US: PWN-USA publishes framework to assert and celebrate the bodily autonomy of all women and girls, including the right to enjoy sex free from fear of HIV Criminalisation

Bodily Autonomy: A Framework to Guide Our Future

Download the printer-friendly PDF version.

Watch the recorded webinar here.

Bodily autonomy is the simple but radical concept that individuals have the right to control what does and does not happen to our bodies. When we have full bodily autonomy, not only are we empowered to make decisions about our health and future – without coercion or control by others – we also have the support and resources needed to meaningfully carry out these decisions.

The concept of bodily autonomy is central to Positive Women’s Network – USA’s vision of a world where all women and girls living with HIV can lead long, healthy, dignified and productive lives, free from stigma, discrimination, and violence in all forms. In this era of increasing surveillance and political repression, hate-fueled violence, and attempts to further restrict reproductive rights and freedom of movement, we assert the fundamental rights of all people, and in particular for women and folks of trans experience living with HIV, to control our bodies and futures. When women and girls living with HIV are free, all of us will be free.

In the U.S. context, the bodies, sexuality, reproduction, and movement of women of color have been controlled and policedfor hundreds of years, often violently and at a great cost to our rights. Today, for women and girls living with HIV, who areprimarily from communities of color, HIV stigma, misogyny, transphobia, and racism intersect to magnify attacks on our rights from all fronts. Yet we know that our human rights should never be conditioned on HIV status, race, ethnicity, sex, gender expression or identity, or any other aspect of who we are.

Bodily Autonomy Means:

Freedom from all forms of state violence.

Women and girls living with HIV deserve a world where our bodies are not threatened by state violence and brutality, and where our physical safety is protected.

This includes:

Ability to control our labor without exploitation, harassment, or policing.

All women and girls living with HIV deserve to control and be compensated fairly for our labor.

This includes:

  • Earning a living wage and receiving equal pay, without discrimination or coercion.
  • The ability to take time off from work without fear of retaliation or losing our jobs, including paid sick leave, family leave, and disability leave.
  • The right to organize in our workplaces to leverage better wages, benefits and working conditions, including forming or joining a union.
  • Those of us who engage in sex work, which is a form of labor, should be able to do so safely and without criminalization, with access to the support and resources we need to stay healthy, and without fear of violence, stigma, or harassment.
  • The ability to work without losing benefits, like health care coverage and supplemental income, that may be needed to maintain a decent quality of life.

Freedom to migrate and move within and across borders.

All women and girls living with HIV deserve to travel and live in a place that is safe and welcoming, regardless of immigration status or religion.

This includes:

  • The right to seek refuge and asylum from conditions that are physically, economically, or otherwise insecure or unsafe.
  • Staying together as a family without fear of losing a parent, child, or loved one to deportation.
  • The right to return to our country of origin if we choose.
  • The right to move around freely, without fear of profiling, detention, or harassment based on perceived immigration status.
  • The ability to enjoy the same legal rights and protections as other members of society, without regard to immigration status or previous contact with the criminal justice system.
  • The ability to access education, employment, healthcare and other opportunities in our country of residence, regardless of legal status.
  • The right to accessible, culturally and linguistically relevant public services and benefits without discrimination or government reprisal.

Freedom to express our gender and sexual orientation in a way that affirms who we are.

Women and girls living with HIV deserve to live authentically, and to express our gender and sexual orientation freely.

This includes:

  • The ability for our bodies to exist in public in a way that is comfortable for us, without being subject to homophobic or transphobic harassment, threats, or violence.
  • Recognition of our gender identity by the state and all social, political, economic, and community institutions with which we interact.
  • Health care responsive to people of all genders, and the employment opportunities, public benefits, and services necessary to thrive with dignity.
  • Support, respect and protection for the relationships and families we form.

    Freedom to choose whether or not, when, and how to form families and raise children.

    All women and girls living with HIV deserve to decide for ourselves whether or not, when, and how we will form families and raise children, regardless of age, income, disability, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation.

    This includes:

Resources, tools, and ability to make empowered and informed decisions about sex and relationships.

All women and girls living with HIV deserve to control our sexual lives, and should have the resources we need to support pleasurable and healthy sex and relationships.

This includes:

Access to the care and services necessary to keep our bodies, minds and spirits healthy and whole.

All women and girls living with HIV deserve to receive care and services that support holistic wellness – emotionally, physically, psychologically and spiritually.

This includes:

  • Affordable, accessible, trauma-informed and culturally-competent health care, including gender-affirming health care and hormones.
  • The right to refuse medical care that does not affirm us or make us feel whole.
  • Adequate nutrition and food security.
  • Freedom to practice our faith without fear of harassment, discrimination, or violence.
  • Safe, affordable, and stable housing.
  • Mental, emotional, and spiritual support services.
  • Access to harm reduction programs, safe injection sites and equipment, and overdose prevention resources for people who use drugs.

Download the printer-friendly PDF version of this framework here.

US: California LGBT Caucus holds briefing on the proposed repeal of HIV criminalisation laws

On Thursday, the LGBT Caucus held a briefing on the decriminalizing HIV and SB 239 introduced by State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).

The controversial bill, Senate Bill 239, introduced in early February, would repeal laws passed more than three-decades ago that Wiener and supporters say are discriminatory and not based in science. The proposed bill would treat HIV like other communicable diseases under California Law.

According to the proposed bill, it would make it a misdemeanor instead of a felony to intentionally expose someone to HIV.

