On February 13, 2012, a group of individuals from civil society around the world, concerned about the inappropriate and overly broad use of the criminal law to regulate and punish people living with HIV for behaviour that in any other circumstance would be considered lawful, came together in Oslo to create the Oslo Declaration on HIV Criminalisation.
The Oslo Declaration, published on the brand new hivjustice.net website on February 22, 2012, became the founding document of the HIV Justice Network (HJN). Within weeks, more than 1700 supporters from more than 115 countries had signed up to the Declaration, creating a network of diverse activists, all fighting for HIV justice.
Today, we collate authoritative data and information to build the evidence base against the unjust criminalisation of people living with HIV. We also raise awareness of the harms of this approach in critical arenas including among the scientific, medical, policy, advocacy, and donor communities.
Most importantly, we galvanise and nurture the global movement against HIV criminalisation, by providing an advocacy hub to bring individuals, national, regional, and global networks and organisations together to catalyse change.
Thank you to everyone who has supported the organisation on our journey so far. We couldn’t have done it without our funders and partners but, most importantly, we wouldn’t have achieved so much without the courage and commitment of the growing number of advocates around the world who are challenging laws, policies and practices that inappropriately regulate and punish people living with HIV.
Watch HIV Justice Live! which explores the history behind, and impact of, the Oslo Declaration on HIV Criminalisation. Hosted by HJN’s founder and Executive Director, Edwin J Bernard, the show, From Moment to Movement, featured some of the advocates who were behind the Oslo Declaration: Kim Fangen, Patrick Eba, Michaela Clayton, Ralf Jürgens and Susan Timberlake.
Help us support you by completing a short survey on e-Learning and e-Training
Please complete our short survey on e-Learning and e-Training by 11th February
You’ll have seen from our first HIV Justice Newsletter of the year that we are excited about various advocacy tools and resources we are working on this year, including our new e-Learning and e-Training platform, to allow for digital organising and advocacy to continue regardless of travel and in-person meeting limitations, making these resources more accessible to more people.
The platform will be used to continue to build and galvanise the global movement to end punitive laws and policies that impact people living with HIV in all their diversity, with a specific focus on the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, exposure and/or transmission (HIV criminalisation).
With its accessible online written and video resources, and different types of learning and training sessions, and content in English, French, Russian, and Spanish, the platform will engage a growing community of HIV justice activists and advocates. It will provide timely and accessible education and training that focuses on understanding the issues, to help achieve progressive change in legal and policy environments for people living with HIV at national, regional, and international levels.
To help us ensure we properly achieve these objectives, we want to hear from you – to understand what you would find most useful in an e-Learning platform, and to find out more about your experiences of using e-Learning. So, could you complete this short survey (10-15 minutes) by 11 February 2022. We’d love to hear from you.
This past year we’ve been challenged yet again due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As well as the impact on each of us, personally, the legal and policy decisions relating to its control – and their enforcement – have significantly impacted people living with HIV who are already criminalised or otherwise marginalised, which we have been continuing to highlight in our HIV Justice Weekly newsletter.
And as COVID-19 continues to dominate not only policymaking and law enforcement activities, but also media headlines, it seems very likely that relying primarily on media reports to document unjust cases of HIV criminalisation underestimates how many people are affected.
This past year we documented 54 media reports of unjust HIV criminalisation cases in 20 countries. This compares to 91 cases in 25 countries last year, which was still fewer than reported in previous years.
Although this could be seen as a cause for celebration, I fear that the reason we are seeing fewer media reports is not because of fewer cases, but because the media is distracted by COVID-19 and just isn’t reporting on them. For example, we only recorded one media report of a horribly unjust case in Belarus in January 2021 but on World AIDS Day 2021 the official Telegram account of Investigative Committee of Belarus reported that there had actually been 34 HIV-related criminal cases in 2021.
We will be providing a much more detailed analysis of laws and cases – and the remarkable advocacy successes and achievements – in the next edition of our Advancing HIV Justice progress report, covering January 2019 – December 2021, which we plan to publish by the end of the first quarter of next year.
