Migrating South to North: ’the belly of the beast’

Geneva, 3 July 1998 (The Bridge Onsite AIDS98 Conference Daily Paper): Migrants are confronted with an entirely different set of problems if they reach the countries of the industrialised North, where the immediate crisis of war may be replaced by the grinding, day-to-day challenge of exclusion and stigmatisation.

"When the issue of immigrants is raised, people ask waht it has to do with bridging the gap," notes Reda Sadki, Paris-based executive director of Migrants contre le sida (MAHA). "But we’re part of the Third World, even if we live in the belly of the beast, in the rich North." He says immigrants face denial of health care, structural discrimination, and racist violence that "closely resemble the conditions... faced by people living in the South."

"The fundamental cause of HIV vulnerability is that the health care system is designed to keep out Third World people," Sadki adds. "Almost every country in the rich North denies access to care to people who have been designated as illegal or undocumented, including people living with HIV/AIDS." At the most basic level, he charges that a person with a black or brown face is far more likely to be asked for his or her citizenship papers upon entering a hospital in the North for treatment.

"That’s the starting point in a long chain of discrimination, violations, abuses, and denial of treatment, the most extreme form of which is deportation," Sadki says.

Statistics are hard to gather, in part because government statistics overlook the existence of immigrant communities. During the 12th World AIDS Conference, MAHA circulated a questionnaire aimed at gathering "practical, country-by-country information" on immigration controls and HIV/AIDS. "Our demand is for access based on need, not status — be it immigration status or economic status."

Source: The Bridge
Daily Newspaper of the 12th World AIDS Conference
Issue 5, July 3 1998
Produced by Tribune de Genève