Here is a look at the Legislative Digest regarding the bill:

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

 

SB 239, as introduced, Wiener. Infectious and communicable diseases: HIV and AIDS:criminal penalties.
(1) Existing law makes it a felony punishable by imprisonment for 3, 5, or 8 years in the state prison to expose another person to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by engaging in unprotected sexual activity when the infected person knows at the time of the unprotected sex that he or she is infected with HIV, has not disclosed his or her HIV-positive status, and acts with the specific intent to infect the other person with HIV. Existing law makes it a felony punishable by imprisonment for 2, 4, or 6 years for any person to donate blood, body organs or other tissue, or, under specified circumstances, semen or breast milk, if the person knows that he or she has acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), or that he or she has tested reactive to HIV. Existing law provides that a person who is afflicted with a contagious, infectious, or communicable disease who willfully exposes himself or herself to another person, or any person who willfully exposes another person afflicted with the disease to someone else, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
This bill would repeal those provisions. The bill would instead make the intentional transmission of an infectious or communicable disease, as defined, a misdemeanor, if certain circumstances apply, including that the defendant knows he or she is afflicted with the disease, that the defendant acts with the specific intent to transmit the disease to another person, that the defendant engages in conduct that poses a substantial risk of transmission, as defined, and that the defendant transmits the disease to the other person. The bill would impose various requirements upon the court in order to prevent the public disclosure of the identifying characteristics, as defined, of the complainant and the defendant. By creating a new crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(2) Under existing law, if a defendant has been previously convicted of prostitution or of another specified sexual offense, and in connection with the conviction a blood test was administered, as specified, with positive test results for AIDS, of which the defendant was informed, the previous conviction and positive blood test results are to be charged in any subsequent accusatory pleading charging a violation of prostitution. Existing law makes defendant guilty of a felony if the previous conviction and informed test results are found to be true by the trier of fact or are admitted by the defendant.
This bill would delete that provision. The bill would also vacate any conviction, dismiss any charge, and legally deem that an arrest under the deleted provision never occurred. The bill would require any court or agency having custody or control of records pertaining to the arrest, charge, or conviction of a person for a violation of the deleted provision to destroy, as specified, those records by June 30, 2018. By imposing this duty on local agencies, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would also authorize a person serving a sentence as a result of a violation of the deleted provision to petition for a recall or dismissal of sentence before the trial court that entered the judgment of conviction in his or her case. The bill would require a court to vacate the conviction and resentence the person to any remaining counts while giving credit for any time already served.
(3) Existing law requires the court to order a defendant convicted for a violation of soliciting or engaging in prostitution for the first time to complete instruction in the causes and consequences of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and to submit to testing for AIDS. Existing law requires such a defendant, as a condition of either probation or participating in a drug diversion program, to participate in an AIDS education program, as specified.
This bill would repeal those provisions.
(4) The bill would also make other conforming changes.
(5) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.

Here is a copy of the Press Release introducing the Bill on Feb 6

Senator Wiener and Assemblymember Gloria Announce Bill to Modernize Discriminatory HIV Criminalization Laws
Equality California, Positive Women’s Network – USA, ACLU and others join in support of bill to reform outdated laws enacted during a time of fear and ignorance to make them more consistent with laws involving other serious communicable diseases
February 6, 2017

 

Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) introduced a bill to modernize laws that criminalize and stigmatize people living with HIV. Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco) is also a co-author of the bill. Senate Bill 239 would amend California’s HIV criminalization laws, enacted in the 1980s and ‘90s at a time of fear and ignorance about HIV and its transmission, to make them consistent with laws involving other serious communicable diseases.

The bill is cosponsored by the ACLU of California, APLA Health, Black AIDS Institute, Equality California, Lambda Legal and Positive Women’s Network – USA. The organizations are part of Californians for HIV Criminalization Reform (CHCR), a broad coalition of people living with HIV, HIV and health service providers, civil rights organizations and public health professionals dedicated to ending the criminalization of HIV in California. San Francisco Supervisor Jeff Sheehy also attended the announcement.

“These laws are discriminatory, not based in science, and detrimental to our HIV prevention goals,” said Senator Wiener. “They need to be repealed. During the 1980s — the same period when some proposed quarantining people with HIV — California passed these discriminatory criminal laws and singled out people with HIV for harsher punishment than people with other communicable diseases. It’s time to move beyond stigmatizing, shaming, and fearing people who are living with HIV. It’s time to repeal these laws, use science-based approaches to reduce HIV transmission (instead of fear-based approaches), and stop discriminating against our HIV-positive neighbors.”

SB 239 updates California criminal law to approach transmission of HIV in the same way as transmission of other serious communicable diseases. It also brings California statutes up to date with the current understanding of HIV prevention, treatment and transmission. Specifically, it eliminates several HIV-specific criminal laws that impose harsh and draconian penalties, including for activities that do not risk exposure or transmission of HIV. It would make HIV subject to the laws that apply to other serious communicable diseases, thereby removing discrimination and stigma for people living with HIV, and maintaining public health.

“It’s time for California to reevaluate the way it thinks about HIV and to reduce the stigma associated with the disease,” said Assemblymember Gloria. “Current state law related to those living with HIV is unfair because it is based on the fear and ignorance of a bygone era. With this legislation, California takes an important step to update our laws to reflect the medical advances which no longer make a positive diagnosis equal to a death sentence.”

“As a former prosecutor, I know firsthand the need to get outdated and unscientific laws based on homophobia and fear off the books,” said Assemblymember Chiu. “These laws criminalize and stigmatize people with HIV, and they must be updated.”

Legislators passed a number of laws three decades ago, at the height of the HIV epidemic, that criminalized behaviors of people living with HIV or added HIV-related penalties to existing crimes. These laws were based on fear and on the limited medical understanding of the time.  When most of these laws were passed, there were no effective treatments for HIV and discrimination against people living with HIV was rampant.

