Tajikistan: Rising HIV cases among migrants highlight urgent need for testing and repeal of HIV criminalisation law

Every third person with HIV in Tajikistan is a labour migrant

Translated with Deepl.com. For article in Russian, please scroll down. 

There are more and more people living with HIV among migrants

In Tajikistan, every third person with HIV is a labour migrant. Over the past five years, 5,463 cases of HIV infection have been detected, according to data from the Republican Centre for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control. Of these, migrants account for 22 per cent of those infected. While in 2019 migrants accounted for only 17 per cent of those infected, by 2023 that figure had risen to 32.5 per cent.
Balajon Davlatov, a specialist of the dispensary department of the Republican HIV Centre, strongly recommends to take a free test at one of the HIV prevention and control centres in Tajikistan immediately after arrival.

“Every migrant, after returning home, should be tested for HIV infection if they have doubts about it,” Davlatov said.
More than 300 migrants are already on the Republican HIV Centre’s dispensary register, he said. Their identities and test results are not disclosed to third parties.
“Any information about each person should be confidential. It is possible to get express tests, which within 15 minutes by analysing saliva report the patient’s HIV status – completely anonymously,” he says.
Such tests are available free of charge at one of the 67 government HIV prevention and control centres in all regions of Tajikistan.
In addition to testing through blood at AIDS centres, self-testing using near-blood fluid is now available. Self-test kits are available in Dushanbe, Rudaki, Khujand and B.Gafurov through online ordering at hivtest.tj.

The ordering process involves filling out a simple form with a few questions. This platform helps people confidentially find out their HIV status and provides up-to-date information on protection and prevention methods.
Those who test positive for HIV can learn more about their result and get a follow-up confirmatory test at the AIDS Centre.

We had a case with a woman who tested positive for HIV,” says Balajon Davlatov, “after treatment with antiretrovirals, she gave birth to two HIV-negative children. Now she lives in Russia, and we send her the necessary medication and counselling.
This proves that HIV-infected people can give birth to healthy children and live a full life.

It is an offence to infect another person with HIV

However, a positive HIV status can carry certain risks, which are not only related to the state of health. If a person knows that he or she is HIV-positive but hides it from his or her sexual partner, he or she can be fined from 720 to 1440 somoni under Article 120 of the Code of Administrative Offences (CAO).

Evasion of treatment for HIV or other infectious diseases is also punishable by a fine of 1,440 to 2,160 somoni. This liability is stipulated in Article 119 of the Code of Administrative Offences.

If a person deliberately infects another person with HIV, he or she may be punished with restriction of freedom for up to 3 years or imprisonment for up to 2 years. If, knowing his/her HIV status, he/she infects another person, he/she may face 2 to 5 years in prison. The term of imprisonment can be longer, from 5 to 10 years, if more than one person was infected or if the victim was a minor. This punishment is already stipulated in article 125 of the Criminal Code, which characterises these actions not as an offence but as a criminal offence.

Therefore, it is very important to periodically take tests and check your status, especially if you are in a risk group.

Среди мигрантов всё больше людей, живущих с ВИЧ

В Таджикистане каждый третий человек с ВИЧ – это трудовой мигрант. За последние 5 лет выявлено 5463 случая заражения ВИЧ инфекцией, говорят данные Республиканского центра по профилактике и борьбе с ВИЧ/СПИД. Из них 22% инфицированных приходится на мигрантов. Если в 2019 году мигранты составляли всего 17% зараженных, то к 2023 году эта цифра увеличилась до 32,5%.
Баладжон Давлатов, специалист диспансерного отделения Республиканского центра ВИЧ, настоятельно рекомендует сразу после прибытия пройти бесплатный тест в одном из центров по профилактике и борьбе с ВИЧ-инфекцией в Таджикистане.

«Каждый мигрант после возвращения на родину должен пройти обследования на факт заражения ВИЧ, если у него есть сомнения по этому поводу», – говорит Давлатов.
По его словам, уже более 300 мигрантов находятся на диспансерном учете республиканского центра ВИЧ. Их личность и результаты теста не разглашаются третьим лицам.
«Любая информация о каждом лице должна быть конфиденциальной. Можно получить экспресс-тесты, которые в течение 15 минут путем анализа слюны сообщают о ВИЧ-статусе пациента – полностью анонимно», – говорит он.
Такие тесты можно получить бесплатно в одном из 67 государственных центров по профилактике и борьбе со ВИЧ во всех регионах Таджикистана.
В дополнение к тестированию через кровь в Центрах СПИД, сегодня доступно самотестирование с использованием околодесновой жидкости. Наборы для самотестирования можно получить в городах Душанбе, Рудаки, Худжанд и Б.Гафуров через онлайн-заказ на сайте hivtest.tj.
Процесс заказа включает заполнение простой формы с несколькими вопросами. Эта платформа помогает людям на конфиденциальной основе узнать свой ВИЧ-статус и предоставляет актуальную информацию о методах защиты и профилактики.
Те, у кого тест на ВИЧ оказался положительным, могут узнать о своем результате подробнее и пройти повторное подтверждающее тестирование в Центре СПИД.

«У нас был случай с женщиной с положительным ВИЧ статусом, – рассказывает Баладжон Давлатов, – после лечение антиретровирусными препаратами она родила двоих детей с отрицательным ВИЧ-статусом. Сейчас она живёт в России, и мы отправляем ей нужные медикаменты и даём консультации».
Это доказывает, что ВИЧ инфицированные люди могут рожать здоровых детей и полноценно жить.

Заражение ВИЧ другого человека – это преступление

Однако положительный ВИЧ-статус может нести определенные риски, которые связаны не только с состоянием здоровья. Если человек знает, что у него положительный ВИЧ-статус, но скрывает это от своего сексуального партнера, то в рамках статьи 120 Кодекса об административных правонарушениях (КоАП) РТ ему могут выписать штраф от 720 до 1440 сомони.

