Abstract
In 2011, Ghana made a historic shift in its national HIV response by including men who have sex with men in the 2011–2015 HIV National Strategic Plan for the first time, marking a paradigm shift. This chapter examines how the criminalization and stigmatization of male same-sex sexual activities have shaped HIV prevention and care activities within this new paradigm. It explores how the legal and social context has informed and constrained HIV stakeholders’ response to the epidemic among men who have sex with men and discusses the unintended consequences of prevention and care activities within the new paradigm. Through an analysis of social, political and media developments, it demonstrates how approaches and initiatives to address HIV among men who have sex with men have contributed to the politicization of homosexuality in Ghana and reshaped the context in which stakeholders develop and implement HIV policies and programs for members of this population.
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout this chapter, I use the term “men who have sex with men” and “queer men” interchangeably to refer to gay, bisexual and other men with same-sex desires, or who engage in same-sex sex. “Men who have sex with men” is a public health term commonly used in the global HIV response to distinguish sexual identity from sexual behavior; however, I use the term critically and share the concerns raised by scholars and activists about the limitations and reductive effect of the term’s use (e.g., Kaplan et al., 2016).
- 2.
This chapter is based on sections of a doctoral dissertation, “Unburying the Ostrich’s Head and Opening Pandora’s Box: A Paradigm Shift to address HIV among Men who have Sex with Men in Ghana’s National AIDS Response”, (Gyamerah, 2017).
- 3.
The study examined why and how Ghana decided to include men who have sex with men as a key population in its national AIDS policies and programmes; what cultural, social, and political factors have affected the development, implementation, and reception of these policies and programmes; and how men who have sex with men experienced these policy and programmatic efforts as well as living in a country that criminalizes and stigmatizes same-sex sexual practices.
- 4.
Most-at-risk populations was the term used to refer to groups with the highest risk of and most vulnerable to HIV by the government of Ghana before the shift in 2012–2013 to the use of the term ‘key populations’, due to a change in terminology used in global HIV policies and frameworks.
- 5.
A public health education strategy to increase public knowledge of protective behaviours and target health behaviour change.
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Acknowledgement
My sincere gratitude to study participants for their time and contributions and to my dissertation committee members for their mentorship and feedback. Thanks also to Danièle Fogel for her editing support. This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (5F31MH102156-02; PI: Akua O. Gyamerah) and a grant by The Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Ghana (2013–2014). This work was also supported by a training grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH19105–28; Principal Investigator: Susan Kegeles, Ph.D., to support the author).
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Gyamerah, A.O. (2021). Moral Panic and Other Unintended Consequences in Ghana’s Paradigm Shift to Address HIV Among Men Who Have Sex with Men. In: Sandfort, T. (eds) Male Same-sex Sexuality and HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. Social Aspects of HIV, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73726-9_6
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