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News/Event Item
Lifting the Veil on AIDS in a Mexican Prison
Aug. 25, 2008
By Marc Lacey
Officially, there is no sex among the male inmates at the over-packed Oriente prison on the outskirts of the Mexican capital. The only sexual relations in the male portion of the facility, administrators say, occur in the special rooms set aside for male-female conjugal visits.
An AIDS awareness seminar at Oriente prison, where myths about how the disease is transmitted are said to be rampant. But talk to the prisoners, a group of 11,300 convicted robbers, murderers and others who have run afoul of the law, and another reality emerges.
Even though scientific surveys of AIDS rates in Mexican prisons do not exist, the myths associated with the epidemic are pronounced among prisoners, and the sex that takes place is frequently unsafe, advocates say. The risk is significant enough that an American organization, Population Services International, has set up an AIDS awareness program inside this and four other Mexican lockups.
© 2008 The New York Times Company
For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/world/americas/26mexico.html
category: News from Other Sources : AIDS News
contributed by Liza Nanni on 27 August 2008
Latin America :
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