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.

Civil society statement on the proposed re-criminalisation of HIV in Zimbabwe

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In 2022, the Government of Zimbabwe was celebrated nationally and internationally for repealing the country’s HIV-specific criminal law, Section 79 of the Criminal Code.

When announcing the repeal in Parliament, Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs noted: “…the global thinking now is that that law stigmatises people living with HIV and studies have shown that it does not produce the intended results. What the ministry is going to do is to repeal that section of the law and ensure that we keep up to speed with modern trends in the world.”

HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE is shocked, saddened and extremely disappointed that only two years later, the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is now proposing to re-criminalise HIV by adding HIV to the list of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) currently criminalised in Section 78 of the Criminal Code.

That they are proposing to do so as part of the Criminal Laws Amendment (Protection of Children and Young Persons) Bill is both cynical and unwarranted. Amendments to the Criminal Code are meant to codify the Supreme Court decision on the age of consent to sex. Amending Section 78 of the Criminal Code to re-criminalise HIV is out-of-step with the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS agreed on by UN Member States, including Zimbabwe. Of note, Section 80 of the Criminal Code already provides for aggravated sentencing in cases of exposure to HIV during “sexual intercourse or performing an indecent act with a young person.”

Section 78, like the repealed Section 79, criminalises anyone who “does anything or causes or permits anything to be done with the intention or realising that there is a real risk or possibility of infecting any other person with” syphilis, gonorrhoea, herpes and “all other forms of sexually transmitted diseases”. It is overly broad and extremely vague. 

Adding HIV to this already problematic provision would be a retrograde and harmful step backwards for the following reasons:

  1. Criminalisation does not prevent HIV or STI transmission. Communicable diseases – including those that are sexually transmitted – are public health issues, not criminal issues and criminalisation is not an evidence-based response to public health issues. As UNAIDS noted in its 2022 press release congratulating Zimbabwe for repealing the HIV criminalisation law: “The criminalisation of HIV transmission is ineffective, discriminatory and undermines efforts to reduce new HIV infections. Such laws actively discourage people from getting tested for HIV and from being referred to the appropriate treatment and prevention services.”
  2. The criminalisation of HIV and other STIs can violate human rights. Such laws and prosecutions threaten the rights of people living with HIV, and other STIs, to equality, freedom from discrimination, privacy, human dignity, health, liberty, and the right to a fair trial, amongst others. Based on the HIV Justice Network’s monitoring of how people living with HIV were prosecuted previously under Section 79, we believe that the criminal justice system is not well equipped to understand the science of exposure and transmission of HIV or other STIs and would therefore be unable to uphold principles of legal and judicial fairness, including the key criminal law principles of legality, foreseeability, intent, causality, proportionality and proof. Overly broad criminalisation of HIV and STIs means people with HIV or STIs risk being prosecuted and sent to prison instead of receiving care for their medical condition.
  3. The criminalisation of HIV and other STIs can increase stigma and harm public health. This is particularly so because prosecutions are often accompanied by highly stigmatising and inaccurate media reporting. By increasing stigma and driving people away from testing and healthcare services, criminalisation may therefore also prevent or delay people from accessing testing and treatment. Effective HIV and/or STI treatment not only allows people living with HIV or other STIs to lead longer, healthier lives, but also prevents HIV and STI transmission. 
  4. Criminalisation harms women. In Zimbabwe, as in many African countries, HIV criminal laws have been disproportionately applied against women living with HIV. Women are usually the first to know of their HIV status, often due to accessing testing during antenatal care. Being the first to test positive, women may be vulnerable to being falsely blamed for bringing HIV into the relationship. Women living with HIV are also vulnerable to violence and abuse in intimate relationships and the threat of prosecution only increases that vulnerability.

Rather than adding HIV to Section 78, this provision should be repealed. This would contribute to enhancing Zimbabwe’s HIV and STI response in line with a human rights-affirming approach to health that is mandated by the Constitution and recommended by public health and human rights experts internationally and regionally.

The Health Law and Policy Consortium agrees with the HJWW coalition:

Reintroducing the punitive criminalisation of  HIV transmission is counterproductive as it undermines national health objectives and the global target of ending HIV and AIDS by 2030. It will be tantamount to reenacting state endorsed stigma that will inevitably flow from the criminalisation. This amendment not only jeopardises the progress made through the successful repeal of Section 79 of the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act, it threatens current efforts underway to prevent the spread of HIV as it reintroduces a driver for new infections of HIV. The proposed amendment creates a formidable legal barrier that will severely undermine full access to essential healthcare services. It will deter individuals from seeking regular HIV testing, adhering to HIV treatment and medication, and disclosing their HIV status to enable their sexual partners to take preventive measures such as PrEP.

Sonke Gender Justice also agrees with the above and adds the following:

It is Sonke’s considered view that the reintroduction of the impugned provisions providing for the criminalisation of HIV in Zimbabwe will harm rights of women. The amendment of Section 78 of the Criminal Code on sexually transmitted diseases to include HIV will bring back the narrative of unjust arrests and prosecutions. Under this new provision, women tested as HIV-positive will face prosecution and eventual violence. Criminalisation of HIV reinforces gender barriers to accessing treatment, care and support for women who test HIV-positive, driving them underground, unable to disclose their status to the detriment of family health resulting in infant HIV acquisition, ART non-adherence for both the mother and infant. Criminalisation of HIV impairs public health goals that seek to promote health rights of women leading to poor health outcomes and HIV related health disparities.

