US: New report shows that most of Indiana’s HIV criminal laws have yet to account for decades of advances in HIV science

Indiana has six HIV criminalization laws. Most criminalize conduct that cannot transmit HIV

Indiana has six laws that criminalize people living with HIV (PLWH), spanning both the public health and criminal codes. A new report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law evaluates whether these laws reflect current understandings of HIV science and criminalize conduct that poses negligible or no risk of transmitting HIV.

Results show that most of Indiana’s HIV criminal laws have yet to account for decades of advances in HIV science, and none are currently written with enough specificity to prevent criminalizing behaviors that have little to no risk of transmitting HIV.

In Indiana, HIV criminal laws make potential HIV exposure a crime under specific circumstances, such as sexual activity, blood or semen donation, or battery using bodily fluids, such as spitting. All of the laws were enacted between 1988 and 2002 before effective HIV treatment options were widely available and it was established that treating PLWH could prevent the transmission of HIV.

“Scientifically outdated laws work against public health goals regarding HIV testing, prevention, and treatment,” said lead author Nathan Cisneros, HIV Criminalization Project Director at the Williams Institute. “The criminalization of HIV could undermine Indiana’s efforts to end the HIV epidemic and reach the communities most impacted, including people of color, women, and LGBTQ people.”

Key Findings

None of Indiana’s laws require actual HIV transmission or the intent to transmit HIV. The laws also criminalize conduct that cannot transmit HIV, such as spitting.
Two laws criminalizing the donation of blood, plasma, or semen penalize conduct that does not transmit HIV. All bodily fluid donations are tested for HIV, and positive units are destroyed.
Two laws impose enhanced penalties for PLWH who knowingly expose another person to their bodily fluids or waste in an aggressive or malicious manner—conduct that poses no HIV transmission risk. HIV cannot be transmitted externally through contact with body fluids or waste.
Two laws that criminalize a person’s failure to disclose their HIV status have been partially modernized in recent years to reflect advances in HIV science. They limit criminal conduct to high-risk forms of sexual contact and needle sharing.
- Nevertheless, these laws fail to clarify which sexual activities are considered low or no risk and whether a person who has an undetectable viral load—and therefore cannot transmit HIV through sex—is safe from prosecution.

In recent years, public health and medical experts, including the Indiana State Medical Association, have agreed that to effectively end the HIV epidemic, it is essential to update the state’s HIV criminal laws in line with current scientific understanding of HIV. A key aspect of Indiana’s plan to significantly reduce the number of new transmissions by 2030 involves prioritizing the modernization of these laws.

This report is part of a series by the Williams Institute examining HIV criminalization in Indiana.

Read the current report

US: Advocating for HIV decriminalisation and health equity at Indiana’s first HIV advocacy summit

HIV advocates, organizations talk legislative solutions at first advocacy summit

By Abigail Ruhman

Community health centers and Ryan White HIV AIDS Program centers play an important role in expanding services and care for vulnerable populations, including HIV prevention and wellness. The Damien Center – Indiana’s oldest and largest HIV service organization – hosted its first HIV advocacy summit Wednesday to develop strategies for the upcoming legislative session.

Carrie Foote, a professor of sociology at Indiana University-Indianapolis, has been living with HIV since 1988 and leads HIV Modernization Movement-Indiana. She said Indiana has several laws that lead to the inappropriate arrest or prosecution of people living with HIV — which wastes state resources and has no public health benefit.

“We can end the epidemic,” Foote said. “We can end it, so anything that’s a barrier to doing that — and these laws are — we want to get rid of and improve.”

Foote said these laws lead to stigma around HIV that act as a barrier to testing and care — which gets in the way of preventing new transmissions and optimizing wellness for people living with HIV.

There are six laws that criminalize HIV in Indiana — which include both public health and criminal codes.

Two relate to the donation, sale or transfer of semen for artificial insemination, blood or plasma when someone “knowingly” has HIV. Another two focus on alleged non-disclosure of someone’s HIV status. When the laws were originally written, they said people living with HIV have a “duty to inform” sexual and needle sharing partners of their states prior to “high-risk activity.”

