South Korea: Women living with HIV reluctant to report sexual assault, because of prejudices against people with HIV in the legal system and HIV criminalisation law

Discrimination against people with HIV rampant: UN study

Korean people with HIV still face rampant discrimination, over 30 years since the first case was discovered here, a study released Thursday by UNAIDS has found.

According to initial findings from the People Living With HIV Stigma Index in South Korea, 37 percent of respondents reported suicidal thoughts, and a similar proportion had cut themselves off from family and friends.

In addition, 71 percent of people with HIV said they had been insulted or threatened because of their status.

Although almost all respondents said they were receiving anti-retroviral treatment for HIV, 70 percent said they had still avoided going to a clinic when it was needed.

The economic difficulties faced by respondents were also serious. Although most were college educated and around two-thirds were aged between 30 and 50, only 37 percent were employed full-time.

Less than 1 in 10 full-time workers had told their employees they had HIV and more than half of respondents said they had quit school or work because of their HIV status.

A separate report released by the National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday found 91 percent of people with HIV said they faced discrimination at work and 83 percent were discriminated against at school.

Asked about sources of negative attitudes, the UNAIDS report found media to be no better than general internet comments, with both cited by three-quarters as a source of negative views toward people with HIV. Religious groups were cited by 64 percent.

Citing a lack of funding and government support, the authors of the report conceded the limitations of the survey due to small sample size, noting particularly that women were not properly represented. Just one woman with HIV was surveyed, partly because only 7.6 percent of people with HIV are women and there is a lack of networks for them.

Kwon Mi-ran, a consultant for Korean Network for People living with HIV/AIDS (KNP+), which conducted the research with UNAIDS’ support, said more research was required into women with HIV, who faced some specific issues.

“Women with HIV face serious stigma and the government’s policies have nothing that addresses women with HIV specifically,” she said. “There are no communities for women to share their experiences and support each other and they are isolated.”

Kwon said it was more difficult for women to report sexual assault, partly because of the attitudes of people in the legal system toward people with HIV and partly because of a law that criminalizes acts that can spread the virus.

Another growing form of discrimination against people with HIV was that nursing homes were refusing to accept them as an increasing number reached old age.

“Antiretroviral treatment is widely available in South Korea, and so most people living with HIV can keep their health. But when they need long-term care because of old age or other HIV-related diseases, there is no place they can go,” said Seo Bo-kyung of KNP+.

Only 27 percent said they were confident their medical records would be kept private and 17 percent said doctors had disclosed their HIV status to other people without permission.

Despite UNAIDS and World Health Organization recommendations to avoid testing without informed consent, the majority of respondents found they had HIV after being tested without their knowledge.

The NHRC report also found discrimination in health care, with 26 percent saying treatment had been refused, and a similar number saying their status was indicated on their bedside charts.

“Health care settings should be stigma-free environments to ensure people living with HIV not only stay healthy, but their loved ones and community are also protected from HIV,” Steve Kraus, director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Asia and the Pacific, said in a news release accompanying the report. “It is imperative that we have protective laws and empowered communities.”

The report recommends consideration of HIV as a disability to bring it under existing discrimination protections, and for a comprehensive discrimination law. It also calls for NGOs to work with the government.

The respondents’ most favored policy is public education on HIV, but Seo Bo-kyung of KNP+ stressed that the quality of that education was important.

“In many cases, HIV education is conveyed as a means to deliver homophobic messages and tends to describe people living with HIV as pathogens, and not as humans,” he said. “That is the reason that we emphasize a human rights-centered approach.”

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)

UK: Yusef Azad of the National AIDS Trust calls for an end to HIV being used in court to emphasise the seriousness of a crime when it has no relevance to it

20th June 2017

Last month newspapers reported the trial and conviction of a man who had gone berserk in a Manchester hotel, during which he both caused criminal damage and bit a police officer who had been called to the scene to restrain him. Deplorable of course, though sadly not that uncommon an event. But there was a twist to this story, fastened on in newspaper headlines:

“‘Vile coward’ salesman with HIV deliberately BIT family man copper in shock hotel assault”

The man has HIV and his name and identity were disclosed in the media. His HIV positive status is now permanently in the public domain for anyone who ever feels like googling him. His HIV positive status was brought up in court by the prosecuting lawyer, ‘[The police officer] had a bite mark on his arm, which didn’t pierce the skin … As it was found that the defendant is HIV positive then more tests had to be taken by the police officer’.

A bite which does not pierce the skin caries absolutely zero risk of HIV – why does the CPS allow a prosecutor to claim that tests were necessary? This is simply untrue and misleads the court. But the alleged need for such tests and the implicit risk of HIV transmission is used to emphasise the trauma of the victim and the seriousness of the offence – it is meant to have an impact on the severity of sentence. A man’s HIV status has been revealed publicly and permanently, and quite possibly had an impact on his sentence, even though his HIV had absolutely no relevance to the crime for which he was convicted. This is not just prosecution, it is persecution on the basis of HIV status by police and prosecutors.

And unfortunately it is not a one-off but something NAT witnesses repeatedly as we monitor press reports on HIV in the UK. With some regularity we come across news articles of cases where people have their HIV status raised publicly in court even though it has no bearing on the offence. They are usually assaults of varying degrees of seriousness and the HIV status of the accused is claimed as a reason for the victim to have an HIV test, or take PEP, with great stress on the anxiety and trauma of worrying about possible HIV transmission. Needless to say in no instance, following such assaults, has the victim actually acquired HIV as a result.

