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Asian Immigrants in North America with HIV/AIDS pp 51–79Cite as

Poverty, Migrants and HIV/AIDS in Canada

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Abstract

AIDS has been perceived as an African disease for a long time. A shift took place later and it was believed to be a disease of the poor. This chapter examines the intersections of refugees and AIDS in Canada. It presents a critical analysis of the impact on Canada from the influx of refugees and HIV/AIDS and challenges the notion that HIV/AIDS is a disease of the poor. It poses a question to assess the place of Canada in the global scenario of refugees and HIV/AIDS and proceeds to answer the question. Canada is one of the most generous countries for refugee resettlement, and accepts a large number of convention refugees in order to give them protection. The central point is that the protection is not restricted to physical, political or economic protection, and should extend to the protection of their mental stability. Discrimination and stigmatization could cause severe psychological damage. The legislation in Canada directly does not debar HIV positive from seeking refugee status, but precautionary measures may discriminate against people who could pose challenge to Public Health in Canada. Human rights activists argue that allowing people with HIV/AIDS to come to Canada creates no direct and unavoidable risk to the health of Canadians. Claiming that immigrants with HIV are a threat to public health simply because they are HIV-positive stigmatizes all people with HIV as dangerous to public health. It is discriminatory and unjust to automatically exclude all persons with HIV from immigrating to Canada.

The AIDS pandemic has gained momentum during the past quarter century, expanding to all regions of the world. AIDS affects both the rich and the poor, but the hardest-hit countries are among the poorest in the world. Unless more vigorous actions are undertaken to combat the disease and its effects, the HIV/AIDS epidemic portends a grim future for many countries, especially the poorest countries. (United Nations United Nations 2005:V)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Claimants are a larger pool of refugees who first must clear certain security checks before being accepted as convention refugees (for details, please refer to Chap. 2).

  2. 2.

    Such as Maoist conflict in Nepal, LTTE issues in Sri Lanka, Kashmir and Nagaland issues in India, refugee issues in Bhutan and Nepal.

  3. 3.

    The Naxalites first emerged in 1967 in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal and spread throughout the central states of Bihar, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh until it was violently suppressed by state and paramilitary forces by 1972. This militant left-wing movement fractured into more than 40 distinct groups, which began to remobilize, consolidate and become more active in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in the state of Andhra Pradesh (Ramana 2011).

  4. 4.

    They trace their origins to South Asia, which encompasses India (from where 44 % of immigrants have come), Pakistan (8 %), Bangladesh (1 %) and Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon, 9 %). Most South Asian Canadians are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from these countries (Statistics Canada 2011; CIC 2007).

  5. 5.

    Pitkin and colleagues (2007) identified factors that influence immigrants’ vulnerabilities including socioeconomic background, immigration status, language proficiency, welfare reforms, residential locations, stigma and marginalization.

  6. 6.

    Migration ‘stress’, loss of personal and cultural identity, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are commonly identified.

  7. 7.

    Those burdens often include being uprooted living in unfamiliar surroundings with minimal, if any, resources, support or livelihood and, sometimes, enduring illness and the seemingly inescapable consequences of violence, rape, abuse and loss many refugees have experienced, in particular the loss of family and friends (PHAC 2005).

  8. 8.

    The epidemic was driven mainly by the region’s flourishing sex industry and injecting drug users.

  9. 9.

    There is a popular South Asian myth saying HIV/AIDS happens only to non-monogamous, white, heroin-injecting sex workers and homosexual men.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

    AKM Ahsan Ullah

  2. Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada

    Ahmed Shafiqul Huque

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Ullah, A.A., Huque, A.S. (2014). Poverty, Migrants and HIV/AIDS in Canada. In: Asian Immigrants in North America with HIV/AIDS. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-119-0_3

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