За уклонение от лечения от ВИЧ или других инфекционных заболеваний тоже выписывается штраф от 1440 до 2160 сомони. Эта ответственность предусмотрена статьей 119 КоАП.
Если человек умышленно заражает другого ВИЧ, он может быть наказан ограничением свободы до 3 лет или лишением свободы до 2 лет. Если, зная о своем ВИЧ-статусе, он заразил другого человека, ему может грозить от 2 до 5 лет тюрьмы. Срок лишения свободы может быть больше – от 5 до 10 лет, если было заражено более одного человека или жертвой стало несовершеннолетнее лицо. Это наказание предусматривается уже в статье 125 Уголовного кодекса РТ, что характеризует эти действия не как правонарушение, а как уголовное преступление.
Поэтому очень важно периодически сдавать анализы и проверять свой статус, особенно, если человек находится в группе риска.

US: Legislative study in Oklahoma could lead to repeal of STI and HIV criminalisation laws

Interim study will examine Oklahoma laws that criminalize spreading STIs, HIV

An interim legislative study will evaluate the criminalization of sexually transmitted infections and HIV in Oklahoma.

State Sens. Julia Kirt and Carri Hicks, both Democrats representing Oklahoma City, are co-sponsors of the study with the goal of educating and correcting misinformation on sexually transmitted infections (STI) and HIV. The study could also lead to renewed legislation to repeal several laws that criminalize intentionally spreading transmitted diseases.

Advocates say a public health response is more appropriate than a criminal sentence. Oklahoma’s laws currently carry a felony charge and two to five years in prison if a person is found to have intentionally or recklessly spread HIV, smallpox, syphilis or gonorrhea.

Kirt said her district covers an area with some of the most active testing facilities for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STD), and her constituents are concerned because the laws that criminalize intentional spreading also bring with them several stigmas that tend to stop people from getting tested.

“If adding a crime for those is what helps get people better, we wouldn’t have such problems,” she said.

Freedom Oklahoma Executive Director Nicole McAfee said she agreed with Kirt and said the study has been several years in the making.

Freedom Oklahoma, a local advocacy organization, started the conversation with local and national partners in public health, direct service providers and others involved with public health criminalization to look at Oklahoma’s laws that establish criminal penalties for intentionally tansmitting diseases such as HIV.

McAfee said Oklahoma needs “a sex education one-on-one and some of that real public health discussion so that we can better talk about sexually transmitted infections in ways that are a public health response and not a criminalization or sort of moralistic response.”

Some lawmakers, including Rep. Toni Hasenbeck, R-Elgin, say the reasons for criminalization relate to domestic violence. House Bill 3098, introduced this year, would have added several more diseases that could be criminalized. The bill passed the House to the Senate Public Safety Committee but did not advance further. It was sponsored by Sen. Jessica Garvin, R-Duncan.

In a written statement to The Oklahoman, Hasenbeck said she wants to pursue the legislation in the future and follow the study closely.

“Throughout my years of working on legislation addressing domestic abuse, I’ve heard countless stories from Oklahomans who were deliberately infected with diseases by a sexual partner,” she said. “These diseases sometimes cause severe, long-lasting consequences, like liver disease and infertility. Beyond the physical health implications, there’s the profound emotional distress of discovering that a trusted partner has knowingly and willfully inflicted harm.”

McAfee said that when Hasenbeck’s bill was discussed, it was clear that a stigma against people with STIs and HIV still existed. She said topics like testing status, dirty versus clean language, and intentionality were difficult “to dig into when there’s inadequate sex education and sexual health resources for many people.”

“I think we can all agree that we’ve learned a lot about sexual health since 1910, and maybe the responses that we had and came up with at that point in time should not be the same ones that we utilize today,” she said.

As of 2023, 34 states have laws that criminalize HIV exposure, but 13 states have “modernized” or repealed these laws, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Not the first time decriminalization has been proposed

Last year, Rep. Mauree Turner, D-Oklahoma City, introduced House Bill 2343 that would have repealed two 1910 laws that criminalized public exposure with a contagious disease and intentionally spreading smallpox, syphilis and gonorrhea, as well as a 1988 law that criminalized the intentional spreading of HIV/AIDS. The bill died in the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee.

McAfee said the conversation showed how little a lot of legislators know about HIV, especially in the modern sense.

“We heard a lot of misinformation repeated as fact from folks,” she said.

Old stigmas surface in modern politics

McAfee said the highest number of STI and HIV cases are often in rural areas where access to health services can be farther away and that Oklahoma ranks in the top seven states for rural transmission. She said people in smaller communities who receive services from providers at clinics who might be people they encounter on a regular basis might not want to risk having everyone know their health status.

“It’s really disappointing that all of these decades later when we know so much more, when there is a lot more prevention and treatment accessible, that we still have legislators whose knowledge of HIV/AIDS is rooted in sort of mid-’80s stigma and misinformation,” she said, adding that some “are governing from that basic fear or this desire to sort of impose morality on your folks, in particular, instead of realizing that this is a public health conversation.”

Kirt and McAfee said they want people to be more educated on the science and health aspects of STIs and HIV, reduce the stigma attached to the problems and encourage more testing.

Kirt said she would be interested in introducing legislation in the next session to address the laws. No date for holding the interim study has yet been set.

“We have to look at true bipartisan approaches to really solve problems instead of kind of short-term, short-sighted ways of approaching problems,” Kirt said.

US: American Academy of Pediatrics clarifies breastfeeding guidelines for people with HIV

New guidelines clear the way for HIV-positive people to breastfeed

Parents with HIV who want to breastfeed are now able to — with the blessing of their pediatrician — after a game-changing report was released this spring.

