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.

Screenshot 2017-01-13 09.48.27A 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.”

Screenshot 2017-01-13 09.48.41It 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.

15937182_1055417094604635_6279465723502378214_oFinally, 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

US: Discussion about the decriminalisation of HIV takes centre stage at World AIDS day panel in Georgia

A panel of HIV activists and LGBT organizers took aim at laws in Georgia that criminalize people with HIV and can leave them facing prison sentences of up to 20 years.

The discussion about decriminalizing HIV took center stage at a World AIDS Day panel on Nov. 30. People with HIV in Georgia can face a prison term of up to 10 years for having sex with someone without disclosing their HIV status. Even acts like spitting – which do not transmit HIV – are criminalized when directed towards a law enforcement officer with penalties that include up to 20 years of prison time.

Last year, a gay Atlanta man was charged in South Carolina with exposing a sex partner to HIV. Tyler Orr said he did disclose and as the panelists pointed out during the recent discussion, what counts as disclosure and how to avoid “he said, she said” debates in court is unclear.

“What advocates have tried to encourage folks to do in this really unwinnable situation is to have a notarized document or affidavit before you engage in one of these punishable acts,” Mel Medalle of SisterLove told the crowd of about 40 people.

“Which almost never happens, but that is how extreme and absurd this situation is,” Medalle added.

Nina Martinez, a member of the Coalition to End HIV Criminalization in Georgia, pointed out that disclosure laws can also create safety risks for people with HIV.

“Every single time, especially as a woman, every single time, it’s me risking my personal safety,” Martinez said.

Marxavian Jones, who serves as one of Georgia Equality’s Youth HIV Policy Advisors, echoed agreed with Martinez.

“Who is going to defend me when I disclose my status to someone and they take it to social media and decide they want to tell everybody,” Jones said.

The Center for HIV Law & Policy has pointed to the increased risk of intimate partner violence that can come with disclosure, writing that disclosure can “provide an additional excuse, or cover, for physical violence.”

The ongoing stigma of HIV-positive individuals also means that – as Jones pointed out – a disgruntled lover posting a partner’s HIV status to social media can have real consequences, including job loss or being outed to family.

During the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta last year, public health experts and HIV activists argued that rather than criminalizing HIV-positive people, and adding to the stigma they face, people with HIV should be pushed to treatment options.

At the recent panel, participants also highlighted legislation being drafted by the Coalition to End HIV Criminalization in Georgia. The coalition is currently reaching out to legislators to find a sponsor for the bill.

“[The legislation is] so we can repeal, which would completely get rid of it,” Medalle said. “The other option would be to reform it, so to make changes to it but to ultimately have some semblance of it.”

While Medalle said it may seem like a “no brainer that we wouldn’t want this [law],” stigma and other means of criminalizing HIV-positive individuals makes the issue more complicated. In Texas and a handful of other states, there are no specific statutes that target people with HIV but they are still prosecuted under other laws including reckless endangerment.

Reforming the law means that advocates can create better standards for prosecutions, and can “craft a law that comports with modern HIV science, what we know about the routes of transmission,” Medalle said.

Martinez, who is a member of the coalition, said the HIV criminalization law in Georgia also falls short in other aspects.

“The law in Georgia doesn’t require intent to infect, it doesn’t require likelihood of transmission because it has things like spit, urine, feces in it. It doesn’t require transmission,” Martinez said.

The Georgia law also doesn’t take into account issues like condom usage or advising a partner to take PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis) after sexual intercourse – acts which reduce the likelihood of transmission. The reforms to the law would change that, the panelists said.

Emily Halden Brown, a Georgia Equality field organizer who organized the panel discussion, said the event highlighted how people with HIV are impacted by it.

“I think the most valuable moment in all of the discussions I’ve ever been a part of on this, are the moments where people living with HIV share the stories of how they are directly impacted,” Brown said. “Anytime someone shares their personal story you can just feel the change in the audience.”

The event was hosted by Georgia Equality, SisterLove, and The Counter Narrative Project at Gallery 874. The panel discussion coincided with the “Living With” art exhibit, which featured art about the experiences of living with HIV. A closing reception helped raise funds for Georgia Equality’s HIV policy work.

Published in Project Q on Dec 12, 2016

Canada: Canada’s sexual assault laws, as currently applied, put women living with HIV at increased risk of harm

Women living with HIV facing double jeopardy

Canada’s sexual assault laws are being applied in ways that, ironically, put some women at increased risk of harm. Women living with HIV are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they disclose their HIV status to an intimate partner, they may be exposed to violence. If they don’t, they could go to jail for sexual assault.