HJWW, HLPC and Sonke conclude that re-criminalising HIV, as well the existing criminalisation of STIs, is a threat to Zimbabwe’s HIV and SRHR response and to the rights, security and dignity of people living with HIV, particularly women living with HIV.

Section 78 is vague and overly broad and risks being applied in a way that is unjust and discriminatory. It will not prevent HIV or STI transmission, instead perpetuating stigma and misinformation, risking driving people away from HIV and STI testing and treatment and filling prisons.

 


About the authors of this statement

HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE is a coalition of 16 global and regional civil society networks and human rights defenders working to end HIV criminalisation.

Health Law and Policy Consortium (HLPC) is a health policy advocacy organisation leveraging a network of experts across various disciplines. HLPC aims to facilitate rights-based policy formulation, implementation, and monitoring within Zimbabwe’s public health system.

Sonke Gender Justice is a South African-based non-profit organisation working throughout Africa. Sonke believes women and men, girls and boys can work together to resist patriarchy, advocate for gender justice and achieve gender transformation.

Download this statement as a pdf

Navigating injustice: the struggle for fair treatment of HIV non-disclosure in Canada

Resetting the code on HIV and crime

AIDS is not the death sentence it once was, but Canada still has strict punishments for people who don’t disclose their HIV status to sexual partners. Critics say that’s unfair and out of step with the rest of the world. What could be done differently?

Before Michelle was diagnosed with HIV, her life was marred in ways unfathomable to most.

In the home where she grew up, drugs were dealt and intoxicated men came and went. As a young child, Michelle was sexually abused by a family member.

In the years that followed, she used alcohol, cocaine and heroin to cope. She believes she was infected with HIV in 2000 through a contaminated needle.

Struggling with addiction, Michelle turned to sex work in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In 2006, a man accused Michelle of having unprotected sex with him without disclosing her HIV-positive status. Michelle alleges she was in an abusive, coercive relationship with the man, a former client, and that he sexually assaulted her without a condom. (The Globe and Mail does not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Michelle consented to use her first name.)

After the man brought his story to police, Michelle was charged with aggravated sexual assault. In cases involving alleged “HIV non-disclosure,” it is the charge most often laid in Canada, and the most serious sexual offence in the Criminal Code. Fearing a lengthy prison term, Michelle pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 2½ years. Only after pleading did she learn that her name had been put on the National Sex Offender Registry, something no one discussed with her in court, she said.

“I have a life sentence tied to my name,” said Michelle, now 45. “I have a label but I’m not that person. The whole label of a sex offender – I was raped at the age of 5. I know what sexual abuse is. I’m a victim of sexual abuse.”

An estimated 62,790 people were living with HIV in Canada in late 2020. Michelle is one of hundreds who’ve been prosecuted for alleged HIV non-disclosure.

Between 1989 and 2020, approximately 206 people were prosecuted in 224 criminal cases, according to a 2022 report from the HIV Legal Network. Of 187 cases where the outcome is known, 130 cases – 70 per cent – ended in conviction, the vast majority with prison time. A significant number of those convicted prior to 2023 were also registered as sex offenders, before courts ended the practice of making this mandatory for all sex offences.

In Canada, the law focuses not on actual transmission of the virus, but on “non-disclosure” – the act of not telling a sexual partner that one is HIV-positive prior to sex that poses a “realistic possibility” of transmission. This means that people who did not pass HIV to anyone have been charged, convicted and imprisoned. Of 163 cases where complainants’ HIV status was known, 64 per cent didn’t involve actual transmission of HIV. Courts have convicted HIV-positive people who took precautions before sex, as well as those who were sexually assaulted.

It is a sweeping, punitive approach that sets Canada apart from many other jurisdictions internationally.

Now, a push to limit HIV criminalization is intensifying. For years, critics have argued the laws are discriminatory and unscientific – driven by fear, misconceptions about people living with HIV and a lack of knowledge about the basic scientific realities of this virus. Thanks to significant medical advances, HIV can be managed effectively with antiretroviral medication that makes the virus undetectable and untransmittable to others.

The Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization – a group that includes people living with HIV, community organizations, lawyers and researchers – is pushing for amendments to the Criminal Code that would limit criminal prosecution to a measure of last resort, reserved for rare cases of intentional transmission. Among other changes, the group also wants to see an end to charging these cases under sexual assault law.

“People have been prosecuted, many of whom are still living with the consequences of that prosecution, including in cases where there never should have been a charge in the first place,” said Richard Elliott, a Halifax lawyer and former executive director of the HIV Legal Network.

While the federal government has published reports, engaged in public consultations and issued some directives on limiting HIV prosecution, some advocates fear the push for broader legal reform is stalling: to date, there remains no legislation to amend this country’s HIV non-disclosure law. In the absence of legal reform, Canadians living with HIV face a lingering threat of criminal liability as they navigate their intimate lives.

Alison Symington heard about the life-altering impact of this from HIV-positive women for two documentaries she co-produced on HIV criminalization. For many of these women, the legal perils were too high to chance relationships with partners who might later turn out to be misinformed or vindictive and take them to court.

“It’s sad,” said Ms. Symington, a senior policy analyst at the HIV Justice Network. “People used to be fearful that they might pass the virus on. But now that they know they won’t pass the virus on – and that they could have a happy, healthy relationship – there’s still this outdated criminal law hanging over their heads.”