That is not surprising given, for a start, that well over 90% of people diagnosed with HIV are on effective treatment and incapable of transmitting HIV to others. But the courts seem to take no account of treatment as prevention. Nor do they seem to understand how HIV is and is not transmitted. HIV is raised in cases of spitting, biting and scratching where HIV could not have been passed on. As in this recent Manchester case, the HIV status of defendants are put in the public domain and their sentences often affected without justification.

Should we feel sorry for convicted criminals? Some might say they had it coming and they deserve justice. Absolutely, justice is essential. But this isn’t it. Everyone has the right to be treated equally before the law but at the moment people with HIV are being treated worse than those who are HIV negative and guilty of the same offences.

What about the victims? There is now an expectation that the impact on the victim of a crime is taken into account by the court. That is understandable and right – but what happens when the fear of HIV is wholly without foundation and a result simply of stigma or ignorance. What happens when a victim insists on an HIV test or PEP despite clear clinical advice that it is unnecessary and they are not at risk of HIV? Taking account of fear and anxiety in such circumstances is for the courts simply to endorse and propagate HIV misinformation and prejudice. The harm of these cases goes beyond that to the defendant. Everyone with HIV is harmed by newspaper accounts of trials which faithfully report the inaccurate fears of HIV transmission raised in court and which increase HIV stigma as a result.

Nor does this do any favours to the victims who are just reinforced in their trauma and misunderstanding of how HIV is passed on.

These cases remind me of the old ‘Gay Panic’ defence where people charged with attacking gay men would claim their actions were an instinctive immediate response to a gay man coming on to them. A completely natural, if regrettable, reaction from a red-blooded male. Happily, the CPS would now give short shrift to such a defence if raised in court. But instead they irresponsibly play with an equally discreditable HIV-version in prosecuting crimes. We might call it the ‘HIV panic’ attack, where, despite all the evidence and science showing that HIV has no relevance to the crime, they nevertheless encourage the ‘HIV panic’ of the victim to be raised in court as part of their case for the culpability of the accused.

This has to stop. The police, CPS and the courts are failing in their Public Sector Equality Duty and are guilty of discrimination. We call on the CPS to meet us and discuss how this injustice can be brought to an end as soon as possible.

Published by the National AIDS Trust on June 20, 2017

Canada: People of African, Caribbean and black descent over-represented in the mainstream media coverage of HIV non-disclosure.

Skewed Stories: Race and HIV Criminalization in the Media

By Sané Dube

From Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange

June 12, 2017

In Canada, not disclosing your HIV status to a sex partner can, in some circumstances, be deemed a crime. Media stories of people prosecuted for not disclosing their status show black men on trial in disproportionate numbers. What impact does this have on African, Caribbean and black communities?

“In a word, it’s dehumanizing.” Robert Bardston is talking about media coverage of HIV non-disclosure cases. I’ve spent the past couple of months engaged in a series of poignant, inspiring and sometimes-heartbreaking conversations about the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure. I am trying to understand how mainstream media stories on the issue impact African, Caribbean and black (ACB) people across the country. Robert and I are speaking on the phone — miles stretch between his Medicine Hat and my Toronto. It’s early and the sleep is still working its way out of his voice.

He lets out a weighty sigh and continues: “It’s dehumanizing to see yourself branded as deviant in the public eye, especially through the media.” Robert, an HIV activist and co-chair of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Black, African and Caribbean Network (CHABAC), has lived with the virus since 1988.

In an illuminating conversation, we explore what it feels like to see and hear stories of people criminalized for not disclosing their HIV status before sex. We cycle through the emotional toll the coverage can take and the complicated feelings it evokes. Robert says that people living with HIV are treated as pariahs and that black people living with HIV face both HIV stigma and debilitating racism in how their stories are told.

Throughout our conversation he juxtaposes two key elements of his identity — his status as a person living with HIV and his identity as a black person in Canada. As Robert points out, African, Caribbean and black people living with HIV have pressing and unique concerns regarding the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure. To fully understand how deeply this issue impacts individuals and communities, we must first understand what it means to inhabit both of these spaces. To understand this moment in time, we must look at it in context.

The first cases of people being charged for not disclosing their HIV status to sex partners date back to the late 1980s. Since 1989, more than 180 HIV-positive people have been prosecuted in Canada for not disclosing their status. A sharp rise in the number of cases, which began in 2004, has been accompanied by increasing severity in the type of criminal charges laid at the feet of people living with HIV.

Today, someone facing prosecution typically faces an aggravated sexual assault charge — a serious criminal charge with potentially grave consequences. If convicted, a person can be added to the sex-offenders registry and face a sentence of up to life in prison. In cases where the accused has immigrated to Canada, they may also face deportation.

In all of my conversations, the year 2012 pops up as a recurring focal point. That year the Supreme Court of Canada released decisions on two highly anticipated cases. The Court had been asked to clarify the conditions under which people living with HIV could face criminal prosecution for not disclosing their HIV status to sex partners. Legal obligations to disclose one’s status had already been in effect since the late ’80s, but in 2012 the court was asked to determine how using a condom or having a low viral load could impact criminal liability in cases of HIV non-disclosure.

By 2012 the global HIV epidemic was entering its third decade. Tremendous gains had been made in better understanding the biology of HIV transmission and advocates hoped that the highest court in Canada would seize this opportunity to integrate the latest scientific evidence on HIV transmission risks — showing that condoms and maintaining a low viral load significantly cut the risk — into legal processes. In a 1998 decision the Court had ruled that people living with HIV had a legal duty to disclose their status before having sex that might pose a “significant risk” of transmission. The court’s definition of “significant risk,” however, was vague and unclear, and advocates hoped that the 2012 ruling would bring greater clarity to the law.

