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The Internet is reportedly contributing to a sense of growing "solidarity" amongst homosexuals in Pakistan UN 10 May ; see also The Guardian 14 Mar. Online chat rooms are said to provide a "safe and anonymous forum for middle- and upper-class gay men" The Guardian 14 Mar. According to a 5 October British Broadcasting Corporation BBC article, "increasingly," same-sex couples are living together in Pakistan's larger cities, including Karachi and Islamabad.
However, a Guardian article states that it is "rare" for homosexual couples to live together and that many gay men end up marrying women to "avoid scandalising their families" 14 Mar. Another article from IRIN notes that, while the atmosphere in larger cities such as Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore is "mildly" more tolerant, in rural areas, conservatism is "extreme" and homosexuals remain "closeted" UN 10 May Two sources indicate that cultural practices in Pakistan, which permit public displays of affection between members of the same gender, make it possible for gay men to socialize without attracting attention BBC 2 June ; The Guardian 14 Mar.
This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request. The Guardian [London]. Declan Walsh. November Daniel Ottosson. Aasim Sajjad Akhtar. Ongoing legal status and paper issues were central for most participants, and produced much mental tension.
Most navigated between rounds of asylum and temporary residence permit for medical reason applications, and had undocumented status.
Link Copied. All Professional Homemade. The bill unanimously passed the Pakistani Senate in early March Most were single. Triangulation was performed with the translator and across the three interviewers who represented different disciplinary backgrounds, and also supplemented with field notes and ethnographic observations. At the end of it all, everyone gets married to a member of the opposite sex and nothing is spoken about," a local told Azhar. Hi, First of all, Homosexuality has nothing to do with the West, except the fact that "they" understand that some humans like people from the same sex.
Almost all our participants suffered from precarious unstable living conditions after migration to France, which constitutes per se a determinant of health and disease acquisition, such as hepatitis and HIV [ 19 ]. Moreover, poor mental health, which was prevalent in our sample of Pakistani, is a mediating factor affecting, for instance, self-efficacy in adopting non-risky behaviours. Certainly mental health needs should be accounted for in the design of health promotion and prevention interventions.
Such risks could constitute a non-negligible source of transmission, though extremely difficult to uncover, according to our findings and the literature [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. In parallel, some reports from Pakistan, as well as academic studies, indicate that sexual relationships between men might be normalized and occur at quite high frequency, although be hidden by a veneer of hypocrisy [ 28 , 31 , 32 , 34 , 35 ].
Finally, one important finding was that barbers in the Avicenne hospital neighborhood were potentially unsafe, as are many barbershops in Pakistan [ 39 ].
This provides evidence of the transnational mobility of informal, unsafe hygiene practices between low- or middle-income settings and marginalized areas of high-income setting. Our findings hence have implications in terms of hepatitis and HIV prevention and health promotion.
Health interventions will not be achieved in this migrant community without a strong involvement of the community itself [ 17 ] and a change in several practices and norms. Actions proposed hereby derive from discussions with interviewees and from the FGD, and are embedded in the Sorenson model [ 20 ]. First, there was a convergence towards the need to establish an early diagnosis for all who might silently carry these viruses within the community. Testing should be an outreach action. Following a mapping exercise, we propose several places Pakistanis typically work in wide Paris suburbs.
This outreach work would be open to all communities, especially South Asian Muslim communities in the targeted areas, in order to not stigmatize Pakistanis. This outreach campaign could also be coupled with a knowledge-attitude-practice survey, adapted to cultural norms e. In order to enhance the acceptability of the testing campaigns, we propose also a series of awareness campaigns at the Pakistani mosque located in the suburb close to the hospital during celebrations, with the support of the mosque association and Urdu-speaking local doctors.
A growing body of literature, especially in the UK and USA, mentions the usefulness of including faith-based organizations in the health promotion interventions, given the strong collectivism and faith-based values of South Asian communities [ 40 , 41 , 42 ].
We did engage with the local Pakistani mosque leaders, with the help of participants, and agreed to work in partnership on future collaborations. However, we also recognize that faith leaders are also those most likely to hold conservative, stigmatizing values and the limitations of this approach, which can only be partially successful. Secondly, community education on prevention and sexual health promotion is essential but needs to be culturally-specific, given the importance of transnational social norms [ 43 ], regarding sensitive topics such as homosociality, drug use and male sexuality.