At the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the early nineties in Canada, thousands were dying of AIDS-related illnesses, many not long after a diagnosis. In 1995 alone, more than 1,700 people died, according to Statistics Canada. It was a period that would usher in some of Canada’s earliest prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure.

With the virus shrouded in panic, misinformation and stigma, some grew fearful of disclosing. But as HIV prevention campaigns took hold and AIDS activism movements began educating people on safer sex, those failing to use condoms became a minority.

The advent of effective antiretroviral treatments in 1996 transformed the landscape, with deaths dropping dramatically a year later. The drugs suppress an HIV-positive person’s viral load, making the virus undetectable and untransmittable to others. By 2020, 87 per cent of those diagnosed with HIV in Canada were on treatment, with 95 per cent of them achieving viral suppression, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Though the science progressed, both the law and public understanding of HIV failed to advance alongside.

Advocates argue the overreach in Canada’s HIV law stems partly from a 2012 Supreme Court of Canada decision, R. v. Mabior. The court ruled that HIV-positive people have a legal duty to disclose their status before having sex that poses a “realistic possibility” of HIV transmission – and decided that only a combination of condom use and a low viral load at the time of sex negate that possibility.

Critics say this legal stance diverges from well-established guidance from the World Health Organization and the Public Health Agency of Canada that a suppressed viral load or correct condom usage are each, on their own, highly effective methods of preventing transmission.

There is serious disconnect between science, public health and the law in Canada, said André Capretti, a Montreal policy analyst at the HIV Legal Network.

“Scientists have been saying undetectable equals untransmittable for many years now,” Mr. Capretti said. “But it takes a lot of time for that to permeate into the public consciousness, including at the prosecutorial level, police level and individual level. If a complainant isn’t aware that there wasn’t a risk in having sex with a partner who was undetectable, they’re still going to go to the police and want to press charges.”

Since being enacted, the laws have been used to prosecute HIV-positive people who used condoms properly and didn’t infect anyone, who engaged in oral sex – where the risk of spreading HIV is exceedingly low – and who unwittingly transmitted while being sexually assaulted. The net has caught people who are vulnerable, or who applied due diligence to not infecting others, and treated them the same as a smaller minority who transmitted recklessly.

While some court rulings are beginning to reflect the modern science on HIV transmission, other decisions have not kept up.

In 2009, an HIV-positive man in Hamilton was charged with aggravated sexual assault after his ex-partner alleged they had oral sex without the man disclosing his status. The ex-partner did not test positive; the charge was stayed in 2010.

Four years later, a Barrie, Ont., a woman was convicted of aggravated sexual assault, sentenced to more than three years in prison and registered as a sex offender for not disclosing her HIV-positive status before having vaginal sex without a condom. The woman was on antiretroviral medication, her viral load undetectable and untransmittable; her partner did not test positive. Nine years passed before her conviction was overturned, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that given the woman’s effective medical treatment, she was not legally obliged to disclose her status.

In 2020, the Ontario Appeals Court upheld three convictions of aggravated sexual assault for an Ontario man accused of having vaginal sex with three women without disclosing his status. There was no finding that the man infected any of the women; he wore condoms during each incident but didn’t have a low viral load during a number of those acts. The man was sentenced to 3½ years in prison.

For HIV-positive people, the prosecutions can be catastrophic.

Alexander McClelland, an assistant professor at the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University, spent time with people prosecuted for his forthcoming book, Criminalized Lives: HIV and Legal Violence.

The stories are disturbing: One man recalled being interrogated and beaten by police; another woman spoke of being locked in solitary confinement, naked. Others were vilified as HIV-positive “rapists” by prison guards, then brutalized by inmates. Some were denied HIV medication while incarcerated, growing seriously ill.

“The criminalization haunts every aspect of their lives,” said Prof. McClelland, chair of the coalition’s steering committee.

With their names broadcast through news stories and public safety warnings issued by police, many become alienated from family and friends. Others encounter employers unwilling to hire them and landlords refusing to rent to them, Prof. McClelland found.

“It isolates them in their community, where they face daily forms of harassment and violence,” he said. “These conditions ruin people’s lives.”

While prosecutions target Canadians of all genders and sexual orientations, 89 per cent of those charged were men, 63 per cent in relation to encounters they had with women. Black and Indigenous people have been disproportionately charged, convicted and incarcerated compared with white defendants. Numerous newcomers have also been deported following prosecution.

A significant proportion of those charged are heterosexual men from African, Caribbean and Black communities, according to Toronto’s Colin Johnson, who consults with Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention and the Prisoners with HIV/AIDS Support Action Network.

Some are newcomers or migrants who find themselves advised by duty counsel to plead guilty for the sake of a lesser sentence, not grasping the full scope of consequences – including the sex offender label that can follow them for the rest of their lives.

“Because in African, Caribbean and Black communities, homophobia, transphobia and HIV phobia are rampant, a lot of these people get ostracized by the very communities they would normally go to for help,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that the same stigmas keep people from getting tested and seeking treatment.

With little hope of reintegrating into society, many of these men follow a pattern from unemployment and halfway homes to isolation and depression, he said: “It’s not a pretty picture.”

Globally, Canada remains an outlier in criminalizing HIV non-disclosure. Most other countries focus instead on prosecuting people who knowingly, intentionally transmit the virus.