Instead, the law became stricter. People living with HIV were now required to disclose their status before sex that posed a “realistic possibility” of HIV transmission. The problem was that sex posing a realistic possibility included situations where there is effectively zero risk. Critics called the decision a step back that diminished the rights of people living with HIV.

While the cases were being deliberated in the highest court in the land, they were also being dissected in the court of public opinion. One case involved a black man accused of failing to disclose his HIV-positive status to several sex partners. Although HIV was never transmitted to any of his partners, he was charged with six counts of aggravated sexual assault.

By the time the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling, dangerous and harmful ways of talking about HIV and, in particular, African, Caribbean and black men living with HIV had become the norm. Some of the most discussed cases of that period involved black men; the result was a disturbing fusion of blackness and criminal deviance.

Looking back, people living with HIV and advocates describe popular coverage of criminalization cases during that era as uniformly poor, increasing stigma and undermining education and knowledge about the science of HIV. The coverage not only normalized language that framed people living with HIV as inherently deceptive and dangerous to the public, the disproportionate focus on people of African, Caribbean and black descent, particularly straight black men, told a singular, dangerous story.

The fusion of black identity and negative stereotypes is not new. Indeed, it is something black people and communities contend with daily. In another illuminating conversation, Shannon Ryan, the executive director of Black CAP (Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention), who has worked in HIV organizations for two decades, tells me, “Being black in Canada means something. Systemically and institutionally, it means something — whether you stepped off a plane this morning or your family has been here since the 1700s. I try to remind the people I work with that our blackness is something to celebrate and includes strength and solidarity. But in the world outside these doors, being black can also include facing anti-black racism, it means marginalization, it means oppression and vulnerability.” Contemporary narratives about the criminalization of black people who don’t disclose their HIV status draw from and feed into these problematic and stifling conceptions.

Equally stifling is the criminalization that black communities must contend with in the first place. Black people are vastly over-represented in Canada’s prisons. A 2015 report from the Office of the Correctional Investigator found that the federal incarceration rate for African, Caribbean and black people in Canada is three times their representation rate in the general population.

“The criminalization of HIV non-disclosure is another way our communities are being criminalized and torn apart,” says Ciann Wilson, an assistant professor at Wilfred Laurier University who has worked with African, Caribbean, black and Indigenous communities responding to HIV. “HIV follows lines of existing inequity and the criminalization of people living with HIV further disenfranchises communities that are already dealing with structural racism.”

There’s an old adage that we understand the world around us by the stories we tell about it. A team of Ontario researchers analyzed 1,680 Canadian newspaper articles about HIV non-disclosure criminalization cases that were published between 1989 and 2015. They found that 62 percent of the stories focused on cases involving black immigrant defendants, yet only 20 percent of the 181 people charged during the same period were African, Caribbean or black men. The research team concluded that the media disproportionately focuses on cases involving black people facing prosecution for non-disclosure.

“There’s no question about it: Straight black men in particular are over-represented in the media coverage of these cases,” says sociologist Eric Mykhalovskiy, one member of the research team. “If you take a closer look at the coverage, half of the 1,680 articles focused on four black men facing prosecution. The fact that the coverage is so skewed toward those defendants really produces in the public imagination the idea that HIV non-disclosure is a crime of black heterosexual men — when it’s not,” he says. “It’s a profound example of what is clearly a long history of over-representing black people in crime stories in the media.” [To read the full report, Callous, Cold and Deliberately Duplicitous: Racialization, Immigration and the Representation of HIV Criminalization in Canadian Mainstream Newspapers, click here.]

The storytelling pattern Mykhalovskiy references traces back to some of the first HIV non-disclosure cases involving African, Caribbean and black men in Canada. Early media reports drew from racialized stereotypes about black men, masculinity and gender. They conjured images of hyper-sexualized black men maliciously transmitting HIV to unsuspecting partners — usually white and female. News headlines frequently described defendants as “predators” while making reference to “potent” African strains of HIV.

The same patterns emerge in contemporary mainstream coverage of HIV non-disclosure cases involving ACB individuals. “Many people may not personally know someone who is HIV positive. They know about HIV through the media,” Mykhalovskiy says. “When you look at the stories that are told, you see that the kind of knowledge that’s available paints black people living with HIV as a significant threat and danger. It’s really concerning.”

The effects are far reaching. HIV is a pressing concern for many African, Caribbean and black communities across the country and these problematic narratives impact the ways in which communities and individuals experience and respond to HIV.

Take, for example, Linda, who has had HIV since 2003. She currently lives in B.C., where she’s been working with groups supporting black people living with HIV in that province. Linda is a force to reckon with. She is a quiet revolution who resists the oversimplification of the lives of people living with HIV. Yet it’s impossible to miss the fatigue that clouds her voice when she talks about the impact of HIV non-disclosure media stories on the lives of people with HIV.

“The ways they talk about us in the media — it makes you feel worthless. It’s a huge problem for us African people living with HIV. We talk amongst ourselves and we are scared.” She continues after a measured pause: “I think it’s cruel. It’s only expanding the stigma. It’s pushing people away instead of encouraging people with HIV to come forward and talk about stigma.”

Increasing stigma and isolation are top concerns for service providers at HIV organizations, too. These organizations work to disrupt the problematic stories told in the popular press about HIV and the criminalization of non-disclosure. They have been working diligently to shift the conversation and advocate for laws that don’t further marginalize people living with HIV. They argue that stigma is a major barrier in effective responses to HIV.

Two such organizations — Black CAP and the African and Caribbean Council on HIV/AIDS in Ontario (ACCHO) — are located in an inconspicuous office building in downtown Toronto. I’m delivered to the fourth floor of the building by a shaky elevator reminiscent of an earlier time. Stepping into the waiting area I am aware of the unique place in the Canadian conscience and HIV service organization landscape held by agencies like Black CAP and ACCHO.