The 11-page report, “Infant Feeding for Persons Living With and at Risk for HIV in the United States: Clinical Report” was published in the medical journal Pediatrics in May by Drs. Lisa Abuogi and Christiana Smith, both pediatricians with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and Dr. Lawrence Noble, a pediatrician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai in New York.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics for the first time is fully supporting breastfeeding for women and other parents with HIV who are on treatment and virally suppressed,” said Dr. Abuogi in a recent virtual interview. “And that’s a result of increasing research showing that it can be done safely and improving antiretroviral regimens that improve the chances of staying virally suppressed.”

She added: “I think it opens up having the choice and having the ability to be supported to do that, which for decades they have not had. So it’s a pretty big sea change that’s happening in the field of HIV.”

The change came as welcome news to Ci Ci Covin, an HIV-positive mother who, because of her status, was devastated not to be allowed to breastfeed her son, Zion, now a teenager. She did, however, breastfeed her 3-year-old daughter Zuri secretively, with the support of clandestine providers who promised not to turn her in to child protective services for planning to breastfeed while living with HIV, something women in other countries have long been able to do.

Now that it doesn’t have to be done in secret, she said, the new guidelines brought a wave of relief.

“It felt like a breath that I was finally able to exhale on,” she said, “that I had been holding in for so many years.”

Breastfeeding with HIV has traveled a long road to acceptance. In 1985, the American Association of Pediatrics recommended parents who were HIV-positive not breastfeed, because of the slim chance of transmission of the infection via the breast milk to the baby. Those choosing to disregard the guidelines could be reported to state child protective agencies.

Others didn’t see the risk in the same way — in some African countries for example, babies were breastfeeding from HIV-positive parents on antiretroviral drugs whose load was so low as to be undetectable while also receiving prophylaxis drugs that blocked the transmission of the virus to the baby; studies there were finding no HIV transmission.

But the U.S. stood fast on its ban — until January 2023, when the National Institutes of Health released a paper “Update to Clinical Guidelines for Infant Feeding Supports Shared Decision Making: Clarifying Breastfeeding Guidance for People with HIV.”

“Clinicians should support the choices of people with HIV to breastfeed (if they are virally suppressed) or to formula/replacement feed,” the paper stated, adding: “It is inappropriate to engage child protective services (CPS) or similar services in response to infant feeding choices of [people with HIV].”

The NIH influenced the Department of Health and Human Services, which that year relaxed its own guidelines against restricting HIV-positive people from breastfeeding, but the HHS has a smaller audience, and it’s the American Association of Pediatrics from whom pediatricians specializing in labor and delivery take their cues, not HHS.

The paper Abuogi and her co-researchers published about a year and a half later was what made the change in the AAP guidelines. Their report, she said, consisted less of original research on the topic and more of a distillation of research. “We review all of the literature, the history, and the latest research to inform the guidelines,” she said.

According to the paper, health care professionals should plan to talk with patients who want to breastfeed their child, and when they do, they should explore the parents’ reasoning, suggest possible alternatives that allow a bond with the infant, and validate the parent’s role, regardless of how the infant will be fed. The paper also recommends that parents know the risk of HIV transmission — which is about 1 percent or less — and are aware that antiretroviral drugs suppress the chance of transmission, but don’t completely eliminate the risk.

“Breastfeeding should be supported for people with HIV who strongly desire to breastfeed after comprehensive counseling,” the paper recommends, “if all of the following criteria are met: (anti-retroviral therapy) was initiated early in or before pregnancy; there is evidence of sustained viral suppression in the parent; the parent demonstrates a commitment to consistently taking their own (anti-retroviral drugs) and to giving infant (anti-retroviral) prophylaxis; and the parent has continuous access (to those drugs).”

The new guidelines are being made widely known through email blasts, the AAP’s podcast, and social media posts to the country’s 39,000 pediatricians who specialize in labor and delivery, about 2,000 of whom practice in Colorado, according to Dr. Aguobi.

Ci Ci Covin, 36, a mother of two who has a bachelor’s and master’s degrees, now lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her partner, son, and daughter. She had been diagnosed with HIV in her early 20s — she said she got the virus having unprotected sex with men growing up in rural Georgia. She didn’t breastfeed her son because she had the virus, and was told she should be happy to give birth at all, given her status.

Her first-born child, Zion, was born premature and spent nine days in the NICU, during which time Covin stayed in a nearby Ronald McDonald House. One day, she recalled, “I stood in that shower with my breasts full of milk and in pain and just watched it all just waste down the drain, knowing that HIV was the only thing that was causing that right now. It was so painful.”

She spiraled into post-partum depression, “beating myself up again for this diagnosis because that was what was stopping me from being able to feed my child … all of my parental autonomy had been taken away from me. That was a rough time.”

Guidelines shared with her by her health care provider kept her from breastfeeding. Over the next few years, she began hearing that women who were living with HIV were breastfeeding in some African countries. About a decade later, she found a new partner and became pregnant again, this time with a baby girl she’d call Zuri, now 3 years old. This time, she wanted things to be different. She had befriended an HIV-positive mother in Virginia for whom things were different: Her new friend Heather’s health care provider had asked her how she wanted to feed her newborn, rather than telling her that her choice was limited so as not to include breastfeeding — a shocking statement to Ci Ci’s ears.

Heather’s disclosure made Covin think she could do the same, so she ran the possibility past her provider. She was shocked by what she was told: There was “no provider in America who would work with me if that’s what I wanted to do,” Coving explained, her voice quivering with emotion.

“And she told me that if that was something that I wanted to do, then I was going to have to be quiet about it because their facility is known to call child protective services on parents who breastfeed while living with HIV.”

The threat left her stunned. “I’m only six weeks pregnant; we don’t even know if this baby’s going to stick yet, and I’m being threatened by CPS … which really put a fork in that relationship that I had built with that provider.”

