Since the 1990’s, Iowa Code 709-C has made failing to disclose your HIV status a class “B” felony, punishable by up to 25 years in prison. It’s a law that HIV and AIDS advocates hope legislators change in 2013. Laura Friest has lived with HIV for more than 13 years.
Gay press coverage of Phase Two of 'Think Twice' campaign from AIDS ACTION NOW!
Call it an inspiring history lesson. The night started with a screening of a historical documentary but ended with a panel discussion calling for action on the contentious issue of HIV criminalization.
Report from Positive Women's Network forum on HIV criminalisation in Philadelphia
Laws in many states criminalize those with HIV/AIDS who fail to disclose their status to their partners. This was the message of a prograFm by the U.S. Positive Women’s Network held recently at the William Way Community Center in Center City.
Positive Women's Network Philadelphia chapter host Positive Justice Project community roundtable
On Monday, November 19th, 2012 the Positive Women’s Network — Philadelphia Chapter hosted a Positive Justice Project Community Roundtable on HIV Criminalization at the William Way Community Center in Philadelphia, PA from 3 to 6:30 pm.
The new HIV Justice Network website launches today
Today marks an important step forward in global advocacy towards a fairer, just, rational, proportionate and limited use of laws and prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure, potential or perceived exposure and transmission.
The new HIV Justice Network website is intended to be a global information and advocacy hub for individuals and organisations working to end the inappropriate use of the criminal law to regulate and punish people living with HIV. Here you will find the latest news and cases, searchable by date, country, and case type, plus all kinds of advocacy resources (including video). The information on the website is also classified by 25 topics, under six headings: Advocacy; Alternatives; Impact; Law Enforcement; Laws and Policies; and Science.
Hopefully this will make it easier to find the information you need for your work, whether it be research into the impacts of HIV criminalisation; advocacy to prevent, reform, repeal or modernise existing HIV-specific criminal statutes or to limit the use of the law through prosecutorial and police guidance; or in promoting alternatives such as a supportive legal and policy environment via a human rights framework; restorative justice via a criminal justice framework; or Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention via a public health framework.
At the same time, we will also be launching the HIV Justice newsletter. As well as including the latest international news and analysis relating to cases, laws, policy and advocacy, it is an opportunity to promote the work of advocates and researchers, such as highlighting upcoming events and new resources. If you have already signed up for it via the Homepage, or supported the Oslo Declaration on HIV Criminalisation, you are already subscribed. If not, you can sign-up here.
The new HIV Justice Network website incorporates all the posts from my blog, Criminal HIV Transmission, which I began in 2007. Little did I know at the time that it would become an important global resource, filling a much-needed gap by capturing what is happening in real time. It was only when I attended AIDS 2008 in Mexico City, and discovered how many people knew of me and my work, that I realised how useful a resource it had become for advocates, researchers, lawyers and others from all over the world.
Knowing that the blog served as an international information and advocacy hub placed enormous pressure on my time and personal resources. Until the beginning of 2012, the blog and its associated advocacy work received no funding – save the few wonderful individuals who donated via Paypal and a small grant from IPPF (thank you!). So I’m very grateful to The Monument Trust for its generous support which has allowed me to sustain, develop and expand the blog into the HIV Justice Network. I’d also like to thank Kieran McCann and Thomas Paterson from NAM, who designed and developed the site, as well as NAM’s Executive Director, Caspar Thompson, for his support and guidance.
This past year hasn’t only been about developing the new website and newsletter, however. In February, the HIV Justice Network co-organised the civil society caucus meeting that created the Oslo Declaration on HIV Criminalisation. The Oslo Declaration, hosted on the HIV Justice Network website, has become a potent global advocacy tool. And with more than 1600 supporters from more than 110 countries around the world, it has helped to galvanise a global movement advocating against the inappropriate use of the criminal law to regulate and punish people living with HIV.
In July, the HIV Justice Network was very active prior to AIDS 2012 in Washington DC. We held an HIV criminalisation caucus meeting just before the main conference, attended by 36 smart and experienced advocates from 16 countries; co-ordinated a seminar at the MSMGF pre-meeting; and attended both the Positive Justice Project convening and LIVING 2012.