People who fail to disclose HIV can be charged with fraud, invalidating sexual consent. They can be prosecuted for aggravated sexual assault, the most serious form of the crime, normally reserved for rapes compounded by physical violence. Conviction carries a penalty up to life in prison, and lifelong registry as a sex offender — even when there is no transmission of HIV nor any meaningful risk.

There is broad scientific consensus that when HIV is managed with anti-retroviral therapies, the risk of transmission is negligible, even without a condom. Today’s treatments can reduce viral loads to undetectable levels. Unfortunately, our courts haven’t caught up with the science. Legal practices are at odds with public health. Rather than hazard jail, people at risk of HIV may seek refuge in ignorance, choosing not to get tested.

Recently, Attorney General and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould acknowledged: “The criminal justice system must adapt to better reflect the current scientific evidence. . . . This could include a review of existing charging and prosecution practices.”

The statement was welcomed by Cécile Kazatchkine, senior policy analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and a member of the Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure. The organization has been working since 2009 to engage provincial attorneys general in developing prosecutorial guidelines that would limit prosecution to cases of intentional transmission. Foot-dragging on change has exposed Canada to increasing international criticism.

Kazatchkine believes the International AIDS Conference in Durban this past July may have been a turning point in the evolving federal position. During a plenary session Justice Edwin Cameron, South Africa’s first openly gay and HIV-positive Constitutional Court judge, singled out two nations with terrible records on HIV criminalization. “He mentioned Zimbabwe and he mentioned Canada,” she notes.

This message was compounded in the recent report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which called attention to Canada’s “harsh criminal sanctions” for nondisclosure. The report joins a chorus of international organizations recommending criminalization be limited to intentional transmission of the virus.

Criminalizing nondisclosure has had a particularly harsh impact on women, who often fear admitting they are HIV-positive will provoke violent reactions. Of some 180 prosecutions to date, Kazatchkine says, at least 18 of the defendants are women, many of whom were already marginalized by poverty or abuse.

Some of the women contracted the virus while being sexually assaulted themselves; now they’re being labelled sex offenders. The law’s application also has a disproportionate impact on Aboriginal women, who comprise at least six of 18 known female defendants.

Kazatchkine sees progress toward meaningful dialogue: Minister Wilson-Raybould’s statement “is having an impact.” At a roundtable Monday with several provincial ministries, participants got a keen sense of how women with HIV are caught between prosecution and potential violence. Kazatchkine was encouraged when Tracy MacCharles, the minister responsible for women’s issues, suggested the issue could be brought before the Ontario Roundtable on Violence Against Women.

The government has not committed to specific action. But advocates are cautiously optimistic that things are finally moving in the right direction.

Published in St. Catharines Standard on Dec 10, 2016

Canada: Criminalisation of people with HIV is based on and perpetuates misinformation

Health Economist, Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto

HIV Stigma Can Be More Dangerous Than The Disease Itself

In the past 20 years the medical implications of an HIV diagnosis have changed completely, almost miraculously. Antiretroviral drugs allow people living with HIV to have unprotected sex without passing the virus to their partners, to have HIV-negative children and to live healthy lives well into old age.

In fact, in 2016 the stigma surrounding HIV is probably more life-threatening than HIV itself. The fear of being “outed” as HIV positive stops a lot of people from seeking treatment. A delay in treatment allows the virus to spread, and in many cases, leads to death.

Stigma has many causes, one of which is a genuine fear of contagion. Despite the fact that HIV is now a treatable condition, “educational” messages on HIV prevention are still based on fear, and almost universally exaggerate the risks of HIV infection and its consequences.

Many of us still seem to view HIV as a life-threatening disease rather than a relatively mild condition.

Most people think that HIV is transmitted easily through unprotected sex, though the transmission rate is less than one per cent per act. When a person is taking antiretroviral drugs, the virus is suppressed and transmission is nearly impossible. Many of us still seem to view HIV as a life-threatening disease rather than a relatively mild condition.

In Canada, a person who is diagnosed with HIV and has unprotected sex can be sent to jail for aggravated sexual assault, even if they are taking medication and are virally suppressed. Such criminal convictions are based on and perpetuate misinformation. When it comes to HIV prevention, proper adherence to antiretroviral drugs is actually more effective than condoms.

What’s more, Canadian policy specifically discourages testing and treatment, because a diagnosis makes you criminally responsible. Treatment prevents the spread of HIV, so a policy that criminalizes HIV transmission could actually increase the spread of the virus. Even worse — high-risk individuals (those who frequently engage in unprotected sex) are the most susceptible to a conviction and therefore the least likely to get tested and treated. In November, the United Nations urged Canada to limit criminalization to cases of intentional transmission.

I study barriers to HIV testing in Malawi, a small country in southern Africa with an HIV infection rate of around 15 per cent. I recently ran a large-scale information experiment to correct a common misconception: most participants didn’t know that an HIV-infected person who is taking antiretroviral drugs is not contagious. Providing this information reduced stigma at the community level which caused a significant increase in HIV testing.