African, Caribbean and black people make up less than 3 percent of Canada’s population, yet they account for 14 percent of HIV infections. Here again, African, Caribbean and black communities are over-represented and disproportionately impacted. Despite these telling demographics, organizations like Black CAP and ACCHO, which both work specifically with and for ACB communities, are few, far between and often crippled by limited funding.

The situation creates a paradox — one where ACB communities are over-represented among people living with HIV and where the public imagination creates strong links between blackness and HIV — yet interventions that cater specifically to ACB communities are limited. HIV in ACB communities is simultaneously hyper-visible and erased in the same breath.

ACCHO director Valérie Pierre-Pierre begins our conversation by reflecting on the coverage of HIV criminalization cases. “Even though high-profile cases don’t necessarily represent the majority of cases, the media covers those cases in ways that further demonize the accused. They elicit negative reactions toward people living with HIV, especially black men.” She is referring to narratives that frame people living with HIV as maliciously transmitting the virus to unsuspecting partners. She and others in HIV service organizations argue that these portrayals have driven misinformation and stigma — which fuel fear and, in turn, create barriers to addressing HIV in ACB communities.

Black CAP executive director Shannon Ryan, reflecting on the aftermath of the Supreme Court rulings and the media coverage, says, “It does not help us do our work. It does not promote testing. It does not promote diagnosis. It does not promote disclosure. It does not reduce stigma. It diminishes our work.”

While proponents of the current law argue that it helps prevent HIV (that the fear of prosecution will make people living with HIV take precautions with their sex partners), many people living with HIV and many working in the field argue that the criminalization of non-disclosure and the discourses around it become marginalizing forces. In African, Caribbean and black communities, this can have a particularly damaging and splintering effect.

Months after my first call with Robert Bardston and many conversations later, I have talked to people living with HIV, service providers, legal experts and researchers about the impact of HIV non-disclosure criminalization on African, Caribbean and black communities and the stories we tell about it. To be sure, this is a difficult and divisive issue. Yet in the midst of it all, there are extraordinary individuals and groups resisting and challenging harmful narratives about these communities and criminalization.

They are claiming space and demanding this story be told a different way. They want the story to begin with an acknowledgment that structural violence and marginalizing narratives about African, Caribbean and black communities drive increasing rates of HIV and, indeed, criminalization. Many also want to make it clear that the current system does not serve already-vulnerable communities.

Listening to their stories of resistance, I allow myself to start imagining and dreaming about a system that better serves our communities.

For more on the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, visit the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network‘s website.

Sané Dube is a Zimbabwean transplant to Canada. She lives in Toronto.

Canada: Two staff members of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network discuss how the 'Undetectable = Untransmittable' campaign might best be understood to impact HIV criminalisation advocacy

U=U and the overly-broad criminalization of HIV nondisclosure

Published on CATIE’s blog on 06/06/2017

By Nicholas Caivano and Sandra Ka Hon Chu

People living with HIV in Canada have been charged with some of the most serious offences in the Criminal Code, even in cases of consensual sex where there was negligible or no risk of HIV transmission, no actual transmission and no intent to transmit.

The Undetectable=Untransmittable (“U=U”) campaign is based on scientific research, including the ground-breaking PARTNER study, establishing that when a person living with HIV on treatment maintains an undetectable viral load for at least six months, the risk of transmitting the virus through sex is effectively non-existent. As advocates for persons living with HIV await action from federal, provincial and territorial governments to address the overly-broad criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, how might the U=U campaign and the results of the PARTNER study impact ongoing prosecutions under the current state of the law?

Canada has the dubious distinction of being a world “leader,” after Russia and the United States, in prosecuting people living with HIV. In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), in R. v. Cuerrier, decided that people living with HIV have a legal duty to disclose their HIV-positive status to sexual partners before having sex that poses a “significant risk” of HIV transmission.

In 2012, in R. v. Mabior, the SCC ruled that people living with HIV have a legal duty to disclose before having sex that poses a “realistic possibility of HIV transmission,” which the Crown must prove. Commenting specifically in the context of a case involving penile-vaginal sex, the Court stated that “as a general matter, a realistic possibility of transmission of HIV is negated if: (i) the accused’s viral load at the time of sexual relations was low and (ii) condom protection was used.”

In Canada, people who face criminal charges related to HIV non-disclosure are typically charged with aggravated sexual assault, a criminal offence usually reserved for the most violent rape, on the theory that the absence of disclosure renders a partner’s consent to sex invalid. Despite the requirement of a “realistic possibility” of transmission, charges are being brought, even when people living with HIV engage in conduct that, based on medical evidence, poses a negligible possibility of transmission.

As U=U makes clear, the available information about HIV transmission has changed dramatically since the SCC’s decision in 1998. The results of the PARTNER study add to the mounting pile of evidence available to assist courts in making sure the law is consistent with science and with human rights.

Advancing U=U as part of broader advocacy efforts to curb unjust prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure, however, warrants further consideration. Individuals who already face discrimination and marginalization may face unique barriers to attaining undetectable status. Research has shown, for example, that people who use drugs have a harder time attaining and maintaining an undetectable viral load. This is also likely to be true for people in prison, many of whom face HIV treatment disruptions because of the temporary unavailability of medications or transfers between institutions. Treatment for Indigenous communities may also be challenging due to the shameful inadequacy of culturally appropriate health care services in rural and remote communities. And women may have a harder time achieving undetectable viral loads for various reasons, including being diagnosed later in life, prioritizing the health of others, and higher rates of poverty, violence, housing instability and food insecurity.