With her friend Heather’s help, Covin found a new health care team in Philadelphia consisting of an OB-GYN, a social worker, a high-risk nurse, and a pediatrician — all of whom felt the benefits of breastfeeding with HIV outweighed the slim risk of transmission. In the small community of HIV-positive parents, this team was known through whispers as the ones to go to if you had HIV and wanted to breastfeed without getting reported to child protective services.

Initially, she was undecided on breastfeeding the daughter she was expecting.

“Some days I would go in there and say, ‘Yes, I’m doing it.’ Then other days I’d be like, ‘No I’m not doing this.’ And they did that tango with me, just informing me of all of the things, the research, what they’ve seen in previous patients and children. It was awesome. I had options. I could choose what life was going to look like for me and my baby moving forward.”

Under the new provider’s care, Covin gave birth to Zuri, then spent the next seven months breastfeeding her daughter, who also received prophylactic medications during and after that time period.

“It felt beautiful. It felt so natural. I couldn’t believe that it was happening, that I was able to do it in front of people in scrubs,” she said, rather than hiding it from them.

Per protocol, Covin and Zuri both took medications to lower the transmission risk.

“We started on one type of treatment for the first four weeks after she was born, and then we switched into another treatment that had less medication in it, less types of drugs,” she said. “We did that for the length of time that we breastfed plus a month afterwards,” she said, adding that both children are now thriving and doing well and that neither has the virus.

Covin now works as a senior manager of community programming with The Well Project in Philadelphia (a nonprofit organization that serves women living with HIV and those vulnerable to it across the gender spectrum). She is one of a small subset of HIV-positive parents who want to breastfeed — estimated to be about 5,000 large annually nationwide — who are potentially impacted by the AAP’s new guidelines. The new rules mean that people like Covin won’t have to go to the trouble of finding a doctor breaking guidelines to be supportive of women breastfeeding while living with HIV; instead, doctors will just start openly presenting doing so as a legitimate option.

“The 5,000 number is the number of women living with HIV that we think become pregnant annually in the United States, and in Colorado, that number is probably closer to 50 or 60,” said Dr. Abuogi, who added that many are women of color. But the number and background of the people impacted isn’t the point.

“All women and mothers want to have the full range of choices and options to make the best infant feeding decisions for their children,” she said.

Of the new guidelines, she said they could make a difference in the parenting experience. “This gives these women that option if they’re able to be on their treatment and doing well.”

US: New report from the Williams Institute examines the enforcement of Indiana’s HIV-related criminal donation laws

Enforcement of HIV Criminalization in Indiana: Donation Laws

The Williams Institute analyzed data from the Indiana courts regarding individuals arrested and prosecuted for an HIV-related donation crime in that state. Indiana has six laws criminalizing people living with HIV (PLWH), spanning the criminal code and public health code. This report—one in a series examining HIV criminalization in Indiana—analyzes the enforcement of two laws that criminalize the donation of blood, plasma, and semen for artificial insemination if the person knows they have HIV:

  • Indiana Criminal Code § 35-45-21-1 Transferring Contaminated Body Fluids (enacted in 1988)
  • Indiana Health Code § 16-41-14-17 Donation, Sale, or Transfer of HIV Infected Semen; penalties (enacted in 1989)

The data were obtained between January 2022 and March 2024 and cover enforcement of the laws between 2001 and 2023. We identified 18 unique individuals charged with 21 violations of the state’s criminal donation law related to HIV, resulting in 18 court cases. While other states have similar HIV-related criminal donation laws, Indiana had the greatest number of convictions under a donation law documented in a single state.

Key Findings

  • Indiana’s HIV-related donation crimes were created nearly four decades ago (1988 and 1989) before effective and easily accessible testing and treatment for HIV was available.
  • All 18 cases stemmed from an attempt to donate at a plasma center.
  • No cases (0) involved attempts to donate whole blood or semen.
  • No people (0) were charged under the provision of the code penalizing actual HIV transmission.
  • Marion County—home to Indianapolis, the state capital and largest city—was substantially overrepresented in arrests: it accounted for about 14% of the state’s population and 41% of PLWH in 2021 but nearly 80% of all donation-related arrests. Only three other counties had arrests.
  • Alleged violations of the donation laws regularly occurred between 2001 and 2018, with the most recent arrest happening in 2019 for an incident in 2018. On average, one court case was filed per year for an alleged violation of Indiana’s HIV blood donation law during this time period.
  • The demographic data reveal that:
    • The range for age at time of arrest was between 20 and 58 years old; the mean (average) age at time of arrest was 33 years old.
    • Men were 72% of people arrested while women were 28%.
    • Black people were nearly eight in ten (78%) of all people arrested. White people were the remainder (22%) of those arrested. However, Black people were only 38% of PLWH in Indiana in 2021 and just 10% of the state’s population. No other race/ethnicity group was represented among those arrested.
  • In total, 17 of the 18 people charged were found indigent and assigned a public defender.
  • More than four-fifths (89%) of people arrested were convicted of at least one HIV-related crime.
  • The Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) devoted resources to determining whether a possible crime was committed—a public health investigator (PHI) routinely referred cases to law enforcement and provided them with personal HIV information in accordance with IDOH policy at the time.
  • • The criminal law has not been enforced since the last court case was filed in 2019, suggesting a recent decline in the use of Indiana’s HIV-related donation crime laws.

To our knowledge, this report is the first comprehensive look at the enforcement of HIV criminal donation laws in a single U.S. state, and it demonstrates one of the highest levels of enforcement observed in any state to date.

This report found that people who know they have HIV can, and have, been prosecuted under Indiana’s HIV criminalization donation laws for acts that pose no HIV transmission risk. Because of universal screening for HIV antibodies, donated blood, plasma, and semen are now safe from HIV for recipients. Moreover, plasma—which represented 100% of attempted donations in this study—is heat treated, which inactivates all bloodborne pathogens, including HIV. There has not been a reported case of HIV transmission from plasma donation in nearly 40 years. Yet, as recently as 2019, Indiana arrested, prosecuted, and convicted a person for attempting to donate at a plasma center in the state.