To lay a charge in California, for instance, prosecutors need to prove a person had specific intent to transmit HIV, and then actually transmitted the virus. In England and Wales, there is no legal obligation to disclose one’s HIV-positive status to a partner, although “reckless transmission” is illegal.

“In the case of a person who has no intent to transmit, it goes back to this notion of moral blameworthiness,” said Mr. Capretti, a human-rights lawyer. “Is this the kind of person we think is worthy of condemnation and punishment because they have this diagnosis – because they have an illness?”

Canada further deviates from other jurisdictions by charging these cases as sexual assaults.

A 1998 Supreme Court of Canada decision, R. v. Cuerrier, ruled that failing to disclose an HIV-positive status can amount to a fraud that invalidates consent – the idea being that a person can’t give consent if that consent isn’t informed. In this way, Canadian courts decided that the act of not telling is a deception on par with the violence and coercion that more often marks sexual assault.

By contrast, other countries apply general criminal law – including laws related to bodily harm – or have HIV-specific laws, according to the HIV Justice Network.

Canada has seen some movement in how these cases are handled. After former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould raised concerns about the overcriminalization of HIV non-disclosure, the Justice Department published a 2017 report that examined curbing such prosecutions.

Following that, in 2018, Ms. Wilson-Raybould directed federal prosecutors working in three territories to limit HIV criminalization. The directive stated officials should not prosecute HIV-positive people when they maintain a suppressed viral load because there is no realistic possibility of transmission, and that they should “generally” not prosecute when people use condoms or engage in oral sex only, because there is likely no risk of transmission. The directive also asked prosecutors to consider whether criminal charges are in the public interest.

Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia have also issued instructions not to prosecute HIV-positive people who maintained a suppressed viral load at the time of sex, though there remains no clarity on condom use.

Beyond this patchwork of directives, advocates are pushing for greater uniformity in courtrooms across Canada. They argue that the Criminal Code must be reformed – and that only this avenue will prevent courts from relying on a tangle of inconsistent and unscientific past rulings.

In 2022, the government engaged in online consultations with experts, people living with HIV and others on reviewing the law.

In March, Justice Minister Arif Virani told The Globe and Mail editorial board that his office was working on a policy response.

“What we’re trying to do is ensure that current, modern science is reflected in terms of the way the Criminal Code is applied in cases of transmission of HIV/AIDS,” Mr. Virani said, though he would not provide a timeline for legal reform.

On May 15, Mr. Virani met with the coalition to discuss law reform efforts, saying the policy work was still continuing.

Paradoxically, the blunt instrument of the law makes HIV disclosure more fraught, critics say.

“You’re starting a relationship with a new partner – you might like to know if they’re living with HIV or any other sexually transmitted diseases. But that doesn’t mean an aggravated sexual assault charge is the appropriate response,” Ms. Symington said.

In her documentaries on HIV criminalization, Ms. Symington illuminated the challenges involved in disclosing a positive status. She’s seen numerous women charged after abusive ex-partners who knew the women had HIV reported them to police for non-disclosure.

“People can make those allegations whether they’re true or not,” Ms. Symington said. “People live in fear that any relationship that goes wrong, this could be a tool of revenge by a bitter ex-partner.”

Some abusive partners exploit the law while in relationships with HIV-positive people: “Sexual partners threaten to go to the police and claim that disclosure did not take place, as a way to control the relationship,” said Eric Mykhalovskiy, a York University professor who led early research on the public-health implications of HIV non-disclosure in Ontario.

Since judges and juries tasked with deciding whether disclosure occurred have little to work with beyond complainants’ and defendants’ competing accounts, Prof. Mykhalovskiy described HIV-positive people going to great lengths to document that a disclosure had taken place, getting their partners to sign documents, disclosing with a witness present, or alongside counsellors at HIV organizations.

Inserting criminal law into nuanced discussions about negotiating consent and HIV disclosure has undermined public-health efforts, experts say: It can deter some people from getting tested or seeking out treatment, fearful that information shared with social workers, nurses and doctors could be used against them.

“We’ve seen this in so many cases of criminalization where those medical notes end up as part of the evidence used to criminally convict a person,” Mr. Capretti said.

“There is no evidence that this assists public health,” he added. “Criminal law and public-health policy are not natural partners.”

Years of criminalization has left some living with HIV fearful and frequently second guessing their intimate relationships.

It’s a calculus Toronto’s Mr. Johnson navigated in his personal life, after being diagnosed with HIV in 1984.

“I remember for years, I did not have sex with anybody unless they were HIV positive,” he said.

While he came to accept these limitations, he watched others who were just coming out struggle. News of HIV-positive people being charged in the late 80s and early 90s heightened fear, he said: “It had a negative impact on our psyche in so many ways.”

Mr. Johnson said it took him close to 20 years to accept that he would not die of AIDS-related illness. The arrival of effective antiretroviral treatments greatly improved quality of life for HIV-positive people. On the prevention front, the advent of PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) significantly decreased the risk of infection among the HIV-negative.

Mr. Johnson continues antiretroviral treatment, as he has for decades. The people he dates are typically on PrEP; everyone in his circles is well aware of the modern medical realities of the virus. On his positive status, he’s transparent: “I’m very open and upfront.”

It’s a contemporary experience of living with HIV that stands in stark contrast to the public’s understanding of the virus, which remains limited.