While a growing body of research provides further evidence to consider when determining what constitutes a “realistic possibility of HIV transmission,” advocacy concerning cases of HIV non-disclosure must be informed by the unique challenges that marginalized groups living with HIV face in attaining undetectable status, so that the criminal law does not reproduce further inequities. Advocates must also acknowledge that the criminalization of people living with HIV has a negative impact on public health, regardless of viral load. Without laws and policies to ensure the removal of all barriers to HIV prevention and treatment, new scientific discoveries and their role in the courts may leave disparities between people living with HIV intact — or ultimately, do more to perpetuate them.

Nicholas Caivano is a lawyer and Policy Analyst at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, where he works on human rights issues related to access to harm reduction services and access to medicines, and leads the work on law reform possibilities for HIV criminalization in Canada.

Sandra Ka Hon Chu is the Director of Research and Advocacy at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, where she works on HIV-related human rights issues concerning prisons, harm reduction, sex work, women, and immigration.

Canada: Alison Carter explores the negative consequences of HIV Criminalisation on women living with HIV

The Politics Of Sex For Women Living With HIV

“If I have sex, I could go to jail.”

This is the reality of life for women living with HIV in Canada.

It’s a story I heard a few weeks ago from an African woman who had recently immigrated to Vancouver and is now faced with the profoundly isolating experience of being a Black HIV-positive woman in Canadian society.

This may come as a surprise to anyone unfamiliar with HIV in Canada: Women (and men) who are living with HIV are at risk of facing a criminal charge of aggravated sexual assault for not disclosing their HIV status before engaging in consensual sex, unless they have a low HIV viral load and use a condom. Beyond serving jail time, those convicted must register as a sex offender, a title usually reserved for child molesters and rapists. “That follows you around forever,” says a woman who was herself imprisoned for HIV non-disclosure.

This woman, and many others, bravely spoke out about their experiences of being treated like a criminal for living with HIV at the annual Canadian Conference on HIV/AIDS Research, held in Montréal from April 6 to 9.

The conference included a special session on the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, which covered a broad array of issues ranging from data on the total number of charges laid, to women’s personal testimonies of feeling ‘under surveillance’, to the latest research findings on how the law is understood and experienced by thousands of women living with HIV across Canada.

Saara Greene of McMaster University, Angela Kaida of Simon Fraser University, and Marvelous Muchenje of the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization co-hosted the event in partnership with HIV-positive women, which brought together dozens of community leaders, scientists, lawyers, and activists from around the country.

“Some women are suffering in silence and they don’t know what the law says,” said Muchenje.

“The law assumes that sex takes place between partners of equal power,” added Greene. “And it wholly ignores what causes women not to disclose their status, including widespread stigma and violence that are both systematically targeted at women living with this disease.”

The women who have participated in their research, which involved telling stories through participatory arts-based Body Mapping, say “disclosure is not always safe or positive for women’s health and safety.” And for many, the fear of being abused, rejected, or worse jailed, is a significant barrier to even thinking about the idea of getting involved with someone.

Eighteen women have been charged for HIV non-disclosure in Canada, many of whom come from marginalized backgrounds and are survivors of sexual violence.

“Beyond the number of prosecutions, however, is the threat of prosecution,” said Kaida. “And this threat compromises both women’s interactions with healthcare providers and their sexual health.”

Kaida analyzed survey data collected from over 1000 women living with HIV in Canada, and found that for most women (65 per cent), the law affects the amount and type of information they are willing to share with providers, particularly as it relates to their sexual lives.

Kaida also found that 51 per cent of women were not having sex and of these, 78 per cent were intentionally abstinent. Women’s reasons for intentional abstinence were diverse though many (33 per cent) worried about HIV criminalization and disclosing their status to sexual partners.

“Laws criminalizing HIV non-disclosure have been defended as a means of protecting the sexual well-being of women,” Kaida said. “However, our findings show women are protecting themselves from the law by intentionally abstaining from sex.”

It goes without saying that women living with HIV shouldn’t have to live in fear of having sex. Sex is a normal part of life. It feels good. It has health benefits. And it’s a human right, one that this law violates.

The law also ignores groundbreaking new science that shows a person with HIV who is on treatment with undetectable levels of the virus in their blood has zero chance of passing HIV to their sexual partners. Put simply, Undetectable=Untransmittable.

Wedged in between science, on the one hand, and society on the other, are decades of cultural discourses of risk, danger, and stigma.

Stigma is a dangerous construct. It deters people from accessing testing and treatment. It leads to anxiety, depression, isolation, and loneliness. And it creates a social and legal environment that fosters abuse, harassment, and discrimination against women living with the condition.

In the face of a mountain of evidence of medical advances and human rights violations, many people are calling (shouting, really) for policy markers in Canada to update the laws and de-criminalize HIV. Doing so would also help to de-stigmatize sex for women living with HIV.

“The discrimination I face because of I live with HIV is ridiculous,” says Peggy Frank, an openly positive woman and researcher. “It’s a small virus that has little to do with who we are. I am a human being and I have the rights that every other human being has, and that includes sex.”

Allison Carter is a feminist epidemiologist conducting sex-positive research with women living with HIV. She is working with women on building a new online resource, called Life and Love with HIV, dedicated to building conversation and community around sexuality and relationships for women and couples with HIV around the world. Sign up to be notified when the website launches.

Published on April 10, 2017 in the Huffington Post

New Zealand: Ex-partner of the first person prosecuted for HIV transmission in New Zealand believes HIV prosecutions are harmful

HIV prosecutions are harmful, says victim

By Amelia Wade

A victim of the first person prosecuted for infecting others with HIV says she is against making criminals out of transmitters.