Despite the impact of COVID-19 on our ability to organise – and a growing acceptance of punitive approaches to a public health issue – this year we’ve also seen some remarkable advocacy in the global movement to end HIV criminalisation, none more so than across the United States.
The remarkable successes in the United States didn’t happen overnight – the movement to end HIV criminalisation has been nurtured – and increasingly better funded – for more than a decade. This is why our focus has turned to other parts of the world – notably Eastern Europe and Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean – where many challenges remain.
In May, a new parliamentary bill in Ukraine proposed expanding its already problematic HIV-specific criminal law with harsher sentences for transmitting all serious communicable diseases, and Uganda passed a new Sexual Offences Bill with horrendous implications for people living with HIV, gay men and sex workers. Fortunately, neither have been enacted into law, yet.
We also saw advocacy successes in these regions, too. In Uganda, after five years of waiting, the Constitutional Court of Uganda has finally begun to hear a landmark case challenging the overly broad and draconian provisions of its HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Act. In Mexico, the ‘danger of contagion’ law used by many Mexican states to prosecute people living with HIV was found to be unconstitutional by a court in the federal district of Mexico City, with proposals for its full repeal presented in November. Also in November, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) recommended the removal of Kyrgyzstan’s HIV-specific criminal law, thanks to a powerful shadow report by our HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE partners, the Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS.
There is still so much more to do, however. That’s why, for example, we produced a brand-new section of our HIV Justice Toolkit specifically to help defend people living with HIV who are prosecuted for breastfeeding, chest feeding or comfort nursing, and why HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE launched a briefing paper and video in October to help advocates understand the complexities – and consequences – of molecular HIV surveillance.
Despite these successes, as well as the many milestones the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE movement has achieved since its launch in 2016, we will not rest until everyone living with HIV in all their diversity is treated equally, fairly, and justly by all actors of the criminal legal and public health systems.
New Breastfeeding Defence Toolkit launched at Beyond Blame 2021
Criminal prosecutions related to presumed HIV exposure via breastfeeding are all-too-often driven by stigma, misinformation, and the desire to protect a child from exaggerated risk. People living with HIV require a vigorous defence based on principles of justice and human rights, good public policy, and accurate science.
The Breastfeeding Defence Toolkit provides materials to support lawyers and advocates supporting people living with HIV who face criminal charges or other punitive measures for breastfeeding, chestfeeding, or comfort nursing.
Although the Breastfeeding Defence Toolkit is currently only available in English, we are working on French, Russian and Spanish versions. In addition, new resources will be added to the Toolkit as they become available.
The Breastfeeding Defence Toolkit was launched at Beyond Blame: Challenging Criminalisation for HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE on Tuesday 30 November 2021. Watch the 10 minute segment below.
Background
In 1986, it was discovered that HIV could be transmitted from a woman to a child through breastfeeding. Since this time, women living with HIV have borne the weight of the responsibility of preventing HIV transmission to their offspring. This responsibility has been used to justify surveillance, judgement, and limitations on autonomy and decision-making for women living with HIV.
Some women living with HIV have faced criminal prosecution for exposing fetuses and/or infants to a risk of HIV infection, especially through breastfeeding. These numbers may be small compared to the number who have faced criminal charges with respect to HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission in sexual contexts, but cases are increasing.
The HIV Justice Network is aware of at least 13 such cases in the past decade, with a growing number of criminal prosecutions taking place across the African continent as well as in Russia since 2018. We are also aware of several cases that took place in North America and Europe between 2005 – 2012.
These cases include charges laid against mothers, community members and domestic employees. Various criminal charges have been used in these cases, including failure to provide the necessaries of life, grievous bodily harm, unlawfully doing an act likely to spread a dangerous disease, and deliberately infecting another with HIV.
In addition to these criminal cases, many more women have experienced punitive responses from service providers, public health, and child welfare authorities.