During the conference itself, we presented data in several sessions and satellites, co-organised a press conference, and hosted a panel featuring three courageous individuals who had previously been involved in criminal cases and who are now passionate advocates against the use the inappropriate use of the criminal law to regulate and punish people living with HIV. You can watch most of these sessions in the Video section of the new website.
Our biggest project to date was working with our video advocacy consultant, Nick Feustel, to produce the 30 minute advocacy and educational video, Doing HIV Justice: Clarifying criminal law and policy through prosecutorial guidance, which had its premiere at AIDS 2012.
The video demystifies the process of how civil society worked with the Crown Prosecution Service of England & Wales to create the world’s first policy and guidance for prosecuting the reckless or intentional transmission of sexual infection. It explains how the guidance was developed, what challenges the key stakeholders faced and overcame, and what benefits have resulted – fewer miscarriages of justice and a better understanding of HIV throughout the entire criminal justice system.
As well as thanking the three interviewees – Lisa Power, Policy Director, Terrence Higgins Trust; Yusef Azad, Director of Policy and Campaigns, NAT; and Arwel Jones, Head of the Law & Procedure Unit, Crown Prosecution Service Strategy & Policy Directorate – we’d also like to gratefully acknowledge the financial contribution of UNAIDS.
Doing HIV Justice had its European debut at the one-day seminar on HIV Criminalisation that the HIV Justice Network co-ordinated on behalf of Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, EATG, IPPF and the HIV in Europe initiative. The meeting was an opportunity to build on the momentum of advocacy from AIDS 2012 and create a more cohesive pan-European (and Central Asian) movement against laws, policies and practices that inappropriately criminalise people living with HIV.
As the HIV Justice Network moves forward we hope to continue to inform, support and connect individuals and organisations – activists, networks of people living with HIV, lawyers, researchers, clinicians, civil society organisations, and multilateral and UN agencies – in their work to end inappropriate prosecutions of people living with HIV.
Please let us know via the Contact Us form what you like (or don’t like) about the new site; how you use it in your work; and what we can do improve. And, of course, if are working to end inappropriate laws and prosecutions and have news, information or resources to share, we’d also like to hear from you.
Here’s to a whole new chapter in the global movement towards a more tolerant and supportive environment for people living with HIV, so that we can live long, healthy, empowered, dignified lives – surely a better and more effective way to prevent new infections than a punitive, disabling environment inherent in a criminal justice system approach.
In solidarity,
Edwin J Bernard
Co-ordinator, HIV Justice Network
HIV Disclosure and Criminalization Take Center Stage at PACHA Meeting
Voluntary disclosure, HIV criminalization and implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy were the hot topics at the convening of the 48th Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) in Washington, D.C., last week. Other topics of the two-day meeting, which was presided over by chair Nancy Mahon of the MAC AIDS Fund, included the Affordable Care Act and reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act.
Kenya: HIV, Law and Human Rights symposium calls for repeal of Aids Control Act (Section 24)
- The inaugural national symposium on HIV, Law and Human Rights opened on Tuesday in Nairobi with calls on the Government to repeal the law which criminalises infecting a person who did not have the virus
- HIV Equity Tribunal chairman Ambrose Rachier termed the Aids Control Act (Section 24) “counter-productive”, saying it will make people shun HIV testing
- According to the law, Mr Rachier said those who wilfully infected others with HIV faced “stiff penalties” of up to seven years in jail
Taking Forward the Recommendations of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law
The use of legal environment assessments and the conduct of national dialogue forums are some of the first steps that countries can take in an effort to take forward the findings of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law’s report on HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights and Health.
US: Sero Project to present new data on harm of HIV criminalisation to Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA)
Tomorrow, Thursday October 25th, the Sero Project, a human rights organisation comprised of people living with HIV who seek to end inappropriate criminal prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure or for potential or perceived HIV exposure or transmission, will present new data to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) showing the harm of HIV criminalisation.
Preliminary data from the Sero Project’s national criminalisation survey were presented at the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C. last July. Among the latest survey findings to be released on Thursday:
● 46 percent of respondents reported that they were not clear about what is required under state laws to protect themselves from prosecution. Another 32 percent were only somewhat clear about the legal requirements.