Further, HIV criminalization laws could undermine the state’s efforts to work cooperatively with the communities most impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In recent years, there has been growing consensus among public health and medical experts that ending the HIV epidemic requires modernizing a state’s HIV criminal laws to reflect what is known about HIV science today. Indiana’s own statewide plan to end the HIV epidemic in the state by 2030, called Zero is Possible, includes criminal law modernization as one of the current approaches and priorities. The plan echoes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the White House’s Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) position on HIV-specific criminal laws, both of which call on states to modernize their HIV criminal laws to reflect advances in treatment and what we know today about how HIV is—and is not—transmitted.

Download the full report

US: Sex workers convicted of aggravated prostitution because of their HIV status to be removed from Sex Offender Registry

Tennessee agrees to remove sex workers with HIV from sex offender registry

The Tennessee government has agreed to begin scrubbing its sex offender registry of dozens of people who were convicted of prostitution while having HIV, reversing a practice that federal lawsuits have challenged as draconian and discriminatory.

For more than three decades, Tennessee’s “aggravated prostitution” laws have made prostitution a misdemeanor for most sex workers but a felony for those who are HIV-positive. Tennessee toughened penalties in 2010 by reclassifying prostitution with HIV as a “violent sexual offense” with a lifetime registration as a sex offender — even if protection is used.

At least 83 people are believed to be on Tennessee’s sex offender registry solely because of these laws, with most living in the Memphis area, where undercover police officers and prosecutors most often invoked the statute, commonly against Black and transgender women, according to a lawsuit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union and four women who were convicted of aggravated prostitution. The Department of Justice challenged the law in a separate suit earlier this year.

Both lawsuits argue that Tennessee law does not account for evolving science on the transmission of HIV or precautions that prevent its spread, like use of condoms. Both lawsuits also argue that labeling a person as a sex offender because of HIV unfairly limits where they can live and work and stops them from being alone with grandchildren or minor relatives.

“Tennessee’s Aggravated Prostitution statute is the only law in the nation that treats people living with HIV who engage in any sex work, even risk-free encounters, as ‘violent sex offenders’ subjected to lifetime registration,” the ACLU lawsuit states.

“That individuals living with HIV are treated so differently can only be understood as a remnant of the profoundly prejudiced early response to the AIDS epidemic.”

In a settlement agreement signed by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on July 15 and filed in both lawsuits on July 17, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said it would comb through the state’s sex offender registry to find those added solely because of aggravated prostitution convictions, then send letters alerting those people that they can make a written request to be removed. The language of the settlement suggests that people will need to request their removal from the registry, but the agency said in the agreement it will make “its best effort” to act on the requests “promptly in the order in which they are received.”

The Tennessee attorney general’s office, which represents the state in both the ACLU and DOJ lawsuits and approved the settlement agreement, said in an email statement it would “continue to defend Tennessee’s prohibition on aggravated prostitution.”

In an email statement, the ACLU celebrated the settlement as “one step toward remedying the harms by addressing the sex offender registration,” but said its work in Tennessee was not done because aggravated prostitution remained a felony charge that it would “fight to overturn.”

Molly Quinn, executive director of LGBTQ+ support organization OUTMemphis, another plaintiff in the ACLU lawsuit, said both organizations would help eligible people with the paperwork to get removed from the registry.

“We would not have agreed to settle if we did not feel like this was a process that would be extremely beneficial,” Quinn said. “But, we’re sad that the statute existed as long as it did and sad that there is any process at all that folks have to go through after living with this extraordinary burden of being on the sex offender registry for really an irrelevant reason.”

Michelle Anderson, a Memphis resident who is one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit, said in court records that since being convicted of aggravated prostitution, the sex offender label has made it so difficult to find a home and a job that she was “unhoused for about a year” and has at times “felt she had no option but to continue to engage in sex work to survive.”

Like the other plaintiffs, Anderson said her conviction kept her minor relatives at a distance.

“Ms. Anderson has a nephew she loves, but she cannot have a close relationship with him,” the lawsuit states. “Even though Ms. Anderson’s convictions had nothing to do with children, she cannot legally be alone with her nephew.”

The Tennessee settlement comes months after state lawmakers softened the law so no one else should be added to the sex offender registry for aggravated prostitution. Lawmakers removed the registration requirement and made convictions eligible for expungement if the defendant testifies they were a victim of human trafficking.

State Sen. Page Walley (R-Savannah), who supported the original aggravated prostitution law passed in 1991 and co-sponsored the recent bill to amend it, said on the floor of the legislature that the changes do not prevent prosecutors from charging people with a felony for aggravated prostitution. Instead, he said, the amendments undo the 2010 law that put those who are convicted on the registry “along with pedophiles and rapists for a lifetime, with no recourse for removal.”

“Having stood, as I mentioned, in 1991 and passed this,” Walley said, “it is a particular gratifying moment for me to see how we continue to evolve and seek what’s just and what’s right and what’s best.”

Malaysia: Latest attempt to amend the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act retains many of its controversial provisions

Act 342 Amendment Bill Treats Infection Like A Criminal Offence
By Alifah Zainuddin | 15 July 2024

The Act 342 Amendment Bill 2024 treats infection like a criminal offence, raising compounds on individuals to RM5,000 and granting Health DG vast powers over isolation and surveillance, among others, and CPC investigation powers for authorised officers.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) is making its latest attempt to amend the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342), while retaining many of the controversial provisions that led to previous failures.

The latest attempt is supposedly in line with a recent decision by the World Health Organization (WHO) member countries to adopt critical amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR).