“The average person doesn’t know about undetectable equals untransmissable, and unfortunately, with sex education these days, people aren’t going to know about that,” Ms. Symington said. “People still have Philadelphia, they still have Rock Hudson in their heads. These are the images. It causes a panic.”

These erroneous, outdated ideas should be purged from Canadian law, she said.

“This is a relic from the past. We need to stop the injustice in HIV non-disclosure and start thinking about how to educate people on healthy relationships and healthy sexual lives.”

Health and the law in Canada: More reading

B.C.’s experiment in decriminalized drug use hit a big setback last month after complaints about consumption in public. Reporter Justine Hunter spoke with The Decibel about what that means for harm-reduction policies across Canada. Subscribe for more episodes.

 

Uganda: Constitutional court dismisses argument that STI law contravenes provisions of the Constitution

Court dismisses petition challenging venereal disease law

The Constitutional Court has dismissed a petition in which health rights activists were challenging the legality of the Venereal Diseases Act, reasoning that the law has since been repealed. The Venereal Diseases Act was enacted in 1977 and provided for the examination and treatment of persons infected with venereal diseases and for other matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

Venereal diseases are those typically contracted by sexual intercourse with a person already infected, such as chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea, HIV, HPV, and syphilis, among others. In a unanimous judgment, a five-member panel of justices held that it is futile to engage in a discourse regarding the constitutionality of the provisions of the Venereal Diseases Act after the repeal of the Act hence there is no live controversy before the court.

“In essence, while at the time the petition was filed it raised a question for the interpretation of the Constitution, by the time we heard the matter and delivered the judgment, the Act had been repealed. This means that the matters in controversy are moot,” held the judges who included Fredrick Egonda -Ntende, Catherine Bamugemereire, Irene Mulyagonja, Monica Mugenyi, and Christopher Gashirabake.

The court explained that having had a careful look at the Public Health Act of Uganda, it was found that at the time the petition was filed, the Venereal Disease Act was still good law but on March 24, 2023, the amendment to the Public Health Act 2O23 came into force and the disputed law was repealed.

Health rights body, Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) had sued the Attorney General (AG) challenging the provisions of the Venereal Disease Act Cap 284 for contravening provisions of the 1995 Constitution.

Through its lawyers, CEHURD had argued that the Uganda Law Reform Commission was duty-bound and therefore, ought to have studied, reviewed, and made recommendations for the systematic improvement, modernization, and reform of the Venereal Diseases Act as mandated under section 10 of the Uganda Law Reform Commission Act Cap 26.

It was further argued that as a result of the actions and, or inaction on the part of the ULRC, the law was inconsistent with and in contravention of Article 248 of the Constitution.

The petitioner had argued that Section 2 of the Venereal Diseases Act is inconsistent with and in contravention of Articles 8A (1), 21(1) (a), 45 and Objectives XIV (b) and XX of the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution.

They had also alleged that sections 3(1), (2), (3) and (4) of the Venereal Diseases Act are inconsistent with and in contravention of Articles 8A (1), 21(2), 24, 27(1), 27(2), 28(1), 42, 43(a), 44(c), 45 and objectives XIV (b) and XX of the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution.

Court documents show that section 5 of the Act is inconsistent with and in contravention of Articles 8A(1), 21(2), 23(1), (2), 24, 27(2), 43(2)(C), 44(a), 45 and Objectives XIV (b) and XX of the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy of the Constitution.
But the AG had argued that section 2 of the Venereal Diseases Act which provides for the examination of persons infected or suspected to be infected with venereal diseases is consistent with Article 8A of the Constitution which provides that Uganda shall be governed based on principles of national interest and common good enshrined in the National Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy.

US: Republican lawmaker introduces two bills in Ohio to change HIV Criminalisation laws

Advocates for Ohioans living with HIV find hope in two bills from a Republican sponsor

The Statehouse News Bureau | By Karen Kasler

A Republican state lawmaker has introduced a pair of bills to change the laws related to HIV and AIDS. They would repeal existing state laws that criminalize not disclosing one’s HIV status, including the law that makes it a crime for a person with HIV to donate blood.

Advocates say Ohio has HIV status disclosure and exposure laws that don’t relate to how the virus is transmitted, so they unfairly target HIV-positive people but don’t increase testing or safe sex. An HIV-positive person who doesn’t disclose their status before sexual conduct can face a felonious assault charge, a second-degree felony. State law also says an HIV-positive person who exposes a corrections or law enforcement officer to bodily fluids such as spit can be charged with a third-degree felony, though saliva is not a known transmitter of the virus.

House Bill 513 would repeal criminal statutes related to disclosure of HIV status. House Bill 498 would decriminalize donating blood by people with HIV, though they would still be ineligible to do so. (Donated blood is always screened for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, along with other viruses and bacteria.)

Some treatments are making HIV undetectable and untransmittable. But people living with HIV say existing laws make them feel compelled to preemptively disclose their status.

“When you tell someone you have just tested positive for HIV and the conversation ends there and that person begins planning a funeral because of beliefs that have been passed on from the ’80s,” said Francesca Schumann of Columbus, who has been living with HIV for 25 years. “We need to show you can have a productive life with without interfering…because these laws prevent people from having healthy, quality, stable, loving relationships.”

Randle Moore of Dayton is a member of the Ohio Health Modernization Movement, which is advocating to change HIV-related laws.

