HIV criminalisation high on the agenda at AIDS 2018

Starting today, thousands of activists, scientists, media and others working in the HIV sector will descend upon Amsterdam for the 22nd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018).

For those of you able to be in Amsterdam make sure you don’t miss all the amazing HIV criminalisation events taking place before and during the conference.

Download and print this 2-page pdf covering the HIV criminalisation highlights (including pre-conferences, posters and Global Village events) put together by the HIV Justice Network on behalf of HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE.

STOP PRESS: For the first time since Edwin Cameron’s call to action at AIDS 2008 in Mexico City, HIV criminalisation is on the agenda during a main morning plenary session, ‘Breaking barriers of inequity in the HIV response’ on Tuesday 24th July.

HIV criminalisation survivor, and Sero Project Assistant Director, Robert Suttle, and KELIN’s Executive Director, Allan Maleche, will speak from 9.30am about, ‘Putting HIV science into the criminal justice system: Impacting lives’.

As well as highlighting the impact of HIV criminalisation on individuals, the session will alert AIDS 2018 delegates to the forthcoming ‘Expert Consensus Statement on the Science of HIV in the Context of Criminal Law’ that will be published on Wednesday 25 July 2018 at 3.15pm in the Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS).

The Expert Consensus Statement was authored by a global panel of leading scientists, supported by IAPAC, IAS and UNAIDS in consultation with HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE.

It is expected to be a key reference for clarifying important issues of HIV science in the context of criminal law and is aimed at expert witnesses, but likely to be useful for police, prosecutors, lawyers, judges, lawmakers and advocates.

You will be able to find out more about the Expert Consensus Statement, including what it means for HIV criminalisation advocacy, on Wednesday after 3.15pm Amsterdam time, by visiting http://www.hivjusticeworldwide.org where it will be highlighted on the front page.

And of course, we hope to see you at HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE’s one day conference this Monday July 23rd, Beyond Blame 2018: Challenging HIV Criminalisation.

Download the Beyond Blame 2018 final programme.

Only a few places remain, so register now if you want to attend. 

Otherwise you can watch the entire meeting live on the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE YouTube channel and Tweet any comments or questions using the hashtag #BeyondBlame2018.

You can also the follow these other HIV criminalisation hashtags:

  • #HIVJUSTICEWORLDWIDE
  • #HIVCrim
  • #HIVIsNotACrime
  • #AIDS2018
  • #BringScienceToJustice
     

US: Panel Discussion with advocates working towards ending HIV criminalisation

Dismantling HIV Criminalization: A Panel Discussion

LA MAMA GALLERIA

Dismantling HIV Criminalization brought together activists and advocates working to end practices that punish and incarcerate people living with HIV, linking Visual AIDS’ summer exhibition Cell Count to the ongoing movement against HIV criminalization. 

The panel featured a discussion between Kate Boulton of the Center for HIV Law and Policy, Kenyon Farrow of TheBody.com, Abdul-Aliy Muhammad of the Black and Brown Workers Collective, and Robert Suttle of the Sero Project.

Kate, Kenyon and Robert had just returned from the 2018 HIV is Not a Crime Conference in Indianapolis, where activists from around the country gathered to build a national movement against HIV criminalization.

Dismantling HIV Criminalization was dedicated to David Plunkett, a survivor of HIV criminalization who passed away in 2018. After five years in prison, David’s successful appeal in 2012 set a legal precedent in New York that the saliva of a person with HIV could not be characterized as a deadly weapon. David contributed an essay to the catalog for Cell Count, reflecting on his experience facing HIV criminalization. The catalog is available for purchase at the Visual AIDS store.

 

LINK TO VIDEO OF PANEL DISCUSSION

PANELIST BIOS

Kate Boulton is a Staff Attorney at the Center for HIV Law and Policy, where she focuses on HIV criminal law reform and the overrepresentation of people living with HIV in the criminal legal system. She has particular interest in the intersection between HIV criminalization and the criminalization of sex work, and recently spearheaded the creation of an advocacy toolkit addressing this issue. From 2007 to 2012, Kate served with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where her work centered on migrant health and infectious disease. She earned her JD from Harvard Law School and her MPH from the University of Michigan. 

Kenyon Farrow is the senior editor with TheBody.com and TheBodyPro.com. Kenyon has a long track record working in communities impacted by HIV as an activist, writer, and strategist. Prior to joining TheBody.com, he served as U.S. & Global Health Policy director for Treatment Action Group (TAG), where he led a research project to explore the role of community mobilization in the U.S. HIV response and helped develop strategies for southern jurisdiction’s ending-the-epidemic campaigns. Kenyon has also worked on campaigns large and small, local, national, and global on issues related to criminalization/mass imprisonment, homelessness, and LGBT rights. He is the co-editor of the book Letters From Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out. His work has also appeared on websites and in publications such as The Body.com, POZ, The Atlantic, TheGrio, Colorlines, ReWire News, The American Prospect, and AlterNet.

