BY Danton Remoto Remote Control www.abs-cbnnews.com Views and analysis BALI, INDONESIA – If you think that having an intimate partner will always keep you safe from contracting HIV, better think again. More women from the Asia-Pacific region – housewives and career women –are contracting HIV from their intimate partners. These women are either married, or have long-term relationships with men who engage in high-risk sexual behavior. These behavior are found in men who have sex with men (MSM), injecting drug users, and clients of female sex workers. These findings are contained in a new report by UNAIDS, its co-sponsors and civil society partners entitled HIV Transmission in Intimate Partner Relationships in Asia, released at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, being held in the island resort of Bali until tomorrow. Men who buy sex are the largest infected population group. Many of them are married – or are about to get married. This puts a significant number...

REMOTE CONTROL | DANTON REMOTO | 08/11/2009 1:45 AM www.abs-cbnnews.com Views and analysis Bali, Indonesia – More than 20 Southeast Asian women narrated their personal stories of exploitation and abuse during the first Southeast Asian Court of Women on HIV and Human Trafficking held yesterday in this island resort. The women were among the estimated 250,000 victims of trafficking, violence, exploitation and HIV in Asia. Subtitled "From Vulnerability to Free, Just, and Safe Movement,” the conference is being held as part of the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP 9) that will begin here on August 9, with 4,000 participants from all over the globe. The Court of Women was organized by the United Nations Development Programme, Asian Women’s Human Rights Council and Yakeba, a Japanese NGO funded by Japan, as well as other UN and civil society partners. The Philippine contingent included Katherine, a 29-year-old Muslim who lives in Taguig. She worked...