● 59 percent of young gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) of color reported that they were not clear about what behaviors related to HIV-positive status put them at risk for arrest, compared to 48 percent of all other men.
● Despite the fact that female respondents were the most likely to indicate complete clarity, only slightly more than 1 in 4 women (26%) said they felt completely clear about what behaviors put them at risk for arrest.
● 49 percent of male respondents, 46 percent of female respondents, and over 57 percent of transgender respondents said that it was “very” or “somewhat” reasonable for people to refuse to take an HIV test for fear of prosecution resulting from a positive test.
● 42 percent of male and female respondents, and 47 percent of transgender respondents, said that it was “very” or “somewhat” reasonable for PLHIV to refuse treatment for fear of prosecution resulting from others discovering their HIV status.
● A full 24 percent of respondents reported knowing at least one person who declined to take an HIV test for fear of prosecution.
● 10 percent of young gay, bisexual, or other MSM living with HIV, and 13 percent of transgender PLHIV, said that they might advise someone to avoid HIV testing because of the possibility of prosecution.
Notes Sero’s executive director, Sean Strub: “We need stronger leadership from PACHA and the federal government to stop the creation of a viral underclass in the law. Most efforts to combat stigma and discrimination are long and arduous and take many years; but by repealing HIV criminalisation statutes, government can take a big step all at once. We need our federal government’s effort to reflect the urgency the criminalisation crisis requires.”
In addition, five survivors of HIV criminalisation prosecutions from around the United States will speak to the panel, as well as the mother and sister of a sixth person prosecuted. “We believe this is the first time any official forum of the federal government has heard directly from a group of people with HIV who have been criminalised,” says Strub. “They are helping to make history and Sero is proud to have brought them to Washington for this important meeting.”
The entire Sero Project press release is republished below.
NEW DATA ON HARM OF HIV CRIMINALIZATION TO BE PRESENTED, SURVIVORS OF CRIMINALIZATION PROSECUTIONS TO SPEAK TO PRESIDENTIAL AIDS COUNCIL
WHAT: On Thursday, October 25, at the Washington Marriott at Metro Center (775 12th St NW), The Sero Project, a human rights organization comprised of people with HIV who seek to end inappropriate criminal prosecutions of people living with HIV (PLHIV) for non-disclosure of their HIV status or for potential or perceived HIV exposure or transmission, will present to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA).
Sero will reveal highlights of findings from their survey of over 2,000 people living with HIV (PLHIV) and 800 people from affected communities in the U.S., illustrating how the impact of HIV criminalization drives stigma, discourages HIV testing, disclosure and access to treatment, and disproportionately impacts young people, as well as gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) of color. At the PACHA meeting, Sero will screen HIV Is Not a Crimea short film about the harm criminalization does to PLHIV and HIV prevention.
Five survivors of HIV criminalization prosecutions from around the country (Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas, Iowa, and Washington) will speak to the panel, as well as the mother and sister of a sixth person prosecuted. Those charged faced prosecution, incarceration, and/or required sex offender registration for not disclosing their HIV positive status to a partner. None were accused of transmitting HIV.
Sero’s survey was conducted under the direction of principal investigator Laurel Sprague, with the oversight of the institutional review board (IRB) at Eastern Michigan University. Sprague is the regional coordinator for the North American chapter of the Global Network of People with HIV and Sero’s research director, and has herself lived with HIV for more than 20 years.
Sero’s survey shows a profoundly disabling legal environment for people with HIV in the U.S., with many PLHIV uncertain about what is required of them in terms of disclosure and uncertain what behaviors put them at risk of arrest. Many PLHIV and members of affected communities believe that fear of prosecution makes it reasonable for people to refuse to get tested for HIV, disclose their status or access treatment. Nearly a quarter report knowing one or more people who told them that they did not want to get tested for fear of being criminalized.
Among the survey findings to be released on Thursday:
● 46 percent of respondents reported that they were not clear about what is required under state laws to protect themselves from prosecution. Another 32 percent were only somewhat clear about the legal requirements.
