred by a small crowd, she sat up, tilted her head to the sky and started singing French-Canadian star Celine Dion’s song “Ashes” – quietly at first, then with increasing volume and confidence.

“And when I pray to God all I ask is, can beauty come out of ashes?” she sang, as more passersby, including a few police officers, gathered around her.

When she finished, they all erupted into applause.

At the end of the day, Marcus returned to her shelter made from pieces of plastic, wood and fabric.

Framed by the city’s iconic Table Mountain, she gazed at the sprawling city and ocean below her.

“I wanted a home with a view,” she explained. “When the police tear it down, I just build it up again.”

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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on Wednesday opened a drive to raise $14 billion to fight the global epidemics but face an uphill battle in the face of donor fatigue.

Host President Emmanuel Macron is to chair the final day of the two-day meeting in the French city of Lyon on Thursday and meet African heads of state.

The fund has asked for $14 billion, an amount it says would help save 16 million lives, avert “234 million infections” and place the world back on track to meet the UN objective of ending the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria within 10 years.

“I count on every one of you to bring together the financing necessary to give the Global Fund the means necessary to support the worst affected countries,” said French Health Minister Agnes Buzyn as the meeting opened.

“We are here to send a strong signal. A collective, universal and ambitious signal,” she added. 

The UN’s World Health Organization says 770,000 people died of HIV-related causes last year. Tuberculosis, a high risk for HIV-positive people, claimed some 1.7 million lives in 2017, and malaria more than 430,000.

– ‘Anything more a success’ –

The meeting is the sixth to replenish the fund since it was set up in 2002, with prominent supporters including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and U2 lead singer Bono in attendance.

But officials said ahead of the meeting that collecting such a large sum could prove challenging, especially as global attention moves from AIDS towards fighting climate change.

Anything more than the $13 billion pledged at the fund’s last meeting three years ago in Montreal “will be considered a success”, said an official in the French presidency.

Macron, however, made it clear at the UN General Assembly in September that he expected no less than $14 billion, saying “no-one any longer can understand” that people are unable to access medicines for the deadly disease trio.

NGOs insist even more is needed — as much as $18 billion. 

– ‘Less not acceptable’ –

Some countries have announced their contribution. The US is the number one donor with a $4.68 billion contribution voted by Congress.

Britain is set to pledge $1.7 billion and Germany $1.1 billion. It remains to be seen what France will contribute, although Macron has vowed it will be worthy of the country’s historical status as the Fund’s number two donor.

France also wants the private sector to play a bigger role, and the fund is seeking $1 billion of the total from the business world.

“No amount less than $14 billion will be acceptable,” the AIDES and Coalition PLUS NGOs said in a statement, urging France to ramp up its contribution by 25 percent.

“We are here to remember that behind this financial bargaining there are human lives,” said AIDES president Aurelien Beaucamp.

AIDES said that as things stand now, the meeting risks falling $200-$500 million short of its target.

Macron will meet leaders including Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou and Cameroon President Paul Biya, while Rwandan President Paul Kagame is also set to be in attendance.

The Global Fund groups states, NGOs and private firms to support public health programmes around the world, investing about $4 billion every year.

It says it has helped save 32 million lives and provided prevention, treatment and care services to hundreds of millions of people, while the number of deaths caused by AIDS, TB and malaria each year has been reduced by 40 percent since 2002 in countries where the Fund invests.

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Durban-  A clarion call was made to renew the fight against HIV and Aids at the launch of the South African Aids Conference which is being at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre.

The call was made by renowned South African researcher Professor Salim Karim who is the  director at Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). 

“Now is the time we need to rededicate ourselves,” Karim said. 

He made the call in the face of statistics that painted a bleak picture of progress made not only in South Africa, but around the globe as well. 

Karim said there were 5 000 new infections everyday across the world. 

Quoting research from 2017 he said there were 37 million people around the globe living with HIV/Aids and that a third of infections came from South Africa, Nigeria and India respectively. 

He said complacency had become a danger. The conference which has about 3000 delegates focuses on technology and innovation in the fight against the epidemic.

Professor Khangelani Zuma from the Human Sciences Research Council said although the number of new infections was declining, the number of people still getting infected was high and it was women who were getting more infected than men. 

He said there were 7.9 million people living with HIV, but only about 62 percent of those people were on anti-retrovirals. 

Zuma also highlighted that there were 62 000 children younger than two years old who were HIV positive. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” Zuma said.

Localised, rather than national statistics was something that they needed to focus on as they got a bigger public reaction. He gave the example of research showing that 500 000 people in Johannesburg who are living with HIV, which elicited shock, this is in contrast to  more than 5 million who are HIV positive in the country.

Department of Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, said it was important people who were HIV negative stayed like that, but this needed innovation. 

He said government needed to responsive to the epidemic in a professional manner. 

Mkhize paid tribute to scientists who dedicated their lives to finding ways to beating the disease and noted the role South African researchers who made a big contribution. He also mentioned activists like Gugu Dlamini and Nkosi Johnson who fought to ensure the epidemic did not define the country’s destiny.

Although country has laws that are internationaly lauded human rights laws. 

Stigma and discrimination from healthworkers were still a problem. Stigma also affected people’s access to anti retroviral he said.Stigma and discrimination had no place in the provision of health care services Mkhize said. It was important to mobilise and galvanise people to fight HIV/Aids and related diseases.

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