The injustice of Jessica Whitbread’s situation hit her during a recent evening at a bar when there was dancing, drinks and a really hot guy who was obviously interested in her.
Plenary Session 1: Seminar on HIV Criminalisation, Berlin, 20 September 2012 (EATG/DAH/IPPF/HIV in Europe)
Introduction by Co-chairs, Brian West (EATG) and Silke Klumb (Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe)
– Edwin J Bernard (HIV Justice Network): HIV Criminalisation: Overviews of laws, policies and issues for consideration
– Christoph Hamelmann (UNDP): Global Commission on HIV and the Law (findings and recommendations)
– Susan Timberlake (UNAIDS): Forthcoming updated UNAIDS policy and guidance
– Ninoslav Mladenovic (EATG): EATG Policy Position Paper on HIV Criminalisation
– Q&A / discussion
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetown media, for the HIV Justice Network.
Plenary Session 2: Seminar on HIV Criminalisation, Berlin, 20 September 2012 (EATG/DAH/IPPF/HIV in Europe)
Introduction by Co-chairs, Ton Coenen (HIV in Europe) and Lisa Power (Terrence Higgins Trust)
– Louis Gay (Norwegian HIV Patient Network): From accused to activist
– Kim Fangen (Norwegian Law Commission): Reforming the ‘HIV paragraph’ in Norway – lessons learned
– Matthew Weait (Professor of Law and Policy, Birkbeck College, University of London): Nordic advocacy research project – lessons learned
– Carsten Schatz (Board Member, DAH): DAH Position Paper – content and lessons learned
– Lucy Stackpool Moore (IPPF, London), Marielle Nakunzi (RFSU, Sweden) & Kevin Osborne (IPPF, London): ‘Criminalise Hate, Not HIV’: IPPF’s media strategy and advocacy approaches and lessons learned from Sweden
– Q&A / discussion
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetown media, for the HIV Justice Network
Plenary Session 3: Seminar on HIV Criminalisation, Berlin, 20 September 2012 (EATG/DAH/IPPF/HIV in Europe)
Workshop Summaries
– Susan Timberlake (UNAIDS): Workshop 1 – How to advocate for prosecutorial guidelines
– Holger Wicht (DAH): Workshop 2 – Better laws through science (Austria/Germany/Switzerland)
– Lucy Stackpool-Moore (IPPF): Workshop 3 – Filling the evidence gaps
– Peter Wiessner (EATG): Workshop 4 – Understanding and creating linkages between HIV criminalisation and punitive laws and policies affecting key populations
Q&A Session
– Ton Coenen (HIV in Europe, Netherlands)
– Nikos Dedes (EATG, Greece)
– Arwel Jones (Crown Prosecutions Service, England & Wales)
– Petra Bayr (Parliamentarian, Austria)
– Timur Abdullaev (EATG, Uzbekistan)
Next steps
– Silke Klumb (DAH)
– Peter Wiessner (EATG)
– Kevin Osborne (IPPF)
– Ton Coenen (HIV in Europe)
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetown media, for the HIV Justice Network
AIDS groups go after Ontario attorney general
A coalition of Ontario HIV/AIDS groups has launched a new phase of their campaign to compel the province’s Attorney General to stop prosecuting HIV-positive Ontarians for non-disclosure.
Overcoming HIV criminalisation together! (Press release)
This is an unofficial English translation of the press release: Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe: Overcoming HIV criminalisation together!
Berlin – An international conference on the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, potential or perceived HIV exposure and non-intentional HIV transmission will take place at the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin on 20th September. Well-known activists and experts – including from UNAIDS, the HIV/AIDS programme of the United Nations – will share the current legal situation in Europe and Central Asia, network with each other, and explore ways to ensure a more appropriate, rational, fair and just response to the issue.
Experts agree that the criminalisation of non-intentional HIV transmission, and sexual behaviour that risks HIV exposure or transmission, contributes to the spread of HIV. Even where people with HIV are legally obligated to disclose their HIV status prior to sexual encounters, this does not help to prevent infection, but harms HIV prevention.
Carsten Schatz, member of the Board of Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, therefore argues that:
“Criminalisation runs against successful communication on prevention in Germany – that every person ought to be responsible for protecting themselves from HIV infection. The criminal law offender-victim logic is not suited to consensual sexual encounters. To place the entire responsibility for HIV prevention on the shoulders of persons with HIV contributes to their stigmatisation. Recent judgments and media reporting brand people with HIV as potential offenders. HIV criminalisation fosters fear and thereby jeopardises exactly what it is supposed to bring about: open communication about HIV prevention. It can also discourage people from seeking an HIV test since only those aware of their status can be prosecuted. Those who wish to limit new HIV infections to a minimum, should ensure that criminal law stays out of the matter.”
Morever, again and again, people are being prosecuted and punished despite there being no significiant risk of HIV transmission. Effective HIV treatment is now considered as reliable against HIV transmission as a condom. However, such scientific advances are rarely heard or regognised in German courts. In Germany, people with HIV, in line with established case law, have a duty to ensure the protection of the partner or to inform them about their HIV status.
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 and 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 is designed to help advocates move forward in these particularly repressive countries.”
The conference is taking place on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the European AIDS-Treatment Group (EATG). The meeting is co-organised with Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (DAH), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and HIV in Europe, a multi-stakerholders initiative exchange on activities to improve early diagnosis and earlier care of HIV across Europe.
The seminar will take place in English. Representative of the media may attend all three plenary sessions as well as workshop two about the legal situation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This workshop will take place in German.
Download the agenda and concept note (in English).
U.S. Positive Women's Network devastated by murder of HIV-positive woman in Dallas
The U.S. Positive Women’s Network (PWN), a national membership body of women living with HIV, is devastated to hear the tragic news that a young woman living with HIV in Dallas, Texas, was murdered for disclosing her HIV status to a partner. PWN calls for immediate action to eliminate HIV stigma and violence against women living with HIV.
Groups call for revising HIV disclosure statute
MASON CITY – Nick Rhoades served time in prison, including six weeks in solitary confinement, lost many of his privacy rights and must register as a sex offender for life. His crime: not disclosing to a partner with whom he was intimate that he was HIV-positive. “Does the punishment fit the harm done?”
Raising Your Voice Can Raise The Odds Of Success
By Alex GarnerEditor-at-Large Editor’s Note: I had the privilege of meeting Louis Gay while in DC at the International AID Conference. Louis faces criminal charges in Norway because he is HIV-positive and didn’t disclose prior to oral sex, even though no transmission occurred.
A gay African man in the UK writes about the development of his thoughts about the appropriateness of using the criminal law to punish people living with HIV
Over the past few years I have had the opportunity of people telling me about their HIV diagnosis. This is possibly based on the fact that as an HIV positive person, I have been very open about my infection. However this was not something that happened over night.