“The disclosure law used to be called ‘Duty to Warn,’” Foote said. “We came with a warning label before we had sex. So first, I need to warn you that I have HIV. That’s the language. How stigmatizing is that?”

Advocates were able to work with lawmakers to revise the language to be less stigmatizing, but the disclosure law still exists in Indiana code.

The last two enhance punishments for battery or malicious mischief by bodily fluid or waste for people living with HIV. For example, Foote said for someone who doesn’t live with HIV, spitting on someone is considered a misdemeanor.

“For anybody living with viral hepatitis or HIV, it gets enhanced to a felony crime solely because of their HIV status, even though those diseases are not transmitted that way,” Foote said.

Foote said legislative reform around the issue focuses on efforts to repeal HIV specific criminal laws and remove enhanced penalties based solely on a person’s HIV status. Advocates also want to modernize or reform laws to reflect the current science of HIV transmission and HIV as a chronic manageable condition, as well as narrow the law to situations that involve the “intent to transmit” or a “substantial risk of transmission.”

Foote is collaborating with the University of California-Los Angeles School of Law’s Williams Institute to analyze the enforcement of HIV criminalization in Indiana. She said not all of the HIV criminalization laws have been used, but many have led to arrests.

“People also are being convicted under these laws, so that right there tells you that change needs to occur because we have these people being prosecuted in ways that are unfair and don’t reflect advances in modern science,” Foote said.

Foote said in addition to creating harmful stigma, HIV criminalization disproportionately affects Black people, sexual minorities and people who inject drugs, which makes health inequities worse.

The Damien Center event also focused on different challenges these community centers face when trying to provide services and how threats to a federal program can make care more complicated.

The 340B drug pricing program was created in partnership with pharmaceutical companies — which agreed to provide “significant” discounts to eligible health care providers in order to participate in the Medicaid program.

Community health centers, also known as federally qualified health centers, are designed to increase access to primary care by reducing barriers such as cost, lack of insurance and distance. Ryan White centers are a part of the federal program designed to increase access to care for HIV.

Colleen Meiman, the national policy advisor for state and regional associations of Community Health Centers, said the program allows these centers to stretch federal resources to reach more patients and provide comprehensive services to vulnerable populations.

“340B is about so much more than pharmaceuticals,” Meiman said. “340B is essential to the financial sustainability of many, many, probably the majority of health centers.”

She also said the 340B program is facing several threats at the federal level, but some states have been able to pass legislation to protect the program.

Damien Center President and CEO Alan Witchery said the event was meant to identify issues that advocates and organizations want to address moving forward.

“There really isn’t an opportunity for nonprofits to come together and think about just doing this kind of advocacy,” Witchery said.

Witchery said he wants there to be a continued conversation around lobbying, advocacy and education efforts for these organizations to promote their causes together as a group around the state.

Australia: Criminalisation fuels healthcare disparities for migrants living with HIV

HIV in Australia: shades of injustice remain

Elimination is the goal, but migrants living with the virus experience a criminalised environment that thwarts access to care.

Health Minister Mark Butler painted a largely rosy picture of the progress towards elimination of HIV in Australia today, speaking on the second morning of the ASHM HIV/AIDS Conference in Sydney.

A legal academic, however, said people with HIV in Australia were still living under a pall of criminalisation, none more so than migrants.

Mr Butler praised the Australian response to the epidemic, especially in NSW, which was most affected in the early days.

“Since HIV was first detected more than 40 years ago in Australia, Australia’s response has been one to be proud of,” he said.

“When you go back to those early years, AIDS was highly feared here as it was around the world. There was huge stigma, misinformation, homophobia and such loss and so much grief for communities.

“But Australia’s response early on was characterised by partnership and collaboration: governments, people living with HIV, communities affected by HIV, non-government organisations, health professionals and academics all came together and worked together.”

He said HIV notifications were declining in Australia, at one of the fastest rates in the world – “but as you have all heard, I’m sure, transmission has also gone up in 2023, reminding us there is always more work to be done”.