Based on the FGD in which full anonymity came out as a prerequisite for deploying such education, we propose using social media or a website in Urdu, administrated by an Urdu-fluent health professional. Participants would benefit from an entire anonymity, allowing discussion around sensitive topics. Social media is increasingly used in sexual health promotion, given the sensitivity of the topic, and evaluations, though still rare, are positive [ 44 ].
Thirdly, in parallel to this community-level action, individual empowerment and stigma reduction should be sought, via increasing literacy rates, human rights awareness, and support around access to healthcare, especially for STIs and hepatitis, and mental health. We propose for this purpose, to train people from Pakistan or from Pakistani descent, fluent in both Urdu and French, to become community health worker. Community-health workers are still not a well-defined category of workers and are defined by their competence rather than their training [ 45 ].
They owe cultural competence, are trusted by the community, and are able to empower the community by raising their health literacy and in fine empower them [ 46 ].
Ipso-Care is an example of well-functioning NGO of psycho-social counselors from the community who work for the community, which could be replicated here [ 47 ]. Fourthly, we propose to conduct a survey on knowledge-attitude-practices in occupational health, in the barbershops held by South-Asian communities in the hospital neighborhood and other similar neighborhoods. In Ghana for instance, a similar survey revealed enormous gaps in knowledge and related risky behaviours towards blood-borne viruses [ 48 ]. These four types of actions were proposed to the local health authority of Seine St Denis departement, and funding was secured for their implementation in the coming year.
These interventions will be implemented in a community-participative way, and will be evaluated.
For participants, it's anonymous group sex. But despite all this gay sex, life for gay people is still pretty awful in Karachi. That's because gay. The shrine is far from the only place in Karachi where gay sex is freely gay men in Pakistan, a heterosexual marriage and a life of anonymous.
Our study has some limitations. Our sample does however represent the most vulnerable ones, the undocumented migrants, who are tremendously difficult to study [ 49 ], due to fears of the French administration and language barriers.
The very mobility of Pakistani migrants on the move mean that contact tracing can only be of limited effectiveness. Moreover, these migrants represent a significant number, given IOM unofficial research on the Eastern Mediterranean route. Our sample size is small, but continuous analysis during data collection showed that data saturation was reached. Patients seen subsequently at the outpatient clinic after the study had confirmed many of the findings. It is likely that participants did not disclose everything relevant to transmission risks, especially about MSM practices among their community, in Pakistan, en route or after arrival.
Given the extreme stigmatization of these events or social prohibition of these behaviours, we interpreted our data with caution. Nonetheless, some specific personal disclosures, combined with emerging literature, lead us to conclude that some neglected risks might be well present in this community.
Future research will include a phylogenetic analysis of a larger group of patients with chronic hepatitis C. This would further assist in more precisely assessing temporal-spatial patterns of transmission and locating whether transmission occurred in Pakistan, en route or in France. Further ethnographic research onto informal medical and dental care practices in migrant communities might mitigate further rising risks of unforeseen transmission.
Our study identified many mediators, which could be used to promote health and to change behaviours. Those mediators are a collectivist approach to community, with a strong sense of community. This points to individual agency as a positive force.
However, it is important to note there are also substantial limitations imposed by the isolation and non-integration of a migrant community that perceives itself as a community of temporary workers who will most likely return to Pakistan, or move on within Europe. The extent to which it is possible to develop forms of health promotion that are likely unfamiliar to migrants, albeit culturally sensitive and specific, without for example improving the very poor living conditions of this community is a realistic concern.
More broadly, this study points out to the need to go beyond the universalism advocated by the French Constitution, and dig into some ethnicity-related specificities [ 51 , 52 ]. The French Republican model, which prevents from applying colour-conscious measures, has been criticized to hide inequalities associated to ethnicity or race [ 11 , 53 , 54 ]. These two words are synonymous of historically painful memories related to world war for French people [ 51 ]. However, such memories need to be overcome, in order to not miss opportunities to tackle health inequalities, while being cautious in avoiding stigmatization.
Authors are not able to share their raw data since participants disclosed very sensitive information. Participants were told that the transcripts will be read by NK and JC only, and this prompted their trust. However, authors are willing to share codes generated from the data on request to the corresponding author. BMC Infect Dis. Prevalence of chronic viral hepatitis in people of south Asian ethnicity living in England: the prevalence cannot necessarily be predicted from the prevalence in the country of origin. J Viral Hepat. Health care risk factors among women and personal behaviours among men explain the high prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in Karachi, Pakistan.
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