“As a person living with HIV for the past 17 years, I have experienced many different stigmas as it relates to the Ohio law and the current laws that are in place, which has helped aid in my sometimes not wanting to share my status with individuals for fear of the repercussions that currently are on the books,” said Moore.

Rep. Sara Carruthers (R-Hamilton), who leaves office in December after losing her primary, is the sole sponsor of both bills. Thirteen states have changed their HIV laws, including Michigan, Iowa, Georgia and Virginia.

China: People living with HIV in Chongqing to be held criminally liable in cases of alleged HIV transmission

Southwest China’s Chongqing steps up efforts to crackdown on intentional spreading of HIV/AIDS

Southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality will accelerate the revision of the city’s regulations on the prevention and control of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS in addressing incidents of intentional spreading of the disease occurring from times in recent years, which has made the situation of the disease prevention and control grim.

Chongqing Municipal Health Commission recently replied to a proposal put forward by a local people’s congress deputy on the prevention and control of intentional spreading of HIV/AIDS.

According to the commission, the revised regulations put forward new requirements for HIV/AIDS prevention and control.

Statistics from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention show that China has 1.22 million people living with HIV/AIDS as of the end of 2022, reporting 418,000 deaths linked to the disease, with infection and mortality rates both at relatively low levels on the globe.

In China, AIDS transmission through blood transfusions has been basically blocked, and transmission through intravenous drug use and mother-to-child transmission have been effectively curbed, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).

The NHC has made arrangements for combating transmission through sexual contact, the main mode of transmission currently in China, vowing to step up cracking down on violations and crimes related to HIV/AIDS transmission, among other prevention and treatment measures.

Meanwhile, sporadic cases of intentional spreading of HIV/AIDS have been reported from across the country from time to time in recent years. In 2022, a court in Changsha, Central China’s Hunan Province announced a ruling on a case in which a woman surnamed Yin engaged in prostitution without taking any protective measures for all that she had known herself infected with HIV/AIDS. Her behavior was identified as spreading sexually transmitted diseases, and she was sentenced to one year and four months in prison and was fined 5,000 yuan ($690).

The Chongqing Municipal Government convened in December 2023 a meeting with multiple departments, proposing to expedite the revision of the “Chongqing Municipality Regulations on the Prevention and Control of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS.”

The local legislature has listed the revision of the regulation in its health legislation plan during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25).

The municipal health commission has conducted in-depth analyses of the HIV/AIDS prevention and control in Chongqing through questionnaire surveys and expert discussions. They formulated targeted recommendations from five aspects ranging from legislative framework, government department responsibilities, publicity and education, patient rights and obligations to the prevention and control system, compiling the background materials for the revision of the regulation.

Besides, the commission studied and drew lessons from the local regulations on HIV/AIDS prevention and control issued by other provinces including Yunnan, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. They also combined the exchanges between Sichuan and Chongqing on HIV/AIDS prevention and control work, and reviewed cases of combating intentional transmission of HIV/AIDS by infected individuals in cities such as Chengdu and Guang’an in Sichuan.

Next step, the municipal health commission will collaborate with relevant departments to conduct research and strengthen the demonstration during the legislation, expecting to enhance the standardization and legal management level of HIV/AIDS prevention and control.

The commission revealed that since efforts of HIV/AIDS testing for individuals involved in prostitution and drug-related activities vary across districts and counties, they will collaborate with the public security departments, strengthen HIV/AIDS testing for such personnel, and crack down on those suspected of intentionally spreading HIV/AIDS in accordance with the laws.

A campaign on prevention and control of HIV/AIDS launched in Chongqing between 2023 and 2025 has made it clear that the public security, judicial, and health departments should strengthen cooperation in the HIV/AIDS testing on all the individuals involved in prostitution and drug-related activities captured by the public security department at designated medical institutions. In 2023, a total of 4,341 suspects were tested, an increase of 37.2 percent on that of the 2022.

Chongqing has strengthened the HIV/AIDS testing at local medical institutions, with 12.75 million people tested in 2023 in accordance with provider-initiated HIV testing and counseling, a year-on-year increase of 93.6 percent from that of 2022. The city’s HIV/AIDS testing coverage rate for the entire local population was 39.7 percent, far exceeding its annual target.

Taking initiative to provide HIV/AIDS testing services by medical institutions at all levels is the main channel for identifying HIV/AIDS-infected individuals in the city, according to the municipal health commission.

In Chongqing, patients of or individuals infected with sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS patients who engage in prostitution, solicitation of prostitutes, or drug taking activities, leading to the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases or HIV/AIDS, shall be investigated and dealt with by public security organs in accordance with the law. They will be held accountable for criminal responsibility if their behaviors constitute crimes.

US: Oklahoma looking at additional criminalisation of sexually transmitted infections

Oklahoma lawmakers want to criminalize spread of genital herpes, chlamydia, HPV and other STDs

Critics say bill will deter people from getting the necessary testing and treatment, which will increase the spread of sexually transmitted infections.

Oklahoma lawmakers are seeking to criminalize the spread of several more sexually transmitted diseases, a move critics say could turn nearly every resident into a felon.

House Bill 3098 adds chlamydia, Hepatitis B, genital herpes, trichomoniasis, and human papillomavirus (HPV) infections to the list of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that are illegal to knowingly or recklessly spread.

Anyone who does so would be guilty of a felony and could face between two and five years in prison. Previously only smallpox, syphilis and gonorrhea were on the list.