“Eliminating transmission of HIV here in Australia is ambitious, but I am absolutely assured it is now achievable,” he said today, citing inner Sydney – once the epicentre of the epidemic – as a place that had effectively achieved elimination.

Mr Butler set up the HIV Taskforce last year with a goal to “virtually” eliminate transmission by 2030. The Ninth National HIV Strategy covers from last year to 2030, continuing the work of the Eighth – whose goal was virtual elimination by 2022.

He said transmission rates had grown “among temporary residents who are here in Australia on work or study visas”.

“So we will provide subsidised access to PrEP to make healthcare more equitable for people who don’t have access to Medicare … We will make sure that at-risk populations can get free HIV self-testing kits through an expansion of the national HIV self-test mailout program [run by the National Association of People with HIV Australia (NAPWHA)] as well as HIV self-testing vending machine programs,” said Mr Butler.

For David Carter, Scientia Associate Professor at the faculty of Law & Justice at UNSW, the necessary changes for people on visas won’t be found in any vending machine but in immigration policy.

Professor Carter, who leads the Health+Law Research Partnership for social justice for people living with HIV or hepatitis B, walked through the history of “unjust and unhelpful” HIV criminalisation in Australia – a public policy environment that includes but is not limited to action by law enforcement and courts. It begins with the creation of a “suspect population”.

He quoted the very first National HIV Strategy in 1987, which warned of the “temptation” of criminalisation measures, including “universal or selective testing, closure of gay venues, criminal penalties for transmission, compulsory notification of HIV infection and restrictions on freedoms of infected people through limitations on employment, quarantine or compulsory detention”, and noted these would jeopardise health measures to prevent transmission.

A working party in 1992 concluded that “even in the face of decisions by individuals that generate harm, it was the wrong decision to restrict the free choice of individuals in modern society, as draconian measures would merely alienate people at risk of infection and deter them presenting for counselling, testing and treatment”.

While pressure to enforce such measures may have been largely resisted, and the situation for Australians has greatly improved, migrants living with HIV are still experiencing an alienating and hostile environment, said Professor Carter.

Characterising them as posing potential harm to Australians “establishes an adversarial relationship between the person living with HIV and the state” and compromises health care by promoting defensive behaviour.

He and his team have interviewed migrants in Australia living with HIV over the past two years, for whom “criminalisation is indeed very active, and it is producing serious, negative health and other impacts of individuals or communities and respects”.

He quoted one interviewee, “Sergio”, who told the team: “I don’t have to face any court, but I did have to prove that I wasn’t a bad person just because I have HIV.”

Others spoke of experience going through the migration process as being “subject to an unending interrogation”.

“Laurence” told his interviewer: “It’s like a tattoo on your mind. The government will treat you different for every single step of your life from here on out.”

“Manish”, who was on a temporary visa, avoided getting tested for 10 months after beginning to suspect he had HIV, for fear of having his visa revoked. His health deteriorated during this time.

“The elevated threat levels produced by the interaction of migration law and public health law … significantly harmed Manish’s health, caused psychological distress and steered him towards coping responses that denied him the testing and treatment, access to medical care and other supports that he deserves and that we all collectively affirm are essential and are his right,” said Professor Carter.

“Manish said to us: ‘I feel like if I had reassurance that nothing’s going to happen to me if I tested positive for this, I would not have been afraid to go and get a test for HIV’.”

Others described feelings of “hopelessness and depression, because there is no hope for us to stay permanently while living with HIV” (in fact there are pathways for permanent migration despite living with HIV). These people would go for weeks without medication in a form of self-sabotage “because they just don’t have hope for their future anymore”.

For these and other people like them, the Australian environment “is just a set of undifferentiated threats to autonomy, wellbeing and safety, to which they are forced to respond with adaptation, distancing and adopting a posture of self-defence”.

Professor Carter concluded that “it may be different today [from the 90s], but it is not over, and it won’t be over here or elsewhere until the stigma of HIV, unconventional sexuality and drug use are gone”.

The HIV/AIDS Conference is running in Sydney this week back-to-back with the 25^th IUSTI World Congress.

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: 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

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.