● 59 percent of young gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) of color reported that they were not clear about what behaviors related to HIV-positive status put them at risk for arrest, compared to 48 percent of all other men.
● Despite the fact that female respondents were the most likely to indicate complete clarity, only slightly more than 1 in 4 women (26%) said they felt completely clear about what behaviors put them at risk for arrest.
● 49 percent of male respondents, 46 percent of female respondents, and over 57 percent of transgender respondents said that it was “very” or “somewhat” reasonable for people to refuse to take an HIV test for fear of prosecution resulting from a positive test.
● 42 percent of male and female respondents, and 47 percent of transgender respondents, said that it was “very” or “somewhat” reasonable for PLHIV to refuse treatment for fear of prosecution resulting from others discovering their HIV status.
● A full 24 percent of respondents reported knowing at least one person who declined to take an HIV test for fear of prosecution.
● 10 percent of young gay, bisexual, or other MSM living with HIV, and 13 percent of transgender PLHIV, said that they might advise someone to avoid HIV testing because of the possibility of prosecution.
Sean Strub, Sero’s executive director, said: “We need stronger leadership from PACHA and the federal government to stop the creation of a viral underclass in the law. Most efforts to combat stigma and discrimination are long and arduous and take many years; but by repealing HIV criminalization statutes, government can take a big step all at once. We need our federal government’s effort to reflect the urgency the criminalization crisis requires.”
Continued Strub: “We believe this is the first time any official forum of the federal government has heard directly from a group of people with HIV who have been criminalized. They are helping to make history and Sero is proud to have brought them to Washington for this important meeting.”
Said Monique Moree, Sero Advisory Board member, director of Monique’s Hope for Cure Outreach Service in Holly Hill, SC, and a criminalization survivor: “Criminalization is wrong and it hurts women. A lot of women can’t disclose because it invites violence, or because it jeopardizes their housing, employment, family situation or custody of their children. I told my boyfriend he had to use a condom; that’s how I said I had HIV. But I got prosecuted anyway.
“Even though the charges were eventually dropped, they made me feel like a criminal even though I knew I wasn’t. We are treated like monsters instead of human beings. If someone maliciously and intentionally harms someone else, then there should be consequences, but those circumstances are rare and to put everyone with HIV who can’t prove they disclosed in the same category is wrong. HIV criminalization needs to change.”
Said Laurel Sprague, Sero’s Research Director: “There is a clear mismatch between the intention to reduce HIV transmission and deaths and the laws that criminalize HIV non-disclosure or exposure. Instead of working to create a social and legal environment within which people can safely disclose, the laws make people living with HIV deeply vulnerable to violations by the legal system and by partners or former partners. The laws send a message that people living with HIV cannot be trusted to make the right decisions about disclosure on their own and that legal coercion is required. Yet the responses given by people living with HIV to describe their motivations for disclosing their status to a partner indicate that they choose to disclose for fundamentally moral reasons, not because of the existence of the law.”
WHEN/WHERE
October 25, 2012
9:30 to 5:00 pm
Late morning (TBD): Screening of HIV is Not a Crime late morning
3:30 PM: HIV criminalization survivors to speak
Meeting of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA)
Washington Marriott
775 12th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
WHO:
Sean Strub, Executive Director and founder of Sero. Strub is a writer and long-time activist who has lived with HIV for more than 30 years. He founded POZ Magazine, co-chairs the North American regional affiliate of the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+/NA) and co-founded and is a member of the Positive Justice Project. He has been engaged in HIV-related stigma, discrimination, criminalization and empowerment issues since the earliest days of the epidemic.
Laurel Sprague, Research Director of Sero. Laurel Sprague is Sero’s Research Director and works with grassroots and community-based organizations to conduct qualitative and quantitative program evaluation to support participatory, community-based research projects. She has provided technical assistance to local, national, and global organizations and to networks of people living with HIV throughout the US and Canada, as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. She teaches in the Department of Political Science at Eastern Michigan University and is a PhD candidate at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Her research focuses on the resiliency and capability of HIV-positive people, particularly when faced with HIV stigma and discrimination, criminalization, human rights abuses. She is the Regional Coordinator for GNP+NA and has lived with HIV for 20+ years.