In the decades since, societal and medical understanding of HIV has greatly improved. Effective treatments dramatically lengthen and improve the quality of life for people living with HIV—treatments that also nearly eliminate the possibility of transmission. In addition, similar treatments are available to HIV-negative people to nearly eliminate risk of infection. Laws criminalizing people with HIV do nothing to further public health and, in fact, stigmatize them, discouraging testing or obtaining necessary medical care.  The laws also reduce the likelihood of disclosure of a positive HIV status to sexual partners.

“These laws are disproportionately used against women and people of color, and fuel stigma, violence and discrimination,” said Naina Khanna, executive director of the Positive Women’s Network – USA.  “Despite their claims to protect vulnerable communities, these laws actually cause further harm, both to people living with HIV and the broader public.”

HIV criminalization disproportionately affects women and people of color. Forty-three percent of those criminalized under California’s HIV-specific criminal laws are women, despite comprising only 13 percent of people living with HIV in the state. Blacks and Latinos make up two-thirds of people who came into contact with the criminal justice system based on their HIV status, despite comprising only about half of people living with HIV/AIDS in California.

“These laws impose felony penalties and harsh prison sentences on people who have engaged in activities that do not risk transmission and do not endanger public health in any way,” said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California. “Modernizing them would reduce discrimination and stigma for people living with HIV. Ending stigma is at the core of ending HIV. Treatment of HIV has entered the 21st century – it’s time for California’s laws to reflect that, as well.”

“Living with HIV should not be a crime in California,” said Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, who is the first HIV positive member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a leader in San Francisco’s Getting to Zero coalition to end all new HIV infections. “That’s why I support Senator Wiener’s legislation.”

In addition to the organizations sponsoring the bill, it is currently supported by CHCR members which include the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the Los Angeles HIV Law and Policy Project, the Transgender Law Center, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the Free Speech Coalition, Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) and Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education, and Research Project (ESPLERP).

Published on East County Today on March 10th, 2017

US: Article (including quotes from Sero's Sean Strub) highlights how movement against HIV criminalisation is growing stronger in 2017

HIV Criminalization Is Detrimental to Public Health. It’s Time for the Law to Catch Up. By Matt Baume. Outward: Expanding the LGBTQ Conversation on Slate.com

It was in the summer of 2015 that then-23-year-old Michael Johnson was sentenced to thirty 30 years in prison for transmitting HIV. Since 1988, his home state of Missouri has imposed harsh penalties for what prosecutors call “reckless infection,” and it’s hardly alone: Most states have, at some time, prosecuted people for transmitting the virus. But those prosecutions may soon come to an end.

Laws that establish HIV-specific crimes date back to the dark years of the epidemic: “Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users,” wrote William F. Buckley Jr. in the New York Times in 1986, “and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals.” At the time, hysteria over AIDS produced a national wave of stigmatizing laws—laws that have now been shown to have worsened the epidemic.

“If people are so concerned with HIV transmission, then perhaps the Missouri legislature and Governor Nixon should start by repealing this law,” wrote Kenyon Farrow, the U.S. and global health policy director for the Treatment Action Group, in response to Michael Johnson’s prosecution.

Though it may seem appropriate to discourage HIV transmission, laws that create HIV-specific crimes “are unjust and harmful to public health around the world,” according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Rather than discouraging transmission, the laws actually discourage patients from seeking testing and care, which in turn leads to more transmissions. Numerous other public health experts and political leaders have called for an end to HIV prosecutions, including the American Medical Association, the National Association of County and City Health Officials, the U.S Conference of Mayors, and the Obama administration’s Department of Justice.

But reform comes slowly, and advocates for repeal have found themselves toiling for years to overturn the harmful statutes. Now, at last, a coordinated nationwide effort is taking shape, and 2017 is likely to see significant advances in the decriminalization of HIV.

“There’s two big shifts over the last five or six years,” said Sean Strub, executive director of the Sero Project, a group that advocates for repeal. “One, the people in the LGBT community … have an understanding of what HIV criminalization is. It’s a general awareness of the phenomenon in the communities most directly affected.” He estimates that his organization has had over a thousand speaking engagements in the last half-decade.

“Second: The issue is increasingly seen in public health terms,” he said. “To be fair, there wasn’t a lot of hard evidence [until recently]. We now know that 25 percent of people with HIV in the U.S. know one or more individuals who are afraid to get tested for HIV for fear of getting criminalized.” That statistic is based on a Sero Project survey of over 2,000 people, designed to determine how the partners of people with HIV access health care. Their findings indicate that criminalization has a public health impact beyond people who already have HIV.

Organizations like Sero Project have learned some valuable lessons over the last few years about harm reduction, and they’re now leveraging those best-practices in communities and legislatures around the country. Those strategies include coordinated educational efforts that simultaneously hit multiple communities: Faith, LGBTQ, public health, and legal. In addition, advocates are establishing local coalitions so that legislative pressure comes from constituents, rather than national groups. And they’re engaging with individual prosecutions around the country.

This year will see particularly intense focus in midwestern and southern states: Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, the Carolinas, Ohio, and Indiana will see intensive outreach efforts. California is making great strides, with a bill announced earlier this month to modernize the state’s laws. That effort has included a detailed study of prosecutions, with an analysis of demographic data that could become a model for modernization in other states.

Customized approaches are key to the approach in each state. In Florida, for example, advocates have reached out to members of the criminal justice system, from police officers all the way up to judges. Iowa’s decriminalization effort included a collaboration between hepatitis and HIV groups.

Another important evolution is how closely reform advocates are working with advocates for other forms of social change. “Whether it’s trans activists or drug policy people or sex work activists or Black Lives Matter or penal system reform, HIV decriminalization seems to be a nexus for those efforts,” said Strub. “It’s so closely tied to the criminalization of bodies. … Five or six years ago, other organizations were not involved in this work.”

