This painting is about intolerance, beliefs and victimisation.

In my native home, Haiti, poverty, hatred and ignorance have turned people to monsters and against their own kind. I made this painting to express my feeling about the madness that exists in ghettos, in the Third World or any places where crimes are perpetrated because of racism, bigotry or any form of intolerance. I used the hooded image to portray intolerance, ignorance and brutal force. The blue figure in the middle is synonym of religious beliefs and quiet acceptance; also helplessness because crimes are made often in the name of religion. It also represents ancestral culture, identity. The third figure is a powerless victim or a passive witness of crime.

Marie-Helen Couvin
 

"Tri-age"

Nature is a defended fruit with rebel Heros.
Swiped with cradle and thrown into streets to rebuild
Babel beyond the prophecy, which the sun has conquered
from the geography of exile.
To dream together beyond our masks,
and entrust the firmament with our most intimate secrets,
in the spell of desires of our nomadic memory.
In the guise of mishap for a
generation without borders.

Special Advocacy Invitation extended to all our visitors:

Real Stories Gallery welcomes visitors to respond to this image and poem, which were published in 2010 when the artist was invited by Art for Humanity to reflect on the theme of ‘Racism, Xenophobia and the plight of Refugees.'  What is the connection between the Human Rights theme of "Dialogue among Civilizations" and HIV and AIDS?  Please feel free to send your written or visual responses to realstoriesgallery@gmail.com.

‘The scale of global migration, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the movement of people from one area to another for varying periods of time, is vast and growing.  The International Organization for Migration has estimated that 192 million people globally, or 3 percent of the world's population, live outside of their country of birth.  Worldwide, even more people migrate within their country than out of it.  According to the WHO, migration can often have serious health consequences for migrants because of challenges involving "discrimination, language and cultural barriers, legal status and other economic and social difficulties."  Indeed, the global financial crisis has particularly thrown into relief the plight of migrants as it has exacerbated health and social inequalities.

Since the emergence of the HIV epidemic, migrant populations have received considerable recognition from the international community in the context of risk, spread, and prevention of HIV/AIDS.  However, despite the long recognition of migration's relationship to HIV vulnerability, states have largely failed to ensure that internal and international migrants have access to HIV treatment.  Instead, many states have implemented discriminatory laws and policies that restrict the entry, stay or residence of persons living with HIV (PLHIV) and serve to limit the access of internal and international migrants to treatment services within the state.  Furthermore, in many countries migrants are deported without adequate consideration of the availability of HIV treatment in the country of origin and without sufficient provision for continuity of care.

Given the global scale and frequency of migration worldwide, a rational public health strategy toward HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment cannot include any form of discrimination against migrants.  Denying treatment to migrants will only serve to perpetuate transmission and frustration efforts toward controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Interruptions in HIV treatment occasioned by restrictions on entry, stay, or residence in a state, limits on movement within a state, barriers to access, or deportation can lead to illness, development of drug resistance, and death"

(© Human Rights Watch, 2009)

"What are we women to do?  The men, they sleep in the bush, but it isn't safe for us.  If we weren't raped before we will be raped here." - Constance. Musina, South Africa ("No Healing Here: Violence, Discrimination And Barriers To Health For Migrants In South Africa."  Copyright: www.hrw.org)


For Advocacy Exhibition and For Sale:

This limited edition fine art print forms part of Art for Humanity's "Dialogue among Civilizations" portfolio, 2010.  It contains 41 Fine Art Prints and 40 Poems produced by international artists and poets.  The portfolio is available for exhibition, educational and advocacy purposes. 27 of a limited edition of 30 portfolios are available for sale.  The price for each portfolio includes shipping costs from South Africa, 5% administration fee and a 25% charitable donation, which will go to support the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation's community Tutu Tester vehicles.  For further information please contact realstoriesgallery@gmail.com.