Why these empty chairs at AIDS 2022 are taking Canada under fire

The cube-shaped white chairs lined up on the stage were empty.

David Gillespie, a researcher at Cardiff University, attended the panel in Montreal expecting to hear experts discuss the stigma HIV still carries in healthcare settings.

That’s not what he got.

Instead, he said in an email, an organizer came out to explain that there had been a change of plan – the panelists had all been unable to enter the country.

Feeling “shock and disappointment,” he snapped a photo of the empty chairs and fired off a tweet that has since been shared nearly 1,000 times, including by prominent researchers.

Most were wondering a version of the same thing: Canada hosted AIDS 2022, the world’s largest conference dedicated to a disease that affects nearly 40 million people around the world. So why was it so difficult for researchers from the Global South to participate?

According to the organizers, around 12,300 people should take part in the conference, 2,200 of them virtually. They weren’t sure how many faced visa issues, but everyone from the federal government to several global HIV organizations had indicated the problem was widespread.

German Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, responding to a media query this week, called it a “human tragedy” that so many people could not attend, adding: “A conference of this size, nature and importance needs more people to attend the conference than could come.”

“Not only is that a source of anger, of frustration, but also a source of inefficiency.”

The conference had an ambitious agenda to “define future research agendas” and “find a new consensus on how to overcome the HIV epidemic,” according to its website. But conference chairs and presentation booths sat empty all week, unoccupied by experts who couldn’t make the trip to Montreal.

Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS — UNAIDS for short — denounced the problem in a press release on Tuesday, saying the organization was “deeply saddened” by how many people from Africa, Asia and Latin America are couldn’t get a visa.

Many critics have pointed out that visa problems are particularly troubling given the disproportionate burden of AIDS on certain regions, including Africa.

“The host country of the next global AIDS conference in two years’ time must guarantee that this will not happen again and that those most affected by HIV will be able to attend this important table,” she wrote.

In an email, Aidan Strickland, a spokesman for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said the department understands the “disappointment” of some applicants who were not granted visas on time, adding that they were working with the organizers of the event and visas have prioritized for delegates.

“Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has taken all available measures to expedite the processing of applications as much as possible and to facilitate travel for this event,” Strickland wrote.

“In fact, IRCC processed over 93% of the applications received prior to the start of the conference.”

However, Gideon Christian, a law professor at the University of Calgary, said it has long been difficult for scholars from the Global South to obtain visas to enter Canada and this is not the first time an international conference has encountered difficulties, experts from Canada to welcome Africa, in particular.

Residents of many countries do not require a visa to come to Canada, but most visa-exempt nations are in the Global North, such as Canada. B. Europe.

For those who need visas, it’s not always clear why they’re being turned down, said Christian, who is also president of the African Scholars Initiative, which aims to attract more scholars to Canada. He said he saw people from Africa waiting up to a year for a decision.

He also argues that requirements that applicants demonstrate that they are economically independent and not staying in Canada after an event are too broad and can be used to discriminate against non-white or Western experts.

He pointed to a conference on artificial intelligence, also held in Montreal in 2018, where many people scheduled to speak at a workshop on “Being Black in AI” were denied visas. He asked why experienced experts of all people are being kept away.

“Google experts in Africa will not be hanging out in Canada after the event,” he said. “What’s he up to? Flip burgers at McDonald’s?”

Christian said it is important that Canada continues to host these conferences as a service to the world community, but that discriminatory practices are addressed.

“I’m a scholar working on issues that affect black people,” he said. “I don’t see any reason why I can’t host black-targeted events in Canada other than that IRCC might not let them in when I invite black scholars from Africa. It’s like living in a house where you can’t invite your friends over because your landlord won’t open the gate for them.”

Gillespie, who tweeted the photo of the empty panel chairs, was one of hundreds of pundits who made it to Montreal this week. As a senior researcher at Cardiff University, he studies the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis – basically drugs that stop the spread of HIV – among those who receive it through the National Health Service of Wales.

Events throughout the week, he said, were lacking in attendees, but the panel, with no one making it, was frustrating.

“It seemed to reflect a tragic kind of irony that the issue they wanted to travel about (structural stigma) seemed to prevent their access,” he said in an email.

In a direct message, Dr. Madhu Pai, Canadian Research Chair in Global Health and Epidemiology at McGill University, said he was “sad and disappointed” when the event drew to a close.

He pointed to a recent Forbes article on how “extraordinarily unequal” global health can be.

Wealthy Western countries not only benefit from more resources and access to medicines – such as the COVID-19 vaccines – but they also dominate in research and science, while the first-hand experiences of those in the Global South are often ignored.

All of this came to a head here, he said, in which experts from parts of the world with some of the highest HIV caseloads were completely left out of the conversation.

“This is a cautionary tale for everyone in global healthcare,” he said. “We must only organize global health events in places where people with lived experience are not only welcome and valued, but also have the opportunity to lead the agenda.”

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