At the national level, advocates are sponsoring a Congressional lobbying campaign in March. Top priorities include reforms to Army policy, as well as the creation of incentives for states to modernize their laws. (An old provision in the Ryan White CARE Act, a 1990 law that provided funding for HIV programs, prompted many states to impose criminalization in the first place.) The Repeal HIV Discrimination Act, sponsored by Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), would provide a framework for state-by-state repeal—and although it’s languished since 2013, it will see a renewed push next month.

Among the states to watch: Missouri, home of Michael Johnson. The state is in the midst of an organizing effort that Strub estimates could take two or three years. Johnson’s conviction was recently overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct, and he’s been remanded for a retrial likely to happen sometime this year. That’s encouraging news, though Missouri Court of Appeals refused to rule on the constitutionality of the law under which Johnson was convicted.

As a result, Johnson and many others like him will remain tangled in a maze of trials, legislation, and lobbying efforts, trapped by misguided laws that impose preventable harm—for now.

Canada: Powerful first person testimony from Chad Clarke, an HIV criminalisation survivor and now passionate advocate

From behind bars to the front lines of anti-criminalization advocacy

Bob Leahy talks to Ontario’s Chad Clarke about how Chad’s time in prison for non-disclosure of HIV status on an aggravated sexual assault charge turned him into a passionate advocate against HIV criminalization.  

Chad Clarke, 45. lives in Dresden, a rural community in south-west Ontario (pop 2,500). He contracted HIV in 2004 but was not diagnosed until 2008. In February 2017 his story was featured in Toronto’s NOW magazine.

Said the article by writer Rob Easton “On February 12, 2009 he turned himself in on an aggravated sexual assault charge brought by his former common-law partner. A judge found Clarke failed to disclose his HIV status. He didn’t see the light until he walked out of prison more than two years later in June 2011, but his resurrection as an HIV activist could not have happened without the experience of prison, which led to his resolve to fight so no one would have go through what he did.”

Bob Leahy recently spoke at length with Chad to find out more. Here is Chad’s story.

++++++++++

It was on February 12 of 2009 that I received a phone call at work. I was building a house that day. It went “hello is that Chad Clarke? This is officer so-and-so and we have been looking for you.” I said “what is this regarding?” They asked me if I knew a particular person. We were in a common law relationship for two-and-a half years and we had separated on bad terms. I had got a phone call after we broke up accusing me of giving her HIV. At the time I did not know I was HIV-positive. When she had first contacted me and started harassing me on the phone I just said “do what you have to do.” I was contacted by Public Health who told me I needed to go get tested. I brought my then current partner with me and we went to the Byng (HIV) Clinic in Windsor. She came back negative. I was HIV-positive.  I had no clue about HIV, about longevity, about treatment. I was on meds for about six months before the police contacted me.

Anyway the police said “there is a Canada-wide warrant out for your arrest.” They said the outstanding warrant was for an aggravated sexual assault charge. At that time my knees buckled. I got into my car and sat there and one cigarette led to five. Then I got a phone call and a female (police) voice said “Mr. Clarke, what are your plans?” I said “let me go home and say goodbye to my family. I will turn myself in to address this.” Then I threw the phone out of the window. I freaked out. I was paranoid.

I drove with my uncle to Newmarket to turn myself in first thing in the morning. My understanding was that I would be released on my own recognizance. When I approached the desk officer at the police station and said my name and why I was there  they proceeded to put handcuffs on me. They told me I was now going for a bail hearing in Barrie.

We arrived at the Barrie courthouse and I went before the judge. It was duty counsel that represented me there. I didn’t have time to call a lawyer and besides I thought I was going home. But I was denied bail at the first bail hearing. I was very confused, no idea what was next or how this would unfold.

I was remanded into custody in the Penetanguishene jail. You have to go 90 days before you can go for another bail hearing. I got there about 9 oclock in the evening and they informed me I was going in to protective custody. It was because of my HIV status and because they didn’t want to put the general population at risk. And for my own safety because there might have been some backlash against me. I saw the nurse that night and I said to her “I’m HIV-positive and I’m on Atripla and I really need that medication.” She said “no problem, we will get it to you”. Then the jail goes into a Level 2 weapons lockdown because I’m high profile and they wanted to make sure there were no weapons and nobody was going to come after me. We were locked down for two weeks and in that time I did not receive my antiretroviral pills.

In April 2009 I went back to court for a second bail hearing and I had a plan that I was going to get out and fight it from the street. My family had pooled some money together and were willing to bail me out. But they bought up some things from my past and lo and behold I was denied bail once again. After that I got put in touch with a really good lawyer and he wanted to play the circuit, to get a good judge to hear the pre-trial. He didn’t inform me that there was a HALCO or a PASAN or any of that. That lasted for 13 months and when it was time to go to court I asked him “how much time am I looking at?” He said 10 to 15 years.

I had a daughter and son just going into their teens. I thought I was never going to see them again. I thought “somebody was going to stab me because they don’t like the fact that I’m HIV.” Finally it was whittled down and I asked my lawyer “if I plead guilty how much time would I get?” My lawyer told me four years was the best he could get me. At least it would give me a date to work on where I could see my loved ones.

So I pleaded guilty at the preliminary hearing to something I totally disagreed with. My hands were tied. There was nothing I could do.

So I was moved to a different unit of the range awaiting sentencing. I was befriended a lifer and he asked me if I had ever heard of PASAN? I made the call and got in contact with Mooky (Cherian) and Claudia Medina. Claudia showed me that there were people out there that cared. She sent me cards and tried to keep my spirits up and focused. Mooky said “I wished you had contacted us sooner, we could maybe have got you out sooner. It was unfortunate you pleaded guilty.” I said “that was what I was instructed to do.”