Criminal prosecutions and other punitive responses to breastfeeding by women living with HIV pose significant harms to both the accused and the child. HIV criminalisation threatens the health and well-being of people living with HIV and jeopardises the goals of ending HIV discrimination and, ultimately, the epidemic. Not only do punitive laws targeting people living with HIV lack a scientific evidence base they also serve as barriers to HIV prevention, treatment, and care, and perpetuate stigma.
Infant feeding choices should not be a criminal issue. Parents should be provided with full information to make the best choices for their families and infant feeding should be managed through clinical support. Science supports that the best outcomes for a mother and a child result from proper medical care, access to treatment and openness. Criminalising maternal and child health issues generally risks worse outcomes for the infant.
UPDATE: Speakers now confirmed for #BeyondBlame2021!
Beyond Blame, our flagship meeting for activists, human rights defenders, criminal legal system and public health system actors, healthcare professionals, researchers, and anyone else working to end HIV criminalisation, is returning for a special eve-of-World AIDS Day edition.
Beyond Blame is a unique opportunity to learn why HIV criminalisation matters, as well as hear about the wide range of initiatives and strategies that have been used by activists, lawyers, networks, and organisations around the world to work towards ending the inappropriate use of criminal law to regulate and punish people living with HIV.
We will be highlighting some of the successes and challenges of the global movement to end HIV criminalisation over the past year, including work on ending the criminalisation of women living with HIV for breastfeeding, exploring whether scientific advances, such as the prevention benefit of treatment (U=U) and Molecular HIV Surveillance, help or hinder our movement and much, much more.
Beyond Blame will take place in English, with interpretation available in French, Russian and Spanish.
A new briefing paper published today by Positive Women’s Network-USA on behalf of the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE coalition aims to support people living with HIV, activists, legal experts, and human rights campaigners in understanding the complexities and consequences of molecular HIV surveillance (MHS).
“Molecular HIV Surveillance: A global review of human rights implications” provides a detailed explanation of what MHS is and how it is used across the globe, including how the technology works, where it is being conducted, and by whom. The paper describes growing human rights concerns relating to the use of this technology and goes on to list a number of recommendations for the use of MHS which were gathered from an international literature review and from members of the Expert Advisory Group.*
Molecular HIV surveillance (MHS) is an umbrella term that describes a wide range of practices focused on the monitoring of HIV variants and the differences and similarities between them for scientific research, public health surveillance, and intervention.
To conduct MHS, scientists rely on the results of HIV genetic sequencing tests taken from people living with HIV – these tests are often done before prescribing HIV medication to determine if the individual has a strain of HIV that is resistant to certain treatments. Interest in, and use of, MHS for reasons other than tailoring treatment regimens is increasing globally, however. Of particular concern, in some regions, MHS is being conducted and HIV data is being shared in ways that put the rights and safety of people living with HIV in jeopardy.
“HIV is highly stigmatised and communities that are most vulnerable to acquiring HIV are already highly policed and at risk for violence” said Naina Khanna, co-executive director of Positive Women’s Network-USA, a US-based membership organisation led by women and people of transgender experience living with HIV. “In more than 30 states in the US alone, and over 100 countries around the world, people with HIV can be criminalised on the basis of their health condition. Taking this kind of data from people without their consent or knowledge and storing or sharing it without adequate protections is extremely risky and could come at the cost of someone’s personal safety, their livelihood, and in the case of HIV criminalisation, their freedom.”
The paper highlights how HIV experts and advocates have raised a range of human rights concerns about this technology. These include:
Consent and autonomy;
Lack of community consultation;
Increased stigma on targeted communities;
Privacy and data protections;
Whether or not the technology can be used to “prove” direct transmission; and,
How MHS may intensify HIV criminalisation within communities who are already marginalised and oppressed.
Edwin J Bernard, Executive Director of the HIV Justice Network and global co-ordinator of the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE coalition added: “MHS treats people living with HIV as ‘clusters’ and targets of public health interventions, rather than the beneficiaries of public health. When you combine MHS with HIV criminalisation it’s a perfect storm. That’s why I commissioned PWN-USA to produce this briefing paper as a first step to understand the problems and to suggest a range of possible solutions. With increased knowledge on the practices of MHS, individuals and organisations can be better equipped to advocate for ending research and surveillance practices that have the potential to harm the rights, autonomy, and well-being of people living with HIV.”