Marama Mullen believes it only pushes the issue further underground.

The Waikato woman was given HIV by Kenyan musician Peter Mwai who was jailed for seven years in 1994 for having unprotected sex with seven women and infecting two.

Just 22 years old at the time, Mullen said she couldn’t “really fathom” what the trial would mean.

“Quite a few times I wanted to stop and back out because of the lack of support for being the person who was doing it. There was a lot of media and a lot of people had differing views and opinions.

“But a lot has changed for me since then – I’ve actually become an advocate for not criminalising the spread of HIV because I truly believe it creates more stigma.”

She’s now spent more than a decade working with agencies for HIV aids as well as indigenous groups. She said the stigma of infection was especially harmful for Maori and Pasifika people.

“You’re disappointing your family double – it’s one thing if you’re gay but to add to that the stigma of being HIV positive is another.”

Mullen said it was common for people of Maori or Pasifika descent to go into denial about their condition and believes that may have been the case for Mikio Filitonga.

“When you tell someone you’re positive, it gives them the power to do what they want with that information.”

Mullen said she “felt for” Filitonga because if he was in denial, being publicly identified in a criminal trial as a HIV positive person was the “worst thing that could have happened to him”.

Usually when people didn’t disclose their status it was more to do with the fear of rejection rather than a criminal intent to infect, Mullen said.

She doesn’t think prosecutions are the best approach unless the person actively intended to infect someone.

Making someone a criminal as well as HIV positive only worsened the problem, she said.

Mullen has worked on a management plan – similar to one in Australia – which refers people suspected of infecting others to an agency.

It would to establish whether there are any mental health or cultural reasons behind their actions and whether a prosecution is necessary.

Mullen said it was “sitting on a bureaucrat’sdesk somewhere” yet to see the light of day.

Today’s medication is able to suppress the virus to the point it is undetectable and non transmittable so it was questionable as to whether someone even needed to disclose their status to partners.

Mullen said she believed if a person was dutifully taking their medication, they were taking enough precautions not to pass on HIV.

Within two months of taking the antiviral drugs, Mullen said her viral load – the amount of HIV in someone’s blood – dropped from 1000 which was “heading towards Aids” to it being undetectable.

She’s since been able to have two children – who are both HIV negative – and live a totally normal life.

Except for the stigma.

After being an outspoken advocate for acceptance, she’s considering moving from the Waikato to live incognito for the sake of her children.

Other parents have tried to get her 10- and 7-year-old kicked out of school, they’ve been bullied, had people refuse to go to their home and have been excluded from birthday parties – despite both being negative.

“The biggest message we want to get out there is that if we’re on medication we can’t infect people and we’re not transmittable.”

THE AIDS FOUNDATION AGREES

The New Zealand Aids Foundation said the broad application of criminal law to HIV transmission risks undermining public health and human rights.

Executive director Jason Myers said a prosecution should only happen if someone acted with the express intent to transmit the virus.

“Broad application of criminal law to the transmission of HIV has the potential to do significant damage to the public health and human rights based HIV response in New Zealand.

“It also increases the HIV stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV, the vast majority of whom take care of themselves and their sexual partners.”

Myers said they knew the vast majority of people living with HIV who know their status act responsibly to take care of the health of both themselves and their sexual partners.

PREVIOUS HIV PROSECUTIONS:

1994 – In a highly publicised case, Kenyan musician Peter Mwai was the first person charged with infecting someone with HIV. He sentenced to seven years jail for having unprotected sex with five women and infecting two with HIV. Deported in June 1998 having served four years in jail here, Mwai died in Uganda in September 1998.

1999 – Former male prostitute Christopher Truscott held in “secure” care (he has escaped many times) in Christchurch after being prosecuted in 1999 for having unprotected sex with four men.

1999 – David Purvis, a 31-year-old Pakuranga invalid beneficiary, sentenced to four months jail for committing a criminal nuisance by having unprotected sex with another man. Pleaded guilty.

2004 – Zimbabwean Shingirayi Nyarirangwe, 25, was jailed in Auckland for three years after pleading guilty to four charges of criminal nuisance and three of assault.

2004 – Justin William Dalley, an unemployed 35-year-old of Lower Hutt, was sentenced to 300 hours of community work, six months’ supervision and to pay a woman $1000 in costs because he did not wear a condom during sex with her, despite knowing his HIV positive status. The woman did not contract HIV.

Soon after, he was acquitted of a similar charge because he wore a condom and thus set the legal precedent that by wearing protection an HIV positive man is taking “reasonable precautions” against infection and need not disclose his HIV status.

2009 – Auckland train driver Glenn Mills took his own life facing re-trial for 28 charges relating to 14 people. He had been in custody for over six months.

November 2016 – Christchurch man Johnny Lumsden, 26, is arrested and charged with criminal nuisance following accusations he had unprotected sex with several men without telling them he was HIV-positive.

THE LAW AND HIV

• If you are HIV positive, you do not have to disclose your status before having intercourse as long as you are using a condom.

• If the sex is unprotected, the HIV-positive person has a legal duty to disclose his/her status.

HIV IN NZ

During Mikio Filitonga’s trial, the court heard from Dr Graham Mills, an infectious diseases expert at Waikato Hospital. He said the most common mode of HIV transmission in New Zealand is male gay sex with 80 per cent of positive people believed to have been infected that way.

More than 50 per cent those who are HIV positive – 1500 to 2000 people – in New Zealand are believed to be living within the Auckland District Health Board’s boundaries.

Current estimates are that there are up to 4000 people in NZ who are HIV positive, he said.

