Invisible Lives: HIV on the Fringes of Society

With the exception of Africa, the highest percentage of HIV infections are found in high-risk groups such as drugs users, prostitutes, the transgender community, gay men, street children or prisoners. They encounter more stigmatisation and discrimination than other groups, which makes it harder for aid to reach them. Writer Colet van der Ven and photographer Adriaan Backer travelled around the world to give these people a voice: women in patriarchal Tadzhikistan, victims of political violence in Kenya, black homosexuals in the deeply religious southern states of America, transgenders in India, (ex-)prisoners in South Africa and drug users in Myanmar. They also interviewed a representative of the first generation of AIDS patients in the Netherlands and a female refugee in the Ukraine.

Colet van der Ven worked for many years in international aid organizations, in India and Haiti among other countries. Since 1985 she has written for various Dutch newspapers and journals. She has published nine books, including Het kwaad en ik (Evil and I), an exploration into the roots of violence. She has also worked as a radio and television presenter. Adriaan Backer has been active for twenty years now as a documentary photographer. He has worked for several relief organizations and his photographs have appeared in various daily newspapers and weeklies. Together with Ricus Dullaert he produced A Call to Witness, about AIDS in South Africa. With Colet van der Ven he published Slagschaduwen, erfenis van een koloniaal verleden (Cast shadows, legacy of a colonial past) on the traces left by slavery in present-day Curaçao. Foreword is by international AIDS expert Peter Piot.