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.
China: Lawyer proposes making 'intentional HIV transmission' a crime
In the Chinese legal system, it is a crime to intentionally spread sexual transmitted diseases through prostitution, but this does not apply in a marriage or an ordinary relationship. Yang Shaogang, a Shanghai lawyer and advisor to the local government, is among those legal experts who propose legislation to make the intentional transmission of HIV/AIDS a crime, as it already is in many countries. Yang has taken on two cases where wives sued their ex-husbands, who were HIV positive, for infecting them. The court ruled in favor of the wives in both cases. Yang believes concealing one’s illness and infecting others should be a criminal offense. Some provinces such as Yunnan and Gansu have also passed measures to mandate that carriers inform their partners within a month of getting the test results or else the health authorities would. Such policies have been heavily criticized for violating patients’ right to privacy.
EATG and IPPF Europe issue joint statement asking European institutions to tackle HIV criminalisation
People living with HIV throughout Europe face stigma and discrimination enshrined in laws and judicial decisions. They are made criminals for acts that would not be ‘crimes’ if they did not have, or did not know they had, the virus. Such prosecutions not only do not help prevent new HIV infections, they can actually do more harm than good by transforming newly diagnosed individuals into potential criminals adding further to HIV-related stigma and discrimination.
Alert over new HIV criminalisation laws in Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador and Nicaragua
Alliance Linking Organisations in Latin America and the Caribbean, along with their strategic partners REDLACTRANS and RedTraSex, have used the occasion of World AIDS Day 2012 to sound a warning about the impact of criminal law being applied to those who transmit or expose others to HIV infection. In the last year alone, the governments of the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Ecuador issued new laws or reformed existing ones that criminalise HIV transmission.
The International HIV/AIDS Alliance warns on Uganda's anti-gay law
Source: member The International HIV/AIDS Alliance warned today that Uganda’s “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” would have a disastrous impact on the country’s HIV response if it becomes law. The Ugandan Parliament is poised to pass a bill which would see any person alleged to be homosexual at risk of life imprisonment.
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.
Inspired new phase of AIDS Action Now! Think Twice campaign
As the next phase of AAN!’s ongoing Think Twice campaign, today we sent letters to the Ontario Crown Prosecutors who have brought forward HIV non-disclosure prosecutions, and to their bosses. Crown Prosecutors, a.k.a. Crown Attorneys, play a pivotal role in our criminal justice system. They wield enormous power.
Keeping up with Queensland HIV law | Star Online
A recent Brisbane court case involving an HIV-positive man has once again raised the question of how Queensland’s legal system handles the issue of unsafe-sex and disclosure. While sensitive community discussions regarding personal responsibility continue, the law has a definite view on who is responsible for disclosure.
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