Police use the laws to justify harassment of homosexuals, refusal to respond to attacks against them, and impede the work of HIV and AIDS educators and outreach “Know your epidemic” has long been a mantra of international AIDS organisations and it makes sense. In the Caribbean and other regions with concentrated epidemics, this mantra must mean not just understanding (and often blaming) those living with the disease, but knowing what makes certain populations, such as sexual minorities and women, particularly vulnerable to HIV infection.

Some of them risked death crossing into South Africa via the crocodile-infested Limpopo River, and others suffered further rapes and attacks from men who lurked at the border claiming to be guides.  Yet they have found no respite in South Africa.  Instead they are in an unwelcoming country — outcasts instead of victims — with nowhere to go, nowhere to work, nowhere to live, and nothing to eat.

"I was in bed asleep when they arrived.  They broke the door.  I screamed, but no one came to help.  There were four men…They told me to lie down and remove my pants.  They were beating me, and I fell down and hit my head on the floor.  Then one of them hit me in the mouth with his fist.  They knocked out my front teeth.  It hurt very much.  They spoke to each other about who should be the first to rape me.  One of them said, “Go first, comrade…” I was out of my mind by then.  I was wet all over my stomach area.  I heard them saying, “We have hurt you.  So go get tested because we have given you the prize of what you were doing.”  I knew that they meant I would be HIV positive."

AIDS-Free World's legal department issued this statement at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City.