To be honest I didn’t have any problems with the inmates. I told them what I had and started educating them about Hep C. I had their backing. 100% of the inmates said “I shouldn’t even have been there. This is wrong.”

So we are at the 26-month mark and I had had no blood work done. I wanted Ensure to keep my weight on and the general doctor I would see – no HIV specialist  – refused to give it to me. But I had a good rapport with the Byng  Clinic and I called in every day and at one point I was taken to Sunnybrook Hospital to see Dr. Raclis about a bacterial infection I had. She put me in a separate room and proceeded to ream out the two guards about my health care. That was the only time I got to see any kind of HIV specialist.

At one time back at the jail I was pulled off my laundry job and I asked “why is that?” The guard said “we are concerned that you are going to spread your AIDS to other inmates because you are touching their clothes”. By this time Mooky had brought me up to speed about how HIV was contracted and I said “number one, I have no open wounds, number two HIV dies in the air within seconds and number three I’m wearing protective gloves – and I think you are an ignorant bastard.” So they proceeded to put me back on the range.

I had been sentenced to a 48-month prison term and in total I served 39 months in Penetanguishene. It’s maximum security. Just before you are released you are supposed to see a social worker to see if you are going to go on Ontario Works or ODSB, but I didn’t have a social worker approach me. I was getting scared. I had been in there a long time. How was my life going to change now that I’m out? So I got hold of the chaplain and I asked him if they could find an AIDS Service Organization (ASO) for me in Chatham because I was going to move back there, where my parents are. So I made a call to AIDS Support Chatham-Kent. I had two weeks left in my sentence so I got set up with my ASO and also made an appointment to see my doctor at the Byng Clinic.

When I was released on June 3, 2011 I went to live with my youngest brother. I was on a 250 acre farm in a rural area, out near Dresden where I am at now. I stayed there for six months, trying to readapt, trying to give myself a new identity. The Chad Clarke before I had gone to jail was no longer there. I was a different person. I felt isolated. I wanted to go back to Toronto.

In Toronto I was introduced to the Ontario AIDS Network and their PLDI (positive leadership) program and did their Level One training. Then after about eighteen months  I moved back to the Chatham area and started volunteering with AIDS Support Chatham-Kent and started doing harm reduction work – they have a needle exchange program there. I was interested in that and felt this was my calling – and I haven’t stopped. I get a chance to engage with my community – I don’t call them “druggies” or “junkies”, I call them intravenous drug users. They have an identity. I don’t judge them. I share my story.

I was there until 2014 and something was telling me I needed to do something different. I went back to Toronto and enrolled in a George Brown sheet-metal program for a year. Then I decided to enroll at Ryerson University in a psychology, mental health and addictions program – I used to be an addict myself when I lived on the streets of Toronto. I was addicted to cocaine for many years and I needed others to see that I changed and if one person gets it I’ve done my job.

I got introduced to ACT and Toronto PWA Foundation and was helping with their therapeutic care department. Then I decided I wanted to go to B.C and see what harm reduction really is – and tell my story. I found out about the Jim Pattison Centre in Surrey, B.C. – they deal in positive living – and a place called Positive Haven; it’s no longer around and it provided produce for all the local food banks

At that time my daughter was pregnant and I wanted to come back home so I did and reconnected with the AIDS Committee of Windsor and their satellite centre, AIDS Support Chatham-Kent and started volunteering again, doing more in-depth harm reduction. I was there five days a week until last September.

Then I got involved with CPPN. I saw a posting from Christian (Hui) one day and I said “hey, there is finally a national organization in Canada for people living with HIV!” I wrote my story for Christian and he connected me with Alex McLelland; at that time Alex was doing research on people who had been charged under HIV criminalization laws. Alex came down from Montreal to my home and I shared my story.  And we talked about the need for some kind of coalition. To me it’s wrong to be charged, it’s a human rights violation for being charged because you have an incurable disease in your body.

So he said that he would put me in contact with Richard Elliot (Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network). It was October 20 of this past year our group started the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization. I’m on the steering committee. We have kept in contact constantly as we got more members, from B.C., from the east coast, even defence lawyers.

I had the honour in February to sit down with two representatives from the federal Department of Justice and we read them testimony of other people who were presently or had been incarcerated for non-disclosure charges. It was very emotional.

So I thought “I’ve been there. I will be your voice while you are inside. I’ve gone through it.” I shared my story and one of the things I demanded was that Corrections Canada staff take an AIDS 101 program to address the ignorance around how they treat inmates. I also demanded that not just the Toronto police but police across Canada take AIDS 101 and it has to be renewed annually to stay up with the science. The coalition want  to have a moratorium on non-disclosure prosecutions and we talked about the need for prosecutorial guidelines around non-disclosure cases. We are having a follow-up think tank in May to come up with a brief about that. I think we are going to have prosecutorial guidelines. For the first time in a long time I have some faith in the federal government around this.

Why do I do the work I do? I would hate to see any fellow brothers and sisters with HIV walk in the shoes I had to walk in. If I can educate with my story about what needs to be changed . . . Change needs to happen. I’m doing the work I am supposed to be doing. This is where I need to be.

I’m proud to share my story. I’m not ashamed of who I am.

US: HIV Criminalisation laws will feature heavily in AIDSWatch 2017 conversations with Members of Congress

Every year, AIDSWatch brings together hundreds of people living with HIV and their allies to meet with Members of Congress with the aim of educating them about important issues involving HIV-positive people in the country.

Presented by The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, it is the nation’s largest annual constituent-based national HIV advocacy event, and is implemented as a partnership between AIDS United, the Treatment Access Expansion Project, and the US People Living With HIV Caucus.