This was supposed to include provisions for a National IHR Authority, an entity established at the national level to coordinate the implementation of the Regulations within the country’s jurisdiction. However, this provision is absent from the new bill.

Instead, the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (Amendment) Bill 2024 curiously retains many of the contentious elements from the previous amendment.

These include a revised Section 25 proposing compounds of up to RM5,000 for individuals and RM50,000 for companies; a revised Section 24 imposing general penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment or fines of up to RM10,000 for individuals, and up to RM100,000 for companies; and a new Section 31 that stipulates penalties for specific breaches of regulations, including imprisonment for up to two years or fines of up to RM8,000 for individuals, and imprisonment for up to two years or fines of up to RM50,000 for companies.

The new bill varies slightly from the previous amendment in terms of penalty amounts. It appears to impose tougher penalties on individuals (increasing from a maximum RM1,000 in compounds and RM2,000 in general fines), while reducing fines for corporations (decreasing from a maximum RM500,000 in compounds and RM2 million in general fines).

The bill also retains controversial provisions, including Section 21(A), which grants the Health Director-General broad powers to issue directives for controlling infectious diseases, including lockdowns and isolation.

Non-compliance is a criminal offence, extending the DG’s authority beyond the current Act, which regulates diseases like Covid-19, HIV, dengue, and tuberculosis.

Section 14A allows an an authorised officer to order any person who is infected or who he has “reason to believe” has been infected with an infectious disease to “undergo isolation or surveillance” in a specified place and for a determined period as the authorised officer may think fit or until he may be discharged without danger to the public.

Section 15A enables an authorised officer to issue any order to be complied with by any person who is infected or whom he has reason to believe to be infected, or any contact, for the “purpose of tracking and monitoring”. Such order may include order to wear any form of tracking device provided by the authorised officer and to use any digital application in any digital device as determined by the authorised officer.

Section 21B empowers the authorised officers to carry out investigation under Act 342 in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code [Act 593], while Section 21C empowers the authorised officers to require any person to furnish any information relating to the prevention and control of infectious diseases.

Although the new bill does not explicitly reference the IHR, the powers granted to the Health DG and authorised officers imply that the MOH will effectively act as both the IHR Focal Point and the National IHR Authority, as outlined in Article 4 of the IHR amendments.

Under Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s administration, the government tabled an Act 342 amendment bill in December 2021 – during the Covid pandemic – that raised compounds of offences from the current RM1,000 maximum to RM10,000 for individuals and up to RM500,000 for corporate bodies.

Individuals convicted of offences under Act 342 faced penalties of a maximum RM50,000 fine, up to three years’ jail, or both under Section 24 on the proposed amended general penalties. For corporate bodies, a maximum RM2 million fine upon conviction was proposed.

The bill underwent two revisions before being shelved in March 2022 due to intense public backlash. The punitive approach faced criticism from ordinary citizens, businesses, lawyers, and doctors.

Current Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad, among other lawmakers, opposed the bill, calling the proposed amendments a “cataclysmic failure”.

US: New HIV criminalisation law goes into effect in Tennessee

CHLP denounces new law in Tennessee that further criminalizes people living with HIV

Expansion of aggravated rape offense now includes people living with HIV regardless of whether they are able to transmit, intended to transmit, or actually transmitted HIV

(NEW YORK) – On July 1, 2024, a new law went into effect in Tennessee that further criminalizes people living with HIV. Governor Bill Lee signed HB 2572/SB2043 into law in May, which expands the offense of aggravated rape to include individuals who commit rape knowing that they are living with HIV . Neither the intent to transmit nor transmission is required for a conviction.

“This law is a step backward in our fight against HIV stigma and discrimination. It criminalizes people based on their health status, singling out individuals due to their HIV status,” said CHLP Staff Attorney Jada Hicks.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities, including those living with HIV. In December, after an investigation prompted by a CHLP complaint, the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that Tennessee’s aggravated prostitution offense violates the ADA because it subjects people living with HIV to harsher criminal penalties solely because of their positive HIV status, regardless of any actual risk of harm. The DOJ is now suing the state.

Much like the aggravated prostitution statute, HB 2572 specifically targets individuals who are living with HIV by considering their HIV status as an aggravating factor in sexual offense cases, raising significant concerns regarding its potential violation of the ADA.

“Laws that criminalize a person based on their HIV status perpetuate the cycle of fear and misinformation surrounding HIV,” said CHLP Staff Attorney Sean McCormick. “This law could deter people from getting tested for HIV out of fear that their HIV status will be used to criminalize them.”

Advocates in Tennessee sought to educate legislators on the harm HB2572/SB2043 would cause by criminalizing a person’s HIV status. CHLP collaborated with Memphis-based Sister Reach on an advocacy letter highlighting how the bill would disproportionately impact those living on the margins and how criminalization increases the stigma against people living with HIV who are already experiencing alarming rates of discrimination, homo and transphobia, misogyny and misogynoir, as well as socioeconomic and health disparities.

When the legislation advanced, CHLP worked with the Tennessee HIV Modernization Coalition to push for an amendment to require transmission to have occurred in order for the charge to be elevated to aggravated rape. Despite these efforts, the Senate consented to the House version of the bill, which did not include requiring transmission and the bill passed without it.

US: CHLP and Oklahoma advocates successfully oppose sweeping STI criminalisation Bill

STI Criminalization Bill stopped in Oklahoma

CHLP collaborates with advocates in Oklahoma to oppose a bill that would have criminalized thousands of Oklahomans living with sexually transmitted infections.

The recent adjournment of the legislative session for the 59th Oklahoma Legislature marked the end of House Bill 3098 (HB 3098), which would have dramatically increased the number of health conditions criminalized under Oklahoma law.