While Canada is a long way from Malawi, the social issues surrounding HIV are in some ways similar. Approximately one in five people living with HIV are undiagnosed. Misinformation and an inflated fear of HIV infection are widespread.

In a 2012 survey of Canadians commissioned by the Public Health Agency of Canada, nearly half believed that AIDS was always fatal, and only one-third believed that antiretroviral drugs were very effective. Half of survey respondents were not comfortable drinking from a glass once used by an HIV-infected person.

I understand the instinct to overstate the risks of HIV in order to encourage prevention, but messages that stoke fear and stigmatize HIV come with serious unintended consequences. Antiretroviral drugs are our best hope of ending the HIV epidemic.

In fact, “treatment as prevention” was a strategy developed right here in Canada, at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. It has now been embraced by both the UN and the WHO. Rather than pushing prevention through fear, we should mobilize to support people living with HIV.

Good policy should focus not on fear, but on providing accurate information, encouraging HIV testing and providing universal access to life-saving medication.

US: Four out of five LGBT people live in states with HIV criminalization laws.

A majority of LGBT Americans—about 81 percent—live in states with HIV criminalization laws, according to a new report from the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a group that provides research and data related to LGBT equality.

Titled LGBT Policy Spotlight: HIV Criminalization Laws, the free report explores why these laws are problematic and how they harm public health and the justice system, according to MAP press release.

“Over the past 35 years, 38 states have passed laws that have not kept up with modern medical research and facts about the risks, likelihood, and modes of transmission of HIV,” states the press release. “These HIV criminalization laws therefore often criminalize a range of behaviors that are now known to carry no or a negligible risk of transmission. Most of these laws also not only criminalize the intentional transmission of HIV, but also criminalize behaviors that unintentionally or accidentally exposed others to the virus. Together, these laws perpetuate dangerous stigmas and misinformation about the disease and people living with HIV, create a strong disincentive for individuals to find out their HIV status, and disproportionately target—and add to higher rates of incarceration for—LGBT people.”

While offering a national look at HIV criminalization, the report also looks at the degree of punishment for these laws—for example, whether a violation is considered a felony and whether offenses will result in registration as a sex offender. The report also examines how HIV laws disproportionately affect the LGBT population and people of color.

Published in Poz on Dec 7, 2016

Matthew Weait, from the University of Portsmouth, writes on how stigma and the law affect the lives of people with HIV

HIV Stigma and the Criminal Law

December 1st marks World AIDS Day, an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. Matthew Weait, from the University of Portsmouth, writes here on how stigma and the law affect the lives of people with HIV.

Today, December 1st, is World AIDS Day.  According to the latest available data from UNAIDS, 1.1 million people died from AIDS-related causes in 2015, there are just over 2 million new HIV infections globally every year, and just under 40 million people are living with the virus.  These are depressing figures, particularly in light of the advances in our understanding of HIV, its prevention and treatment, the laudable rise in the number of people accessing antiretroviral therapy (ART) (up from 7.5 million to 18 million in the past five years), and the massive impact of ART on reducing the likelihood of onward transmission.

Despite the fact that the life expectancy of people on ART has improved significantly, especially for those who receive a timely diagnosis, and that there exist effective ways of avoiding infection, the stigma associated with HIV remains.  The impact of this stigma, and the associated discrimination which people living with HIV (PLHIV) and those in key populations are subjected to, is substantial and undermines the work being done to promote access to health and other services critical to curtailing the epidemic.

Stigma is not only correlated with adverse health outcomes for PLHIV (including depression and lower adherence to medication), but also with non-disclosure of status and with less safe sexual practices.  It is for these reasons that combating stigma, and the factors which contribute to it, has long been identified as a public health priority.

Among the most pernicious contributors to HIV stigma is the widespread and inappropriate use of criminal laws against PLHIV and those at heightened risk of infection.  For example, PLHIV or those suspected of being HIV-positive have been and are at risk of being investigated, prosecuted and imprisoned for exposure offences – where no transmission takes place – even where there is negligible risk (as when a PLHIV is on effective treatment and has an undetectable viral load), where there is no risk (e.g. through biting or spitting), and even where a partner has consented to the risk involved.

In some countries, such as Canada, the very fact of non-disclosure of status can, irrespective of risk, turn otherwise consensual sex into sexual assault.  And where transmission does in fact occur (which is more likely when someone does not know their status and is not on treatment than when they do know and are), PLHIV are at risk of extended custodial punishment, even if it is not their intention to cause harm.

These laws serve no public health purpose and, because it is typically only those that have a positive diagnosis who may be found criminally liable, do nothing to incentivise the testing which is a pre-requisite of treatment and care.