In order to continue the efforts towards a cure, we must also try and mend social stigma around those living with HIV. But in order to stop new infections and successfully treat those living with the virus, we need compromise and collaboration across all sectors. One of the biggest conversations organizers plan to have at AIDSWatch 2017 centers around HIV criminalization laws.

Last month, a bill was introduced to the California state legislature by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and assembly members Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) and David Chiu (D-San Francisco) aiming to modernize these laws, which criminalize and stigmatize those living with HIV.

The bill was co-sponsored by Equality California, the ACLU California, APLA Health, Black AIDS Institute, Lambda Legal, and Positive Women’s Network. It’s purpose is to repeal all HIV specific laws that criminalize otherwise legal behavior, turning misdemeanors into felonies that put innocent people (like Michael Johnson) in prison simply for being HIV-positive.

“ETAF is putting our hearts into encouraging every state to overturn its criminalization laws,” Laela Wilding, Elizabeth Taylor’s eldest granddaughter and ambassador to ETAF, says to Plus. “Generally speaking it’s about disclosure. The problem with that is in many cases, it becomes a ‘he said, she said’ type of situation where one person may say, ‘yes I disclosed my positive status’ and eventually there’s a possibility that person could come back and accuse them of having not disclosed their status after some kind of sexual encounter or relationship, and then it’s sort of a push and pull. Usually the person who is HIV-positive is the person who is marginalized and often ends up going to jail or prison.”

There are well over 30 states in the United States with laws that discriminate against people with HIV in one form or another, and many of them are written in vague terms so they’re interpreted in different ways. That being said, it becomes incredibly important to monitor the way these laws are written and try to overturn them — much like how Colorado did last year.

Wilding says a major reason for Colorado’s victory was because people in the state were educated on the facts and medical realities of what it means to be living with HIV: that undetectable means uninfectious, yet poz people are stigmatized and marginalized in the criminalization system to almost no mercy.

“[Colorado] overturned those laws by letting people know the facts,” Wilding adds. “Then, almost everyone was behind it. Of course we don’t want to criminalize these people who are living with a disease that is considered treatable to a certain degree. If we can talk about it with our friends, talk about it in the media, I think that state-by-state we can start breaking the stigma down and change these laws. I think once people know about it, they want to help.”

HIV criminalization laws also have an invisible effect on HIV testing. For people who live in a state with these laws, it’s easy for them to brush off an opportunity to get tested. After all, why risk knowing you’re positive if you’re only going to get punished for it? As a result of people being left untested, the number of people living with HIV who don’t know it (and who aren’t getting treated) are left at risk.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in eight people have the virus and don’t know it. And while a new report shows that annual HIV infections in the U.S. dropped 18 percent between 2008 and 2014, it is still evident that Black men are not only disproportionately effected, but are also the most targeted when it comes to criminalization laws.

“The trans community and women, people of color, these people particularly in California, women in California, are being marginalized and criminalized to an even greater degree and I don’t think people have any idea that this is going on,” Wilding adds. “Once we hear about it, we get fire up. We think, ‘Why is our government spending money criminalizing these people?’ We need to protect them, and support them in the right ways. That would reduce the transmission of HIV, which is the point.”

Elizabeth Taylor’s great-grandson, Wilding’s son, Finn McMurray, spoke to Congressional members last year at AIDSWatch about the importance of sexual health education in schools. According to him, there is still very little conversation about treatment and prevention, especially around PrEP. He hopes that will change.

“Most of my peers unfortunately don’t know about these new, or do not talk about, or haven’t considered for themselves, these new breakthroughs,” the 18-year old activist says. “That’s something to work on, actually informing youth and getting youth to talk about it — not only the issues that have been around for a long time, which are still quite prevalent, but the breakthroughs that are happening now and how those can be utilized.”

McMurray will again ask for a cosponsor of the Real Education for Healthy Youth Act, which aims to fund teacher training on sex education and provide grants for comprehensive sex education. “I think that sexual health education is extremely important to not only the fight against HIV, but all STIs,” he reiterates.”The age group of 15-24 make up half of the new infections each year. I think it’s essential for the next generation to make healthy decisions for themselves. I’d really like to see a shift in the conversation that my generation is having. There’s a lot of potential, but we aren’t as a whole being exposed to enough and being pushed and supported to have these conversations.”

AIDSWatch 2017 will take place from March 27 – 28, 2017 in Washington, D.C.

Canada: Advocacy groups hope law criminalising HIV non-disclosure will change soon

Advocates hope for change in HIV non-disclosure law after Ottawa meeting with provinces

Law criminalizing HIV non-disclosure needs to catch up with science, advocates say.

Advocacy groups are hoping the law criminalizing HIV non-disclosure in Canada will change after a meeting between Ottawa and the provinces in the spring.

Under Canadian law, people with HIV are required to disclose their health status to their partner before engaging in sexual activity. Those who don’t can be charged with aggravated sexual assault, whether or not HIV is actually transmitted, and face a maximum sentence of life in prison as well as permanent status as a registered sex offender.

Criminalizing non-disclosure only compounds the marginalization and fear in the lives of people living with HIV, advocacy groups say.

“This is a really important issue. The federal government has made a commitment to review the way our justice system handles HIV-related cases. And that’s something that we fully support and welcome,” Emilie Smith, a spokesperson with the Ministry of the Attorney General, told the Star in an email.

“Ontario is currently working with the federal government on this review — so that work has already started.”

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a person with HIV can only keep their condition from a partner if they have a low viral load — the number of HIV virus particles in a millilitre of blood — and use a condom.

Advocates argue the law does not take into account science that says that as long as a person has an undetectable viral load, risk of transmission is practically zero, even if the person did not use a condom.