Published in the New Zealand Herald on March 24, 2017

Mexico: Roberto Guzman on why HIV criminalisation laws do not protect women from HIV or violence and are inappropriate

Women and HIV criminalisation(Google translation – For the original Spanish version, please scroll down)

By Roberto Guzmán

Despite the fact that HIV infection has no cure, it has now become treatable and mortality has fallen. HIV has become a chronic disease with a higher quality of life and life expectancy. However, social perceptions have not significantly changed and HIV transmission and its gender-implications are still the cause of associated stigma and strong discrimination throughout the infection process and have become a major obstacle for prevention and medical care.

If a woman lives with HIV, her discrimination inhibits personalization of the risks for fear of distrust or of criticisms in her social environment, a situation that reduces the possibility of negotiating preventive measures and undermines her willingness towards her partners, by limiting a systemic diagnosis, by not wanting to share her results and her new life condition and by increasing the probability of not being able to seek treatment for its control.

Although the infection rates in this sector remains stable, women who contract HIV today continue to be ostracized, not only by their own families but also by their communities. They are expelled from their homes or rejected by their spouses to live in terror or to suffer violence, even to be deprived of life as if they were criminals.

If our Congress intended to apply a criminal law to the exposure and transmission of HIV as an outlet for this, perhaps its decree resulted from a well-intentioned desire to protect them in response to a legitimate concern for its rapid expansion. But continuing to allow society to criminalize them, does not foresee the emergence of new transmissions or reduce their vulnerability to the virus, on the contrary it would hurt them rather than help them, by having a negative impact on public health needs and the protection to their human rights. Continuing to criminalize them also does not protect them from sexual violence and rape, nor from unwanted pregnancies, on the contrary, it increases the risk of “secondary criminalization” when rape survivors infected with HIV could be persecuted for a possible exposure and transmission to their babies or their partners.

I believe that instead of responding to HIV by raising fears or laws, a human rights approach would emphasize protecting the dignity of all of them by creating conditions for free and informed taking of their health and life.

————————————————-

EL CIELO DE LA OPOSICIÓN

Por Roberto Guzmán

La mujer y su criminalización por VIH

Pese a que la infección del VIH no tiene cura, hoy se vuelve tratable y disminuye su mortalidad al tornarse crónica y con mayor calidad y esperanza de vida. Sin embargo, los cambios en la percepción social que aún continúan son menos significativos ya que su transmisión y sus implicaciones respecto al género son causa de un estigma asociado y motivo de una fuerte discriminación en los distintos ámbitos del proceso de la infección al volverse obstáculo importante para la prevención y su asistencia médica.

Sí una mujer vive con VIH, su discriminación inhibe la personalización que tiene frente al riesgo por miedo a generarse desconfianza o crítica en su entorno social, situación que reduce la posibilidad de que se negocien medidas preventivas y el socavar su predisposición con sus parejas, al limitar su detección sistémica al no querer compartir su resultado y nueva condición de vida y la probabilidad de no poder buscar tratamiento para su control.

Pese a que la tasa de infección de este sector permanece estable, las mujeres que hoy contraen VIH continúan siendo condenadas a un ostracismo, no solo por sus propias familias sino por sus comunidades que las expulsan de sus casas o al ser rechazadas por sus cónyuges teniendo que vivir aterradas o sufrir violencias, incluso ser privadas de la vida como si fuesen criminales.

Si nuestro Congreso tuviera la intención de aplicar una ley criminal a la exposición y transmisión del VIH como una salida a esto, quizá su decreto resultaría un bien intencionado deseo por protegerlas como respuesta a una preocupación legítima por su rápida expansión. Pero el continuar permitiendo que la sociedad las criminalice, no prevé la aparición de nuevas transmisiones ni reduce con ello su vulnerabilidad frente al Virus, al contrario las perjudicaría más que ayudarlas, al lograr un impacto negativo en las necesidades de salud pública y en la protección a sus derechos humanos. El seguir criminalizándolas tampoco las protege de la violencia sexual y la violación, ni de los embarazos no deseados, por el contrario, aumenta el riesgo a una “criminalización secundaria” cuando las sobrevivientes de violación si fuesen infectadas por VIH pudieran verse perseguidas por una posible exposición y transmisión a sus bebes o a sus parejas.

Considero que en lugar de responder al VIH generando temor o leyes, un enfoque de derechos humanos pondría énfasis en la protección a la dignidad de todas ellas al crearse condiciones para la toma libre e informada en relación a su salud y su vida.

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 20^th 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:

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.

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

Canada: Toronto’s ‘Now’ weekly newspaper prominently features HIV criminalisation impact, advocacy and advocates

This week, Toronto’s weekly newspaper, ‘Now’, features four articles on HIV criminalisation and its impact in Canada.

The lead article, ‘HIV is not a crime’ is written from the point of view of an HIV-negative person who discovers a sexual partner had not disclosed to him. It concludes:

After my experience with non-disclosure, I felt some resentment. But while researching this article, I reached out to the person who didn’t disclose to me. We talked about the assumptions we’d both made about each other. It felt good to talk and air our grievances.

I realized I’d learned something I’d never heard from doctors during any of my dozens of trips to the STI clinic, something I’d never heard from my family, my school, in the media or from the government – that you don’t need to be afraid of people living with HIV.

A second article, Laws criminalizing HIV are putting vulnerable women at greater risk, highlights the impact HIV criminalisation is having on women in Canada, notably that it is preventing sexual assault survivors living with HIV from coming forward due to a fear they will be prosecuted for HIV non-disclosure (which, ironically, is treated as a more serious sexual assault than rape).

Moreover, treating HIV-positive women as sex offenders is subverting sexual assault laws designed to protect sexual autonomy and gender equality. Front-line workers and lawyers say they’re hearing from HIV-positive women who are afraid to report rape and domestic abuse for fear of being charged with aggravated sexual assault themselves.