The existing statute, Oklahoma Statutes Title 21 Section 1192 (Section 1192), imposes felony punishment, including a two-to-five-year prison sentence, on people living with smallpox, syphilis, or gonorrhea who intentionally or recklessly “spread or cause to be spread to any other persons . . . such infectious disease.” HB3098 would have added Hepatitis B virus, genital herpes, Human Papillomavirus (HPV), and Trichomoniasis to the list of criminalized conditions, potentially opening up more than 85% of the population to criminalization.

CHLP’s Positive Justice Project, including Staff Attorneys Jada Hicks and Sean McCormick and National Community Outreach Coordinator Kytara Epps, worked collaboratively with local and national advocates to oppose the legislation. Local efforts were led by Nicole McAfee, Executive Director of Freedom Oklahoma.

In testimony with the House Judiciary – Criminal Committee, CHLP emphasized that the bill would criminalize nearly all Oklahomans and worsen criminal legal system disparities for Black, Latine, Indigenous, and 2SLGBTQ+ Oklahomans.

CHLP also met with the National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD) to broaden national awareness of the issue. In a state policy notice, NCSD noted the bill would potentially worsen barriers to STI testing and treatment and undermine efforts to expand expedited partner therapy. Oklahoma already has some of the highest diagnosis rates for sexually transmitted infections, including the fourth-highest rate of primary and secondary syphilis and the fifth-highest rate of congenital syphilis.

Hicks and McCormick also provided a virtual briefing to the members of the Oklahoma Senate Minority Caucus, offering talking points and countering the argument made by the bill’s sponsor Rep. Toni Hasenbeck that the legislation would reduce intimate partner violence.

“Laws that criminalize people living with STIs likely worsen the threat of intimate partner violence by providing another tool for abusers to force people to stay in abusive relationships,” observed McCormick. “We continue to hear stories from people living with STIs whose partners threaten to file a police report alleging a violation of an STI criminalization statute. The possibility of criminal prosecution and public disclosure of their status causes many survivors to stay in abusive relationships.”

Hicks addressed misinformation about the statute criminalizing only intentional transmission. “Under Section 1192 people who ‘recklessly [are] responsible’ for transmitting these conditions could face prosecution, but the term ‘recklessness’ is not defined in the statute, which poses significant risks of broad and subjective interpretations,” she explained. “Rather than promoting public health, it instills fear and discourages people from getting tested or disclosing their health status. We believe in education and support, not punishment, as the path to managing communicable diseases effectively.”

In addition to opposing HB 3098, the Oklahoma coalition worked with Rep. Mauree Turner to introduce House Bill 4139, which would have repealed four statutes that criminalize people living with certain medical conditions, including Section 1192. The bill would have also allowed individuals convicted of these offenses to apply for resentencing and records expungement.

“While the repeal legislation was unsuccessful, the defeat of HB 3098 prevented a more hostile environment for people living with or affected by stigmatized conditions,” said Epps. “The collaborative HB 3098 efforts are also a shining example of how local and national advocates come together to disrupt criminalization. We look forward to continuing to work with Oklahoma advocates and fighting against the ongoing criminalization of people living with stigmatized conditions.”

Mexico: Activists push to repeal Morelos outdated HIV Criminalisation law

Activists seek to repeal the crime of “danger of contagion” in Morelos

Translated with Deepl.com – Scroll down for original article in Spanish

Five people with HIV are in prison because of this article in the Morelos Penal Code, according to a civil association; in Mexico City this article has already been repealed.

Article 136 of the Penal Code of the State of Morelos reads: “Anyone who, knowing that he or she suffers from a serious illness during the infectious period, puts another person at risk of contagion, by any means of transmission of the disease, will be sentenced to six months to one year in prison and will be treated for up to one year”, a sanction that, according to the civil association Positivos Morelos, which works in favour of the rights of people with HIV in the state, should no longer exist.

This was stated by Carlos Batalla, founder of the association, who recalled that these sanctions were created during the 1980s, at the peak of HIV infections, thus contributing to a stigma that has been difficult to erase afterwards, in defence of the human rights of people infected by the virus.

What does the law say?

“According to this article, any person who can transmit any disease can be subject to a fine in the judicial system, and in this case it can go as far as imprisonment. It has already been repealed in Mexico City, because it is a very old law, created to mitigate the risk of contagion at the time, but people’s rights are more important,” said the activist.

“If the illness suffered by the agent is incurable, the prison sentence established in the previous paragraph shall be doubled,” the article continues.

According to Batalla, there are at least five people in the state of Morelos who are currently deprived of their liberty because of this article, citizens who were accused of having intentionally transmitted HIV:

“These cases have not been followed up, but we are looking to attend to them and see how we can help them,” he said.

He recalled that two years ago an initiative to repeal article 136 of the Penal Code was presented to the state Congress, but was unsuccessful.

Activistas buscan derogar delito de “peligro de contagio” en Morelos

Cinco personas con VIH están en prisión por la vigencia de este artículo en el Código Penal de Morelos, señala asociación civil; en la Ciudad de México este artículo ya fue derogado.

“A quien sabiendo que padece una enfermedad grave en periodo infectante, ponga en peligro de contagio a otro, mediante cualquier medio de transmisión del mal, se le aplicará de seis meses a un año de prisión y tratamiento en libertad hasta por un año”, se lee en el artículo 136 del Código Penal del Estado de Morelos, una sanción que, de acuerdo con la asociación civil Positivos Morelos, que trabaja en favor de los derechos de las personas con VIH en el estado, ya no debería existir.

Así lo expuso Carlos Batalla, fundador de la asociación, quien recordó que estas sanciones fueron creadas durante la década de 1980, en el auge de los contagios de VIH, contribuyendo así a un estigma que después ha costado trabajo borrar, en defensa de los derechos humanos de las personas contagiadas por el virus.

¿Qué dice la ley?