Rep. Toni Hasenbeck, R-Elgin, the bill’s House author, said she’s been studying domestic abuse. She said she heard from women who said men had knowingly infected them with several of the diseases.

Some of the STDs cause infertility, liver damage and miscarriage, Hasenbeck said.

“This particular piece of legislation is about putting a man in jail who chooses to knowingly and willfully infect a woman with a sexually transmitted disease,” Hasenbeck said.

She said the measure is not designed to impede any health or outreach efforts designed to stem the spread of STIs. Health experts said Oklahoma ranks No. 11 for rates of chlamydia and in the top five for gonorrhea and syphilis transmission.

“I’m not judge, jury and executioner,” Hasenbeck said recently as Democratic lawmakers peppered her with questions about the proposed criminalization expansion. “I’m a lawmaker, and we had a hole in our statute that I am trying to repair to protect Oklahomans.”

She said her measure could encourage people to get testing and treatment, or to practice abstinence if they’re “that worried about going to jail.”

But Jeff Burdge fears the bill would do the opposite.

The bill will deter people from getting the necessary testing and treatment, which is going to increase the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) because of fears that positive tests could open someone up to prosecution, said Burdge, a spokesman for H.O.P.E. Testing, a Tulsa-based nonprofit that provides education and low-cost testing for infectious sexual diseases.

He said 87% of Oklahomans will contract HPV in their lifetime, he said. No test exists to diagnose it in men, he said.

“That’s a bill that would potentially turn nearly every Oklahoman into a felon,” he said.

He said the bill doesn’t define “reckless,” opening the door to unnecessary prosecutions.

“Many Oklahomans aren’t even aware of what STIs are or how to best prevent them and what resources are available out there,” he said. “It’s not a good bill. Not well written. It’s not going to be good for the state.”

But he said the measure is part of a broader national trend attacking sexual health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 34 states had criminalized HIV or STD exposure in 2023. Laws targeting HIV transmission are often outdated and increase stigma and may discourage testing, the agency reported.

Rep. Mauree Turner, D-Oklahoma City, questioned why lawmakers are looking at additional criminalization instead of increasing access to health care or funding science-based research.

“You think the solution to that is criminalization, is putting people in prison, not making sure that we destigmatize health care so folks get access to it,” Turner said.

The measure cleared the House and is awaiting a vote by the full Senate.


Criminalizing people did not work to stop HIV transmission, and it will not decrease STIs.

Opinion piece from Taryn Norman and Nathan Cisneros – The Oklahoman – 21 April 2024

In 2022, over 30,000 Oklahomans — young and old, in cities and rural communities — received a sexually transmitted infection (STI) diagnosis. Most STIs are common and easily treatable. Yet, Oklahoma is just one vote away from criminalizing the transmission of the most common STIs, including chlamydia, human papillomavirus (HPV) and herpes. People found guilty face two to five years in prison.

Criminalizing people did not work to stop HIV transmission, and it will not work if we expand it to STIs. As experts in public health and HIV, we call on Oklahoma lawmakers to learn from the data and the history of criminalizing STIs. House Bill 3098 will likely increase transmissions and decrease testing — exactly the opposite of the bill’s intent.

Every year, Health Outreach Prevention Education (HOPE) in Tulsa provides critical sexually transmitted infections testing and treatment for thousands of Oklahomans. The need is great because STIs are very common. For example, an estimated 85% of people will contract HPV in their lifetime. But we do not have a reliable test for HPV in cisgender men, which means the new law could only criminalize women — the group at highest risk for HPV-related cancers. (Fortunately, we have a vaccine for all youth that can provide good protection against the most common forms of HPV.)

We know where the criminalization of STIs leads. HIV criminal laws have increased fear and stigma and can decrease testing and treatment. This fear is often summarized as “Take the test, risk arrest.” But it gets worse. A felony conviction means a person can be barred from holding public office. They can be denied jobs or housing and lose access to social services. And Black people are disproportionately likely to be criminalized because of their HIV status.

Learning from past legislation

Oklahoma’s HIV criminal law has not prevented one of the highest rates of new rural HIV diagnoses in the country. Rates of late testing for HIV in Oklahomans are also high. Fortunately, today, HIV is now a manageable, treatable chronic disease, but only if people can access testing and treatment.

For these reasons, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Medical Association, National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), National Association of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO), U.S. Conference of Mayors, the U.S. Department of Justice, and many other organizations have all called for states to repeal or reform their HIV-related criminal laws.

Criminalizing STIs is also expensive. Oklahoma already has one of the nation’s highest incarceration rates, and the state spends $28,500 annually for every person incarcerated. Compare that to the cost of under $200 to treat many of the STIs HB 3098 seeks to criminalize. Those resources would be better spent on health care, including STI prevention, testing and treatment.

The Legislature’s goal should be creating healthier communities by removing barriers to prevention, testing and treatment for Oklahomans. Health care, not punishment, is the answer to treating and reducing the spread of STIs. Smart policies and investments in community health can help ensure we all have the health care we need, no matter who we are or where we live.

Taryn Norman is the executive director of Health Outreach Prevention Education Inc. (HOPE) in Tulsa. Nathan Cisneros is the HIV criminalization project director at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

Zimbabwe: Bill includes HIV in expanded list of STIs with criminal penalties for “deliberate” transmission

Government criminalises deliberate HIV, STIs transmission

THE Government has listed HIV/AIDS as one of the sexually-transmitted infections (STIs), whose deliberate transmission to another partner will now be punishable under law.