“People come to me all the time who don’t know what to do,” says Cynthia Fromstein, a Toronto-based criminal lawyer who’s worked on 25 to 30 non-disclosure cases. “Canada, unfortunately, is virulent in its zeal to prosecute aggravated sexual assault related to HIV non-disclosure.”

It also features a strong editorial, ‘HIV disclosure double jeopardy’ by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network’s Cecile Kazatchkine and HALCO’s Executive Director, Ryan Peck, which notes:

In a statement that mostly flew under the radar, Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould declared, on World AIDS Day (December 1), her government’s intention “to examine the criminal justice system’s response to non-disclosure of HIV status,” recognizing that “the over-criminalization of HIV non-disclosure discourages many individuals from being tested and seeking treatment, and further stigmatizes those living with HIV or AIDS.”

Wilson-Raybould also stated that “the [Canadian] criminal justice system must adapt to better reflect the current scientific evidence on the realities of this disease.”

This long-overdue statement was the first from the government of Canada on this issue since 1998, the year the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision on R v. Cuerrier, the first case to reach the high court on the subject.

Finally, the magazine features a number of promiment HIV activists from Canada, including Alex McClelland, who is studying the impact of HIV criminalisation on people accused and/or convicted in Canada.

He contributed his first piece to HJN last month.

Russia: Lawmakers in the Altai Krai region unanimously agree to support a law to allow for mandatory HIV testing AND treatment

English version – Translation (For Russian version, please scroll down)

The Provincial Parliament’s legislative initiative will be sent to the State Duma as a draft federal law

BARNAUL, December 15. Deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the Altai Krai took the initiative to take on the federal law on compulsory treatment of people diagnosed with HIV. They decided to send a proposal to the State Duma as a session of the regional parliament adopted it, reports the press service of the Legislative Assembly.

“The Provincial Parliament will send to the State Duma a legislative initiative of the draft federal law” On Amendments to the Federal Law “On Prevention of Spread of the disease caused by HIV.” For example, citizens suffering from social diseases, which constitute a danger to others (tuberculosis), are subject to mandatory laboratory examination and medical observation or treatment and compulsory hospitalization or isolation in the manner prescribed by the law. The initiative involves the Altai Deputies to extend these norms to HIV-infected patients”, – said the press service.

They added that all 66 deputies unanimously supported the initiative to amend the Law. “The adjustment of the law is to allow professionals, as appropriate, provide forced treatment and monitoring of HIV-infected people to avoid the spread of the virus,” – explained the Legislative Assembly.

According to the press service, the medical check-up and treatment of HIV-infected people in Russia is fulfilled at the expense of the federal subsidies and intergovernmental transfers of the RF federal budget entities to ensure the procurement of antiviral drugs. “Thus, additional funding for coverage of medical observation and treatment of patients with HIV infection is not needed” – added the Legislative Assembly of the Altai Territory.

For most of the Altai Territory, the issue of HIV is relevant: according to the Regional AIDS Centre, for the past 10 years in the region, the number of people diagnosed with HIV has doubled to more over 24 thousand people. Now in the region 217 children and more than 3 thousand adults get treatment. According to official data of Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, totally 824 thousand HIV cases are registered in Russia. The average therapy coverage nationally is about 40%.

Краевой парламент в порядке законодательной инициативы направит в Госдуму проект соответствующего федерального закона

БАРНАУЛ, 15 декабря. /Корр. ТАСС Ксения Шубина/. Депутаты Алтайского краевого Законодательного собрания выступили с инициативой принять на федеральном уровне закон о принудительном лечении людей с диагнозом ВИЧ. Решение направить такое предложение в Госдуму было принято на сессии регионального парламента, сообщили в пресс-службе Заксобрания.

“Краевой парламент направит в Госдуму в порядке законодательной инициативы проект федерального закона “О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон “О предупреждении распространения в Российской Федерации заболевания, вызываемого ВИЧ”. К примеру, граждане, страдающие социально значимыми заболеваниями, представляющими опасность для окружающих (туберкулез), в обязательном порядке подлежат лабораторному обследованию и медицинскому наблюдению или лечению и обязательной госпитализации или изоляции в порядке, установленном законодательством РФ. Инициатива алтайских депутатов предполагает распространить эти нормы и на ВИЧ-инфицированных больных”, – сказали в пресс-службе.

Там добавили, что все 66 депутатов единогласно поддержали инициативу о внесении изменений в ФЗ. “Корректировка закона должна позволить специалистам, в случае необходимости, проводить лечение и наблюдение за ВИЧ-инфицированными в принудительном порядке, чтобы избежать распространения вируса”, – пояснили в Заксобрании.

По данным пресс-службы, диспансерное наблюдение и лечение ВИЧ-инфицированных в России осуществляется за счет федеральных субсидий и межбюджетных трансфертов федерального бюджета субъектам РФ на обеспечение закупок антивирусных препаратов. “Таким образом, дополнительного финансирования на охват диспансерным наблюдением и лечением больных ВИЧ-инфекцией не потребуется”, – добавили в Заксобрании Алтайского края.

Для самого Алтайского края тема борьбы с ВИЧ актуальна: по данным регионального Центра СПИД, за последние 10 лет в регионе количество людей с выявленным диагнозом ВИЧ увеличилось в два раза – до более чем 24 тыс. человек. Сейчас в регионе получают лечение 217 детей и более 3 тыс. взрослых. По официальным данным Минздрава РФ, всего в России зарегистрировано 824 тыс. случаев ВИЧ-инфекции. Охват терапией в среднем по стране – около 40%.

Originally published in TASS