In Bell Hall at the Kennedy School of Government, students and community members gathered to hear Adam Li speak about the AIDS epidemic in China. Li wore a red ribbon pin, the international AIDS awareness symbol, on his lapel to acknowledge the estimated two to three million people that are infected in China. Li is the director of Mangrove Support Group, a project that provides care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS.
“I wanted a normal life – to have a girlfriend, get married, shop, eat at a restaurant,” said Li, who contracted HIV in 1994 during a blood transfusion. But living with AIDS is anything but normal in China, which is wracked with stigma and discrimination against HIV positive people. “The NGO is my duty,” he said. “I want to explore how we can treasure our values, but make progress at the same time.”
Because 70 percent of HIV positive people in China live in the rural countryside, Mangrove has projects in Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Tibet. In many countries, HIV is more prevalent in cities than in rural areas. Li explained, however, that Chinese people in cities have more information about the disease through newspapers, radio, and television. Also, the countryside lacks a solid medical infrastructure; people might only take their medications for one month because they don’t understand the repercussions.
HIV is most often transmitted by blood selling and/or drug use. While drug use is an obvious risk, many people are less familiar with the practice of blood selling. This is an illegal trade, but one that is unofficially encouraged by the government. Poor people sell their blood to rural clinics with no testing facilities, and AIDS is then passed on through infected blood or needles. Sexual intercourse is also a source of transmission.
“Let me give you an example of how my organization operates,” said Li. “What if there is a large pit in a village? Some people in China might take a picture of the pit and post it up, warning that five people have already fallen in. But I will go around in the village and see who is not busy. We will get together and fill in the hole.”
Started in April 2002, Mangrove is the largest and most well known organization in China working with HIV positive people. Li showed slides of workshops at his humble Beijing office where he trains people to give support and care. Many staff members are HIV positive, including all of the counselors who answer the hotline phones.
AIDS prevention is a very small part of Li’s work. Local levels of government have tried to encourage condom use by homosexuals; however, prevention is often regarded as conflicting with law. Prostitution is illegal in theory, but is still widely practiced in cities. Promoting condom use to prostitutes is seen as supporting the illegal institution. This scenario applies to drug users as well. To promote clean needle use in China is to promote drug use.
“When will the Chinese government realize that the embarrassment of the AIDS epidemic is not worth exchanging human lives,” asked a Chinese audience member. “They obviously have the ability to mobilize people as shown by the response to the SARS outbreak.”
“AIDS presents a more complex situation than SARS,” responded Li. “AIDS is a medical issue, but it is also social. It is not seen as a public health disaster.”
Li recognizes the severity of the AIDS epidemic in China, but remains positive in his work and personal struggle. “If a boat is sinking,” he said, “you would not go around and try to find the cause of the accident. You would fight to save the lives of the people on the boat. That is what is most important in my work.”
Kate O'Mara is the editor of the Weekly Indigenous News at Cultural Survival.