The Canadian medical community has also weighed in. In 2014, more than 70 national AIDS doctors and HIV researchers released a statement expressing concern for the Supreme Court’s approach to nondisclosure as “a poor appreciation of the science related to HIV contribut(ing) to an overly broad use of the criminal law.”

Internationally, the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Global Commission on HIV and the Law both urged governments to limit the use of criminal law to cases of intentional transmission of the virus.

For advocates calling on lawmakers to catch up with science and reconsider its laws on HIV criminalization, the meeting between the federal government and the provinces cannot come soon enough.

In a 2013 report on the criminalization of non-disclosure and recommendations for police, the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario underlined the “significant scientific consensus on certain key issues” as it relates to the virus.

“For over a decade, HIV has been medically understood as a chronic, manageable infection,” it reads, noting a low or undetectable viral load — usually the result of effective antiretroviral drug treatment — reduces the risks of HIV transmission through sex “to a point where the risk of transmission is negligible.”

The prosecutions are unfortunately having an impact on the most vulnerable people living with HIV, said Ryan Peck, the legal clinic’s executive director.

“There’s also the issue that the current approach to criminal law is impacting people’s decisions to test for HIV in the first place — the current use providing a disincentive to get tested.

“There is a deep fear that what people say to their health-care providers and public health authorities will end up in a court case against them.”

Last month, a protest was held outside the ministry’s office to protest the “overly broad and unjust” charges relative to HIV disclosure.

Ontario leads in the number of people charged with HIV status non-disclosure and 180 people have been charged across the country, Jonathan Valelly of Queers Crash the Beat said at the protest.

The protesters were calling for a moratorium on all HIV non-disclosure cases currently before the courts.

“This issue is just not that cut-and-dry. These cases are highly complex, and no two cases are exactly alike,” said Smith, the attorney-general spokesperson.

“What needs to happen and what is happening, is a conversation that looks at the law, how it is being applied as well as our understanding of HIV. We agree that a review is needed and the federal government has committed to look at the current law critically to see if there are changes to the Criminal Code that need to be made.”

Published in the Star on March 5, 2017

US: In-depth review of scientific studies on the criminalisation of HIV exposure

The Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) at Yale University has completed an in-depth review of scientific studies on the criminalization of HIV exposure in the United States. The review appears in the current issue AIDS and Behavior.  Dini Harsono, Assistant Director for Clinical Health Services Research at CIRA, is the lead author of the article. Collaborating authors include two prominent members of CIRA’s longstanding work group on the Criminalization of HIV Non-Disclosure, Carol Galletly of the Center for AIDS Intervention Research in Wisconsin and Zita Lazzarini, UConn Health, and CIRA’s Executive Director, Elaine O’Keefe. This is the first comprehensive examination of empirical research on this topic in the US, examining studies conducted between 1990 and 2014. In addition to describing the research and key findings, the review discusses implications for practice and policy that emerge from the studies reviewed, identifies gaps in our current knowledge, and sets the course for future research in this area.

You can read the article here.

UK: Inaccurate information around the risk of HIV or HCV transmission posed to police officers by spitting is stigmatising and hugely damaging

More than 30 years on from the start of the AIDS crisis, tabloids are still spreading a basic falsehood about HIV.

The claim has been repeatedly reported in newspapers amid a row over the use of police ‘spit hoods’ to prevent detainees from spitting at officers.

Amid a clash on the proposed use of spit hoods by the Metropolitan Police, outlets have repeated claims that their use will reduce the chances of officers being infected with HIV or hepatitis C – despite three decades of evidence that it is impossible to get HIV from saliva.

In a joint statement today, the Hepatitis C Trust and National AIDS Trust both expressed concern about the inaccurate reporting, pointing out  that both HIV and hepatitis C “are blood borne viruses, and therefore cannot be transmitted via spitting.” HIV is transmitted from blood-to-blood contact.

Deborah Gold, Chief Executive of NAT said: “HIV is irrelevant to the debate about spit hoods because spitting simply is not an HIV transmission route.

“Using fear of HIV to justify spit hoods is extremely stigmatising and of great concern to NAT. This stigma and misinformation is especially damaging when a false implication of HIV risk from spitting comes from a source that people trust.”

Dr Stuart Flanagan, Clinical Research Fellow, Viral Hepatitis and HIV Medicine, Queen Mary University London, said: “Hepatitis C and HIV are not transmitted by spitting on someone else.

“Although these viruses may be theoretically present and detectable in saliva, the infection and transmission risk is negligible.

“In the UK the majority of cases of hepatitis C are transmitted by blood to blood contact, and the vast majority of HIV cases are sexually transmitted.”

The statement added that the inaccurate claims had been “hugely damaging as they reinforce existing stigma and misconceptions that surround both viruses.

“Such falsehoods also cause unnecessary alarm to police staff. Given the significant challenges faced by police officers in the line of duty, causing them to fear they have been put at risk when they have not places an undue burden upon them, and must not go unchallenged.

“While the debate around the use of spit hoods is an important one for the police, policy-makers and the public, hepatitis C and HIV are of no relevance to it and should not be used as justification for their use.”

Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, who had come under fire after saying there is “no evidence that spit hoods are necessary or useful”, told PinkNews in a statement: “This rational intervention made by the medical community is deeply appreciated.  It is important that medical professionals have clarified this unfounded belief.

“The arguments for spit hoods should be evidence based. The public expect and deserve a national debate to be fact-based, not fear-based.

“Police staff, who are often under incredible stress in the line of duty, should not be led to believe that they are at high risk of HIV or HEP C from spitting.

“Disappointingly this association has been propagated widely across the media, particularly in the past few weeks. Amongst social media users and in major tabloid newspapers, including the Express, Mail, the Standard and the Sun.