In addition, the presentation will feature testimony from the following individuals, all of whom have been prosecuted as a result of HIV criminalization, despite not being accused of transmitting HIV:
● Nick Rhoades, an Iowan, used a condom, had an undetectable viral load and was convicted on a non-disclosure charge and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Advocates helped get the judge to reconsider the sentence and he was released after a year, but is subject to lifetime sex offender registration. Lambda Legal Defense is representing him in an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.
● Robert Suttle served six months in a Louisiana prison and is required to register as a sex offender for 15 years. He was in a contentious relationship; after it ended, the former partner pressed charges against Robert for not initially disclosing his HIV-positive status. Robert is the assistant director of the Sero Project and has worked as an HIV prevention outreach worker, focused on African American MSM.
● Monique Moree, of South Carolina, was in the Army and pregnant when she found out she was positive. When the Army found out she had a relationship with another soldier, they prosecuted her, despite the other soldier reporting that she told him to use a condom. She faced up to 12 years; although the charges were dropped, Monique had to leave the Army.
● Edward Casto, of Washington State, was born with HIV and was recently released from prison after serving a year and nine-months on an HIV-related charge.
● Mark Hunter and his brother, Michael, were born with hemophilia and acquired HIV as children from blood products. Michael died of AIDS in the early 90s; Mark was prosecuted after he and his fiancee broke up. He served 2 1/2 years in an Arkansas prison. He is represented at the PACHA meeting by his mother, Hazel, and his sister, Faith.
● Donald Bogardus was charged with non-disclosure in Iowa and is presently on a pre-trial release program. He faces up 25 years in prison and lifetime sex offender registration.
About The Sero Project
Sero is a not-for-profit human rights organization comprised of people with HIV who promote the empowerment of people with HIV, combat HIV-related stigma, discrimination and criminalization and advocate for sound public health and HIV prevention policies based on science and epidemiology rather than ignorance and fear.
Sero’s HIV criminalization work includes research, raising awareness and outreach to people with HIV who have been criminalized to create a network of advocates to speak first-hand about the effects of criminalization on their lives. Sero seeks to build a grassroots movement to mobilize the advocacy necessary to end HIV criminalization and promote a human rights-based approach to end the HIV epidemic. Sero is a member of the Positive Justice Project, a national collaboration of activists, professionals and policy leaders combating HIV criminalization, and the HIV Justice Network, a global network of anti-criminalization advocates.
Sero is supported by the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the H. van Ameringen Foundation and the Global Forum on MSM & HIV.
For more information, see www.seroproject.com.
Video: Seminar on HIV Criminalisation, Berlin, 20 September 2012 (EATG/DAH/IPPF/HIV in Europe)
This international conference on the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, potential or perceived HIV exposure and non-intentional HIV transmission took place at the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin on 20th September 2012. HIV advocates, law and human rights experts and other concerned stakeholders – including parliamentarians, prosecutors, clinicians and representatives of UNAIDS and UNDP – shared information regarding the current legal situation in Europe and Central Asia and explored ways to ensure a more appropriate, rational, fair and just response.
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetown media, for the HIV Justice Network.
Europe is second only to North America as the region with the most convictions. In recent years, some countries such as Denmark, Norway and Switzerland have started to revise their legislation. “These are encouraging signs“, says Edwin Bernard, project leader of the seminar, co-ordinator of the international HIV Justice Network and a member of the European AIDS Treatment Group. “In contrast, we are very concerned about developments in countries like Romania, which recently enacted an HIV-specific criminal law, or in Belgium, where new legal precedents were created allowing prosecutions for the first time. We are also hearing news about absurd and problematic trials for perceived HIV exposure in Austria. The conference was designed to help advocates move forward in these particularly repressive countries.”
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Professor Matthew Weait presents his initial analysis of advocacy against HIV criminalisation in Scandinavian and Nordic countries |
The conference took place on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG). The meeting was co-organised with Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (DAH), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and HIV in Europe, a multi-stakeholder initiative exchange on activities to improve early diagnosis and earlier care of HIV across Europe.
- Watch the video on the HIV Justice Network Vimeo site here.
- Download the agenda here.
- Download the concept note here.
- The meeting report is available here.