It is not only those already living with HIV who suffer from the enforcement of punitive laws.  The social opprobrium associated with and / or criminalization of transgender people, homosexuality, sex work, and injecting drug use in many countries of the world (including nations with high HIV prevalence) reinforces stigma, makes it harder to support those at heightened risk of acquiring the virus, and in fact makes infection more likely.

If the possession of condoms is treated as evidence of sex work, sex workers may not carry them; and if the possession of syringes is treated as evidence of drug use, the chance that these will be shared increases, as does the risk of transmitting blood-borne viruses (including HIV and hepatitis C).  Put simply, the policing of these communities, and the absence of harm reduction opportunities in the carceral settings they may find themselves in as a result of that policing, exacerbate risks which are already greater than for the general population.

The adverse impact of using criminal law in the fight against HIV, and on those directly and indirectly affected by it, has been extensively researched and documented.  The consensus among expert bodies such as UNAIDS and the Global Commission on HIV and the Law is that countries should review their punitive laws and significantly restrict their use, and there have been a number of progressive and welcome developments both in law reform and in policing, many of these led by coalitions of activists and clinicians.  At the same time, and despite the evidence of the harm that they cause, and the stigma which it feeds and sustains, countries continue to pass and enforce these laws.

Irrespective of any moral or ethical questions there may be about HIV transmission, exposure, or non-disclosure, it is incontrovertible that the criminal law makes the elimination of HIV harder.  If we are going to end the epidemic, this needs to be recognised and acted on as a priority. If not, more people will become infected, more people will get sick, more people will have a lower quality of life – even when virally suppressed – and more people will die.

Published in BioMed Central on Dec 1, 2016

Canada: Canadian Report highlights a "clear pattern of racism" in media reporting of HIV-related offences

Media accused of racism in reporting HIV-related crime

Black males with HIV account for 20 per cent of the 181 people charged for no disclosing HIV status to sexual partners, but 62 per cent of newspaper articles focused on their cases.

Canadian mainstream media disproportionally focus on black immigrant men criminally charged for not disclosing HIV status to their sexual partners when the majority of offenders are white, says a new study.

To mark World AIDS Day on Wednesday, a team of Canadian researchers released the pioneering study last week identifying “a clear pattern of racism” toward black men in the reporting of HIV non-disclosure in Canadian newspapers.

“The most striking revelation of this report was the grand scale of stereotyping and stigmatizing by Canadian media outlets in their sensationalistic coverage of HIV non-disclosure cases,” said Eric Mykhalovskiy, a York University sociology professor, who leads the team.

“It’s upsetting to read myths masquerading as news and repeating the theme of how black men living with HIV are hypersexual dangerous ‘others.’ This approach not only demeans journalism, but it inflames racism and HIV stigmatization, undermining educational and treatment efforts.”

Based on the database of Factiva, an English-language Canadian newspaper articles from 1989 to 2015, researchers from York, University of Toronto and Lakehead University identified 1,680 reports of HIV non-disclosure cases. Of those reports 68 per cent, or 1,141 of the articles, focused on racialized defendants.

According to court records of HIV-related criminal cases in Canada, African, Caribbean and black men living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, account for 20 per cent or 36 of the 181 people charged for these offenses. However, 62 per cent or 1,049 of the 1,680 media reports focused on these 20 per cent of the cases.

Immigrants and refugees receive particularly higher amount of coverage. While only 32 of the 181 accused are known to be migrants to Canada, yet stories about their offences represented 62 per cent (1,046 of 1,680) of the media coverage.

“The report documents the media’s stigmatizing and unjust racial profiling of black heterosexual immigrant men in HIV non-disclosure cases that perpetuates systematic discrimination,” said Christian Hui, an HIV activist and co-founder of the Canadian Positive People Network.

“We know next to nothing about them other than their name, age, residence, occupation, the charges they face,” said the report. “What is distinct about the coverage of African, Caribbean and black male defendants is how (they) are linked with racializing forms of representation in ways that amplify connections between HIV, criminality, race and ‘foreignness.’”

Mykhalovskiy said the research team recognized that accused criminals often refuse to speak with the media at their counsel’s advice, but it does not change the fact black immigrant offenders are disproportionally represented in the coverage.

The study urges the Canadian media to treat HIV non-disclosure as a health issue and not simply a crime story; to stop using mug shots that further stigmatizing and discriminate people with HIV as criminals; and to reach out to AIDS service organizations when interviewing sources for these stories.

Published in The Star, on Dec 1, 2016

HIV Criminalization: Masking Fear and Discrimination (Sero, US, 2016)

A short documentary for the Sero Project produced by Mark S King, written by Christopher King, and edited by Andrew Seger.