“I hope they will widely report this important interjection by Hepatitis Trust and the NAT. “

US: Modernising California HIV-criminalisation laws is crucial to reduce the fear and discrimination that lead to more HIV infections

BY EDWARD MACHTINGER

Pebbles had a life filled with trauma – she had spent most of her youth in foster care and in the juvenile justice system. When she was 17, her mother died. Despite her other problems, it was her HIV diagnosis that caused her the most shame and isolation.

She was so stigmatized by having HIV, so ashamed, so fearful of rejection by family and friends, that she did not tell anyone that she had acquired the disease. This made it almost impossible for her to come to the clinic, to take her HIV medications, and to care for herself. As a result, despite our best efforts, she couldn’t take her HIV medications regularly and died of a completely preventable brain infection. She was 22 and left behind a 1-year-old daughter.

The overwhelming stigma her story illustrates is one of the greatest challenges I’ve encountered in my 20 years as a physician treating women and girls living with HIV. I see this every day in my clinic: Many of my patients do not feel safe revealing their status to anyone for fear of rejection or violence. To make matters worse, California still has a number of laws on the books that, instead of promoting public health, criminalize people living with HIV and add substantially to the stigma surrounding it.

These laws impose draconian penalties on people living with HIV even for activities that carry no risk of transmission. By treating HIV differently than other serious communicable diseases, these laws increase the sense of shame and isolation attached to HIV.

This legislation has never been shown to help prevent HIV transmission. Rather, it makes it less likely that people living with HIV will get tested and seek treatment that makes them incapable of transmitting the virus. These laws actually increase the risk of HIV transmission in our communities.

Since these laws were enacted in the 1980s and ’90s, we have developed potent HIV medications that, when taken regularly, suppress the virus so effectively that HIV-positive people can live long, healthy lives and be completely noncontagious to others – something confirmed by two international studies. We have also learned that HIV-related stigma is, itself, a serious public health issue.

A bill recently introduced in the California Senate would modernize the state’s laws targeting people living with HIV with criminal penalties and bring them in line with how we treat other serious communicable diseases. Senate Bill 239, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, eliminates this form of HIV exceptionalism by incorporating the current scientific understanding of HIV, addressing HIV in the same manner as other serious communicable diseases, and eliminating extra punishment for people living with HIV who engage in consensual sexual activity.

There are many reasons for HIV-related stigma, but state laws that criminalize HIV are among the worst offenders. These laws, as they are currently written, are not only outdated and ineffective, but they are actually dangerous because they create a climate of fear and discrimination that lead to more HIV infections.

SB 239 is not a partisan or political issue, nor is it a matter of conflict in medical science. This is a basic issue of public health. The proposal to revise and modernize these laws is crucial to achieve our shared goals of reducing new HIV infections and helping those living with the virus to be safe, healthy and empowered.

Dr. Edward Machtinger is a professor of medicine and director of the Women’s HIV Program at UC San Francisco. He can be contacted at Edward.Machtinger@ucsf.edu.

Published in The Sacramento Bee on February 28, 2917

Nigeria: On Zero Discrimination Day, Coalition of Lawyers for Human Rights strongly denounce judicial HIV stigma in ongoing child custody case (Press release)

Breach of HIV status confidentiality and discrimination by the Hon Justice Olagunju of the Oyo State Judiciary 

Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. March 1, 2017.

Coalition of Lawyers for Human Rights, COLaHR, is a Coalition of Human Rights Lawyers working on issues of Persons Living With, Affected By or Most at Risk of HIV.

COLaHR has been following and monitoring a case involving a mother living with HIV, which is being adjudicated upon before the Hon Justice Olagunju of Court 7 of the Oyo State High Court of Justice.

Our interest in the matter is basically to monitor how courts, in the dispensation of justice involving persons living with HIV, respect their confidentiality and possible traces of stigma and discrimination, in accessing justice.

COLaHR is concerned with the attitude of the Honourable Justice on all fronts in this regard. On the 20th of February 2017, while lawyers on both sides were delivering their final addresses, the presiding Judge, publicly made comments which publicly revealed the HIV status of the plaintiff. Not only was this wrong and a gross breach of confidentiality, the Judge also made comments obiter in the case of custody of the child, which exhibited gross stigmatisation and discrimination.

The Judge largely stated as follows:

“putting the interest of the child first, imagine the trauma that the little girl will pass through when the news of her mother being HIV-positive spreads across her school.”

The above quote, which was made in passing (obiter) and may not be included in the courts records, is patently discriminatory and coated with stigma. It betrays lack of appreciation of the prevailing HIV and AIDS laws at the federal and state levels. Several questions arise from Justice Olagunju’s statement:

  • What happens if both parents of the child are HIV-positive? Will such a child be handed over to foster parents?
  • Are we saying that persons with HIV in Nigeria are not fit for parenthood?
  • Should all HIV-positive adults therefore be sterilised?
  • Who will spread the news of Omolara being HIV-positive all over her daughter’s school?
  • Is the right to confidentiality of HIV status not guaranteed under Nigerian laws?

COLaHR makes the following findings from our monitoring of this case:

  1. The disposition of Hon. Justice Olagunju clearly casts doubt on the ability of the court not to be swayed by the Plaintiff’s health status in coming to a decision on the matter.
  1. The Plaintiff, in her statements to COLaHR has clearly shown the fear as in above, given her Husband’s request for custody of the child is hinged on HER HIV-POSITIVE STATUS.

It is in light of the above that COLaHR calls on Hon. Justice Olagunju to excuse himself from the case as justice must not only be done, but must be seen to have being done.

We call on the Chief Justice of the State, to direct Hon. Justice Olagunju to step down from the case.

We will in consonance with the law, share our findings with the Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice and the State Attorney General respectively.

Signed

Roseline Oghenebrume,

National Coordinator, Coalition of Lawyers for Human Rights