UNAIDS Asia-Pacific 
Nirmala Singh (not her real name) found out she was HIV positive after being tested during pregnancy. It was a surprise diagnosis, but she immediately knew how she had been infected. Before getting married she was raped. Nurses informed Nirmala’s husband of her positive result without her consent. She was kicked out the home.
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Rosma Karlina and Bambang Yulistyo Dwi live with their two young children in the rainy hillside town of Bogor, south of Jakarta.
“Sometimes we go to museums to introduce the children to history or feed the deer at the Presidential Palace. It’s simple entertainment but can teach the children to learn to love even animals,” Ms. Karlina said.
If their family life is traditional, their work life is anything but. Ms Karlina is the founder and Director of Suar Perempuan Lingkar Napza Nusantara (also called Womxn’s Voice), an advocacy and care organisation serving women and transwomen who use drugs. Bambang, popularly known as Tedjo, founded the Indonesian Justice Action Foundation (AKSI). Since 2018 his team has provided legal aid and support to people who use drugs, and advocated for their rights.
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As a girl Ikka dreamed of becoming an accountant. She knew her parents could not afford to send her to university, so she resolved to pay for it herself. For almost three years she lived and worked in a brothel while studying.
Davi’s parents divorced when he was a baby and he was raised by caring grandparents. In high school he led lots of extracurricular activities. He was also gay. Just three months before his final exams Davi was raped by a teacher who threatened to “out” him. He ran away to the city. After a desperate search for work, he landed a job in a massage parlour.
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BANGKOK, February 28, 2023—On Zero Discrimination Day, commemorated on March 1, UNAIDS highlights the need to remove laws that criminalise people living with HIV and key populations. (Key populations are communities at higher risk of HIV infection including gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people and people in prisons and other closed settings.) The 2023 theme, “Save lives: Decriminalise”, points to the positive impact on health and life outcomes when discriminatory and punitive laws are removed.
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UNAIDS congratulates Australia on newly announced plans to invest AUD 620 million over the next five years for health programmes across the Pacific and south-east Asia. The investment is part of a new initiative called Partnerships for a Healthy Region, which will include measures to prevent, diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
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For 20 years Kochaphan Wangtan has been a community health worker, serving other people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Thailand.
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For the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asia Pacific country teams and development partners met in person in Bangkok, Thailand for the regional UNAIDS HIV estimates workshop. Huddled around laptops, groups came up with sometimes sobering national insights.
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On Zero Discrimination Day this year, under the theme “Save lives: Decriminalise”, UNAIDS is highlighting how the decriminalisation of key populations and people living with HIV saves lives and helps advance the end of the AIDS pandemic.
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UNAIDS Asia-Pacific 