The paper provides wide-ranging recommendations for change aimed at various stakeholders, highlighting five key areas of action:
Take seriously and act upon community concerns about MHS.
Respect the bodily autonomy and integrity of people living with HIV in all our diversity.
MHS implementers must demonstrate a clear public health benefit that outweighs the potential harms of MHS, including by ensuring protections (i.e., data privacy, legal protections, social harms prevention, etc). These demonstrated benefits of MHS must measurably include people living with HIV.
Providers ordering HIV sequencing must inform people living with HIV about how their blood and data are being used for MHS purposes and be allowed to withdraw the consent if they so wish, without fear of negative consequences to their HIV treatment and care.
Implementers of MHS should publicly advocate against punitive or coercive laws and policies aimed at people living with HIV and ensure that MHS is never used in criminal, civil, or immigration investigations or prosecutions.
Follow the online conversation on Twitter by using the hashtags #EndMHS #DataPrivacy #DataProtection #HIVJustice and by following @HIVJusticeNet@uspwn.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial contribution of the Robert Carr Fund to this report.
The fourth episode of HIV Justice Network’s web show, HIV Justice Live! that streamed live on July 14 is now available to watch on YouTube. The episode, which our colleagues at the HIV Legal Network called a “master class in advocacy” discussed the newly launched UNDP’s Guidance for Prosecutors on HIV-related criminal cases and provided insights into how to work with prosecutorial authorities so that they have a clear understanding of how to – and more importantly how not to – use HIV criminalisation laws.
Guidance like this is a good example of a ‘harm reduction’ approach if you can’t change or repeal HIV criminalisation laws, and adopting such guidance can result in fewer miscarriages of justice, as well as improve the criminal legal system’s understand of, and approach to, people living with HIV. Once implemented it’s also a good way of holding prosecutors to account.
The Guidance was developed for UNDP by our HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE colleagues, Richard Elliott and Cécile Kazatchkine of the HIV Legal Network. The process, which took two years, involved multiple consultations. Several other colleagues, including HJN’s Executive Director Edwin J Bernard, HJN Supervisory Board member Lisa Power, and HJN Global Advisory Panel member Edwin Cameron were part of the Project Advisory Committee.
The episode, hosted by Edwin J Bernard and featuring UNDP’s Kene Esom alongside Lisa Power and Richard Elliott, also included a special edit of HJN’s documentary, “Doing HIV Justice”, which demystifies the process of how civil society worked with the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales to create the world’s first policy and guidance for prosecuting the reckless or intentional transmission of sexual infection.
The full-length, 30-minute version of this documentary is now available as part of a YouTube playlist that also features two other educational and informative videos: an introduction by the CPS’s Arwel Jones with some useful tips about how to engage with prosecutors, and a workshop that took place after the world premiere screening in Berlin, featuring Lisa Power and Catherine Murphy (who helped advocate for the implementation of guidance in England & Wales, and Scotland, respectively) as well as former UNAIDS Senior Human Rights and Law Adviser, Susan Timberlake.
HJN proudly joins the Support.Don’t Punish campaign
The HIV Justice Network is a proud supporter of the Support. Don’t Punish campaign now in its ninth year. Tomorrow, Saturday 26 June, is the campaign’s yearly high point, the Global Day of Action.
According to the campaign’s website, “Support.Don’t Punish is a global grassroots-centred initiative in support of harm reduction and drug policies that prioritise public health and human rights. The campaign seeks to put harm reduction on the political agenda by strengthening the mobilisation capacity of communities targeted by the “war on drugs” and their allies, opening dialogue with policy makers, and raising awareness among the media and the public.”
The theme for this year’s Global Day of Action is “Undoing the ‘war’, building the future that our communities have always deserved”. The date, 26th June is symbolic as it is used by most governments to commemorate the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking to highlight their so-called ‘achievements’ in “the war on drugs.”
