The growing threat of AIDS

By David North

Is AIDS going to hit Saipan as hard as it is hitting New York and Bangkok?

A recent World Health Organization study of the problem has caused both thought and controversy in the Com monwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI.) While at the moment there have been only four known AIDS cases in the CNMI all natives, all now dead the prospects for the future are grim, accord ing to the WHO report. Widespread prostitution, and narrowly-spread infor mation on how to prevent AIDS are part of the problem. So is the lack of precautions taken by the native and the non-native homosexual male communi ties but dirty needles used in drug injections are not (or perhaps not yet) part of the scene.

In her own reserved and clinical prose, WHO’s Dr S. Tempongco, a consultant to that organization, paints a picture which in other hands would make

headlines in the tabloid press, or a social statement by a feminist writer or a political reformer.

She identified two apparently quite separate groups of active homosexuals, those from off-the-island and the natives.

Regarding the former, she writes: “The non-resident homosexuals, mostly Fili pinos, arrived in the islands with a clear definition of their sexuality . . . They work in beauty parlours all over the islands. Their length of stay in the islands ranged from four months to seven years.”

As to the natives: “Members of this group do not want to be called homosex uals or gays. They prefer to be called sisters. Their preferences for partners differ from that of gays in mainland USA. In the mainland gays have sexual relations with gays, but in CNMI the homosexuals have sex relations with bisexual males. It is not acceptable for homosexuals to have sex with other homosexuals.”

The last sentence presents something of a puzzle to this straight male; it sounds like male-to-male intercourse is OK only if one of the partners is bi-sexual. What if the self-described bi-sexual is not bi

sexual at all? The Filipino gays apparH ently do not have this hang-up.

She also reports that some Saipanese gays (or sisters) are attracted to the brighter lights of nearby Guam for celebratory weekends. There are gay bars on Guam. (And also more reported AIDS and HIV cases.) Whether native or foreign, the gays she interviewed engaged in both oral and anal sex. Only three of her many informants said they used condoms, although all recognized the utility of these devices.

As for prostitution, although the WHO visitor did not mention the fact, CNMI is virtually the only place under the US flag where prostitution is legal.

Further, there are apparently a lot more prostitutes than gays, and, in fact, Richard Ceyzk, the CNMI government’s AIDS specialist, has been quoted as estimating the number of prostitutes at 3125, or fully 6 per cent of the territory’s population.

In the WHO report the prostitutes are variously called “commercial sex work ers”, the current politically correct euphemism, or, more simply, “bar girls”.!

Tempongco writes, “The majority [of

the bar girls/waitresses] are Filipinos with a sprinkling of Korean, Chinese and Thais ... [they] can be found in bars, massage parlours, Karaoke clubs, etc.

During the group discussions with the girls about 80 per cent admitted they were commercial sex workers. Some maintained that they were waitresses.” j Although the doctor did not say so, the overwhelming majority of the bar girls, like the island’s ill-treated garment workers, are temporary alien workers, with few rights, and no ability to become CNMI citizens. Their presence in the island, ostensibly to service the tourist market, is another product of CNMI’s ability to control its own immigration

policies. Other American jurisdictions

are not allowed to use the US immigra tion laws to import prostitutes (at least ’

not openly).

Many of the young women say they . did not come to Saipan to be prostitutes; they thought they were going to work as waitresses, but discovered the reality only after spending all the money they had to make the flight to CNMI. (If this is frequently the case, it suggests a failure in the usually pretty reliable interna tional communication network among migrants.) The women’s understanding of AIDS is limited, and their will to protect themselves is even weaker. Most do not know the relationship between having a positive HIV test, and having AIDS; the

former is symptom-free but always leads to the latter, and the latter is always fatal. (US Olympic basketball player Magic Johnson, for example, is, at the moment, symptom-free, but has HIV and will ultimately die of AIDS, at the early age □f most AIDS victims.) The women also tend to feel powerless, against both the threat of the disease and the sexual preferences of the men in their lives.

Tempongco writes: “The use of

:ondoms is recognized as a preventive

neasure, but it is only in one massage aarlour where condom use is required by he girls ... In other places the use of :ondoms is dependent on the customers, fapanese customers are usually amen ible to condom use. The resistance to :ondom use, according to the girls, is nostly found among the locals. . . The firls also don’t find the need to use :ondoms with their regular boyfriend, vhatever the nationality of the boy riend. The use of condoms is associated vdth a customer, not with a boyfriend.”

The Saipan Tribune quoted one prosti ute on the interaction between disease >revention and economics. She said if she nd her colleagues insist on the use of ondoms, the clients “will pay us half the nice or lower than our regular rates.”

The WHO report has set off a variety f related activities: • The only woman in the CNMI

igislature, representative Ana S

"eregeyo, introduced a bill to ban restitution in the islands, but her male olleagues have (as yet) not been very jpportive. (Doris Brooks, one of the :veral women in the Guam legislature, ew to a meeting in Tinian, to add her apport to the measure.) • Several mass education sessions r ere held on AIDS prevention tech iques for the foreign-born women work ig in the island’s service industry. More lan 500 of the waitresses and others ere reported to have attended one such

leeting.

• And, meanwhile, off in Guam there as at least the glimmering notion that group of AIDS victims from the lainland might descend en masse on lat island.

A resourceful Oklahoma organization, ware that the homeless have some rarely sed rights under federal law to claim bout-to-be abandoned federal property, ut in a claim for a portion of a military ase on Guam. The Oklahomans said icy wanted to establish a hostel for lainlanders dying of AIDS. In addition » setting off the usual NIMBY (Not in

My Back Yard) protests, their efforts ran into a rival claim by a group of Chamorro nationalists for the same land.

If past patterns hold, neither group will wrest the land from the military.

Meanwhile, the true extent of HIV and AIDS is not well known in CNMI or in Guam. There is virtually no mandatory testing (except for a seldom used immigration benefit on Saipan) and only about 50 people a month opt for it voluntarily in CNMI.

In addition to the known four deaths from AIDS, there are three known HIV positive cases in the territory. The numbers are much higher in the larger island of Guam, where recent data

showed 36 known HIV cases, and a dozen instances of AIDS.

World-wide it is understood the num ber of formally recognized HIV and AIDS cases constitute a small fraction of the real universe. On Saipan there is another reason to suspect an undercount.

Many of the homosexuals and prostitutes told the WHO researcher that were they to contract the disease, they would go home to die.

Sadly, many of the informants also said that were they to test positive, they would not tell their friends and partners and that’s exactly how the condition

spreads.