The Criminal Laws Amendment (Protection of Children and Young Persons) currently before Parliament has a clause that includes HIV/AIDS as one of the STIs, whose wilful transmission can be charged as a criminal offence.

Other STIs that are punishable include syphilis, gonorrhoea and herpes, among others.

Another objective of the Criminal Laws (Protection of Children and Young Persons) Amendment Bill is to raise the age of sexual consent from 16 to 18.

Clause Eight of the Bill stipulates that a law that decriminalises deliberate HIV/AIDS transmission still stood after the Marriages Act repealed Section 79 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act that sought to impose heavy and long-term jail sentence on those convicted of wilful transmission of HIV/AIDS.

“Deliberately infecting persons with sexually-transmitted diseases was originally dealt with in two sections of the Criminal Law Code. Section 78 makes it a crime for anyone to deliberately infect another person with a sexually-transmitted disease other than HIV; section 79 made the same provision for those who infected others with HIV, but provided for a much heavier sentence to be imposed. Section 79 was repealed by the Marriages Act in 2022, which means that it is no longer a crime to infect other persons with HIV (because section 78 specifically excludes HIV),” reads Clause Eight of the Bill.

“This section will amend section 78 of the Code to include HIV among the sexually transmitted diseases covered by the section.”

In 2022, the Government decriminalised wilful transmission of HIV to a partner through the Marriages Act when it repealed a legal provision that made it an offence, as the Second Republic sought to move with international trends.

The repealed section provided for 20 years in prison for anyone convicted of deliberate transmission of HIV/AIDS, whilst Section 78 of the Criminal Code, which now includes HIV/AIDS as an STI, provides for a fine equal to Level 14 or five years in prison or both.

Section 78 of the Criminal Code (Codification and Reform Act reads as follows: “(2) Any person who (a) knowing that he or she is suffering from a sexually-transmitted disease; or (b) realising that there is a real risk or possibility that he or she is suffering from a sexually-transmitted disease; intentionally infects any other person with the disease, or does anything or causes or permits anything to be done with the intention or realising that there is a real risk or possibility of infecting any other person with the disease, shall be guilty of deliberately infecting that other person with a sexually-transmitted disease and liable to a fine up to or exceeding level fourteen or imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years or both.”

Recently, President Mnangagwa invoked his powers under the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act to gazette Statutory Instrument 2 of 2024, in compliance with a Constitutional Court ruling that had declared a section of the law that sets sexual consent age at 16 as unconstitutional.

The Statutory Instrument invoked by the President raised the age of consent to sexual relations to 18, consistent with the Constitution which sets the minimum marriage age at 18 and defines all young people as below the age of 18, while the original law defined them as below the age of 16, so protection was withdrawn from 17 and 18-year-olds.

The Presidential Powers have a lifespan of just six months during which Parliament has to pass a substantive law if the desire is to make the measure permanent.

Brazil: Proposed bill seeks to increase penalties in cases of HIV transmission

Congressman from Mato Grosso do Sul wants to increase the penalty for those who intentionally transmit HIV

Translated via Deep.com – Scroll down for article in Portuguese

The Bill seeks to increase the penalty by up to two-thirds in cases involving marital relations
A bill presented by Mato Grosso do Sul Congressman Geraldo Resende (PSDB) is currently before the Chamber of Deputies in Brasilia, increasing the prison sentence for people who intentionally transmit HIV in marital relations.
The congressman’s proposal increases the penalty from one to two thirds if the exposure to contamination is carried out by the victim’s spouse or partner. Resende points out in the proposal that the intentional transmission of AIDS, as a result of the current stage of development of science, should be legally classified as the transmission of an incurable disease and the conduct should be classified as bodily injury of a serious nature with a penalty of two to eight years.
“We believe that free and knowing transmission by a spouse or partner, through unprotected sex, by someone who is aware of their infection with the disease and the notorious risk of transmitting it to their partner, should be punished more rigorously,” he said.
Bill 652/2024 is still being analysed by the Chamber of Deputies.


Deputado de Mato Grosso do Sul, quer aumentar pena para quem transmite HIV intencionalmente

Projeto de lei quer aumentar a pena em até dois terços em casos ocorridos em relações conjugais
Tramita na Câmara dos Deputados, em Brasília, um projeto de lei apresentado pelo deputado por MS, Geraldo Resende (PSDB), que aumenta a pena de prisão para pessoas que transmitam intencionalmente o HIV (sigla em inglês para Vírus da Imunodeficiência Humana) em relações conjugais.
A proposta do congressista aumenta de um a dois terços a pena se a exposição à contaminação for praticada por cônjuge ou companheiro da vítima. Resende pontua na proposta que a transmissão intencional da AIDS, em decorrência do atual estágio de desenvolvimento da ciência, seja enquadrada juridicamente como transmissão de enfermidade incurável e seja a conduta capitulada como lesão corporal de natureza grave com pena de dois a oito anos.
“Consideramos que a transmissão livre e consciente levada a efeito por cônjuge ou companheiro, por meio da prática de relações sexuais desprotegidas, por aquele que tem prévia ciência de sua infecção pela enfermidade e do notório risco em transmiti-la à parceira ou ao parceiro, deve ser punida de forma mais rigorosa”, disse.
O projeto de lei 652/2024 segue em análise na Câmara dos Deputados.