TheSupport. Don’t Punish campaign aligns with the following key messages:
The drug control system is broken and in need of reform.
People who use drugs should no longer be criminalised.
People involved in the drug trade should not face harsh or disproportionate punishments, where retained.
The death penalty should never be imposed for drug offences.
Drug policy should focus on health, well-being, and harm reduction.
Drug policy budgets need rebalancing to ensure health and harm reduction-based responses are adequately financed.
Last year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Global Day of Action saw 288 events in 239 participating cities in 90 countries. The activities organised were incredibly varied and involved over 150 community representatives. In twelve of the regions, networks of people who use drugs were joined by initiatives from convergent movements (including people living with HIV, sex workers, and service providers), strengthening a solidarity block against criminalisation.
This year, we urge you to join the Support.Don’t Punish Global Day of Action. Visit their homepage to check out where activities are taking place near you, and use these resources to amplify the campaign’s messages on social media, including on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
HJN looks to the future with our new Strategic Plan (2022-2026)
People living with HIV remain firmly at the heart of this strategy, and all our work aims to contribute towards an environment in which they can feel safe, more empowered, and able to enjoy their human rights.
However, we also recognise that HIV criminalisation can disproportionately impact people who are either additionally criminalised, or who are otherwise mistreated by discriminatory legal systems – or both and we seek to better understand and proactively address intersectional stigma, discrimination, and criminalisation.
Mindful of the many challenges ahead in removing discriminatory laws, policies, and practices that unjustly regulate, control, or criminalise people living with HIV, in all of our diversities, this Strategic Plan focuses on five specific areas that we, as an organisation, seek to address in the next five years. These also align well with the Global AIDS Strategy 2021-2026 and reflect the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS.
We also believe there is significant learning from our work on HIV criminalisation that can be leveraged to support the COVID-19 response and recovery, as well as future pandemic preparedness.
We want legal reform so that there are fewer unjust HIV-related criminal laws and limited application of other criminal laws to people living with HIV.
We want to put the ‘justice’ back into the criminal legal system, ensuring that key stakeholders at the front end of the criminal legal system are more aware of standards and norms around HIV and human rights, science, and public health, and treat people living with HIV with dignity.
We want to change the media narrative so that the stigma and intersecting discrimination that is created by HIV criminalisation and perpetuated through harmful narratives in the media is challenged and reframed.
We want rights-based public health policies and practices, and seek to ensure greater recognition and awareness that HIV and other communicable diseases such as hepatitis, tuberculosis, and COVID-19, as well as future pandemics, are public health issues, not criminal issues.
And we want to grow the HIV Justice Movement, by collectively building community solidarity across movements and individual power and agency for all those who are marginalised and under-served.
Based on our strengths and expertise, we have developed four strategic approaches to achieve these goals, within an overall framework of intersectional analysis: building the evidence base; producing and collating advocacy tools and resources; convening, connecting, and supporting; and representation and awareness-raising.
Edwin Bernard, HJN’s Executive Director, hopes the new strategy will strengthen existing partnerships and create new ones. “The success of this Strategic Plan will only be possible when people living with HIV and our allies build power together. We understand that we can achieve far more by working in partnership with others, and so we will continue to rely on the support of our members, as well as current and future partners and funders.”
Kevin Moody, who serves as the Chair of the Supervisory Board of HJN, said the new strategy “… acknowledges that the quality of life of people living with HIV is dependent on their ability to live free of discrimination and criminalisation.”
“Our new strategy further recognises that people living with HIV experience oppression based on multiple factors and, therefore, aims to build strategic partnerships to reduce intersectional aspects of discriminatory laws, policies, and practices around the world,” he added.
The Strategic Plan was developed through a two-stage process. A detailed Strategic Review took place between August and November 2020, followed by a strategic planning process between January and April 2021. This process was participatory and inclusive and involved a range of internal and external stakeholders.
We would like to thank all the individuals and organisations that contributed to the development of this Strategic Plan, as well as the Robert Carr Fund for funding this process, and we look forward to working with all of you in its delivery.
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