“De acuerdo con este artículo, cualquier persona que pueda transmitir alguna enfermedad puede ser acreedora a una multa en el tema judicial, y en este caso puede llegar hasta prisión. Ya se derogó en la Ciudad de México, porque es una ley muy antigua, creada para mitigar el riesgo de contagio en aquel entonces, pero son más importantes los derechos de las personas”, dijo el activista.

“Si fuese incurable la enfermedad que padece el agente, se duplicará la sanción privativa de libertad establecida en el párrafo anterior”, continúa el texto del artículo.

De acuerdo con Batalla, en el estado de Morelos hay por lo menos cinco personas que están actualmente privados de su libertad debido a este artículo, ciudadanos que fueron acusados de haber contagiado el VIH de manera intencional:

“A estos casos no se les ha dado seguimiento, pero estamos buscando atenderlos y ver de qué manera los podemos ayudar”, dijo.

Recordó que hace dos años se presentó una iniciativa para derogar el artículo 136 del Código Penal ante el Congreso del estado, la cual no tuvo éxito.

Zimbabwe: Retrogressive bill listing wilful HIV transmission as a criminal offence set to be withdrawn

Government withdraws wilful HIV transmission from Bill

The Bill sought to re-criminalise deliberate HIV/AIDS transmission despite the fact that the Marriages Act had decriminalised wilful HIV/AIDS transmission. Contributing to debate on the Bill in the National Assembly last week, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi, said prosecution under the Criminal Laws Amendment (Protection of Children and Young Persons) Bill should only apply when deliberate transmission of HIV/AIDS is done in aggravating circumstances such as rape and other sexual offences involving young persons

A CLAUSE in the Criminal Laws Amendment (Protection of Children and Young Persons) Bill that lists wilful HIV/AIDS transmission to a partner as a criminal offence, is set to be withdrawn by the Government as the Second Republic seeks to align with international trends.

The Bill, presently before Parliament, listed HIV/AIDS as one of the sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), whose deliberate transmission to a partner is a criminal offence. Others include syphilis, gonorrhoea and herpes.

The Criminal Laws Amendment Bill also sets out to raise the age of sexual consent from 16 to 18.

The Bill sought to re-criminalise deliberate HIV/AIDS transmission despite the fact that the Marriages Act had decriminalised wilful HIV/AIDS transmission. Contributing to debate on the Bill in the National Assembly last week, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi, said prosecution under the Criminal Laws Amendment (Protection of Children and Young Persons) Bill should only apply when deliberate transmission of HIV/AIDS is done in aggravating circumstances such as rape and other sexual offences involving young persons.

Earlier on, some legislators, including those in the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Portfolio Committee chaired by Bikita South MP, Dr Energy Mutodi, had expressed reservations on the reintroduction of the clause that had been taken away by the Marriages Act.

Said Minister Ziyambi: “The way it is couched in the Bill is not correct. The policy direction from the Executive was, where you sleep with a young person and you have been convicted, it becomes an aggravating factor if you have wilfully transmitted an STI to that particular young person.

“The assumption that we are coming from is, young persons are not sexually active and it is not very difficult to prove once you have been convicted. Medical reports are there to prove that the young person contracted HIV and STIs and it should be an aggravating factor on sentencing.

“We are going to change this so that it does not appear like we have generally reintroduced the clause that we repealed the last time when we brought the Marriages Act. It is very difficult to prove and worldwide studies have shown that criminalising does not reduce transmission levels.”

Minister Ziyambi added that there were several discordant couples that can stay for years, “the other one not seroconverting”.

“So, if we say we are criminalising, we are saying, per chance, if you manage to contract, you are a criminal, but that one who has not contracted and nothing has happened, we say ‘they are okay’; there is discrimination, scientifically it does not mean that if people sleep together, automatically they will have HIV,” he said.

Minister Ziyambi said it would be difficult to implement, if the law was to be allowed in the country’s statutes.

“So I want to take it to agree that it is a law that is very difficult to implement, hence the reason why the Executive, the last time when we had the Marriages Act, agreed with the submissions from those within the Ministry of Health and Child Care that we need to repeal it.

“We now have an assumption that we have a case where somebody has been arrested for sleeping with a young person and medical reports are there that there has been an infection. Those reports will indicate whether that particular young person was sexually active or not, and there we are saying it becomes an aggravating factor if you have infected that particular young person with STIs and HIV. Therefore, that particular clause will be amended accordingly and hence we will be bringing those amendments,” he said.

Earlier on, presenting the Portfolio Committee’s report, Dr Mutodi said during their public hearings on the Bill, while some supported the clause, others expressed reservations.

He said some members of the public were against the clause, arguing that during the crafting of the Marriages Act in 2022, Government agreed to the lobbying of people with HIV and other support groups and civil society organisations to decriminalise wilful transmission of HIV.

“It was further submitted that there is no method of establishing the period one may have been infected with HIV and who would have transmitted the virus between the two, when the statuses of both were unknown before sexual intercourse happened,” said Dr Mutodi.

Dzivarasekwa MP, Mr Edwin Mushoriwa, said it was difficult to prove wilful transmission of HIV.

Hwange Central MP, Mr Daniel Molokele, said the removal of the clause had been celebrated last time, and reinstating it would be retrogressive.

“This bad law was repealed because it is not possible socially and legally to prove who, in a particular relationship, was infected first with HIV. Over the years, many countries have repealed this bad law and Zimbabwe was one of the last countries to repeal this law,” he said.

“Women are the ones who have been prosecuted under this law and it has been difficult to prove that they committed a criminal offence because we all know that in this country, women are the ones who have health-seeking behaviour; they are the ones who are willing to do HIV tests.

“Most men in this country are scared to do an HIV test. They are less scared of lions and other wild animals than having an HIV test. I can dare a man in this Parliament to have an HIV test in public and you see the reaction. Most of them will look for the nearest exit door.”