Abdul-Aliy Muhammad is a Black queer poz non-binary jawn* from Philadelphia, PA. They’ve worked in the field of HIV prevention for 6 1/2 years and currently work as an organizer with the Black and Brown Workers Collective and does anti-oppression trainings with the BlaQollective. Abdul-Aliy is releasing A Flower Left To Wilt, their first poetry book, on October 26, 2018.

Robert Suttle is the Assistant Director of the SERO Project, a network of people living with HIV and allies fighting for freedom from stigma and injustice. He oversees the community outreach and education and coordinates Sero’s HIV Criminalization Survivors Network.

 

US: PJP update – May 2018

The May 2018 edition of the Positive Justice Project newsletter is available here.

Paul Kidd's plenary about HIV, consent and the Criminal Law

Webinar: Making Media Work for HIV Justice (PWN-USA for HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE, 2018)

This 90 minute webinar introduced attendees to some of the concepts and practices highlighted in the Making Media Work for HIV Justice media toolkit, and featured formidable activists, journalists, communications professionals, and human rights defenders working at the intersection of media and HIV criminalisation.

HIV Criminalization in Canada: Testimonials (Alexander McClelland / Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, 2018)

Testimonials

New Toolkit Supports Advocates in Using Media to Fight for HIV Justice

When it comes to the widely misunderstood, complex issue of HIV criminalisation, media can be a powerful tool–or a blunt-force weapon.

And so today, as people around the world living with HIV continue to be criminalised and convicted at alarming rates, HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE has released “Making Media Work for HIV Justice: An introduction to media engagement for advocates opposing HIV criminalisation.”

The new resource is the latest addition to the HIV JUSTICE Toolkit, which provides resources from all over the world to assist advocates in approaching a range of advocacy targets, including lawmakers, prosecutors and judges, police, and the media.

The purpose of this critical media toolkit is to inform and equip global grassroots advocates who are engaged in media response to HIV criminalisation–and to demystify the practice of working with, and through, media to change the conversation around criminalisation.

“As advocates work to build community coalitions and consensus about the importance of limiting and ending HIV criminalisation, we need to articulate our common positions to the public and to decision-makers; thus, working with the media is critically important,” says Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and a member of the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE Steering Committee. “Also, particularly in settings where sexual assault laws are used to criminalise people living with HIV, it is important to communicate via the media why this misuse of the criminal law is harmful to women.”

The toolkit provides an introduction to the topic of HIV criminalisation and the importance of engagement with media to change narratives around this unjust practice. The toolkit also includes reporting tips for journalists, designed to educate writers and media makers around the nuances of HIV criminalisation, and the harms of inaccurate and stigmatising coverage.

Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN-USA), the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE Steering Committee member organisation that produced the toolkit, has been working on HIV criminalisation for many years, and was an instrumental part of the coalition that brought HIV criminal law reform to the US state of California.

“With HIV rarely making front page news anymore, the highly sensationalised reporting of criminalisation cases–which most often contains little in the way of facts or science–paints a dehumanising picture of people living with HIV,” says Jennie Smith-Camejo, Communications Director for PWN-USA. “This kind of coverage can and does destroy real lives of those affected by HIV criminalisation laws, while fueling and feeding misinformation and stigma.”

The toolkit also includes a number of case studies providing examples of how media played a significant role in the outcome, or the impetus, of HIV criminalisation advocacy.

“I have been monitoring media coverage of speculations, arrests, prosecutions, and convictions of people living with HIV, and also legal and policy proposals for new laws and/or reform, for more than a decade,” notes Edwin J Bernard, Global Co-ordinator of the HIV Justice Network and a member of the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE coalition. “It’s time for the injustice to end. ‘Making Media Work for HIV Justice’ is a long-overdue welcome addition to the HIV JUSTICE Toolkit, and an important step towards realising a world where people living with HIV are not singled out by the criminal justice system simply for having a virus.“

“Making Media Work for HIV Justice: An introduction to media engagement for advocates opposing HIV criminalisation” was supported by a grant from the Robert Carr Fund for Civil Society Networks. It  will also be translated into French, Spanish, and Russian later this year.

Webinar: Making Media Work for HIV Justice

This 90 minute webinar introduced attendees to some of the concepts and practices highlighted in the toolkit, and featured formidable activists, journalists, communications professionals, and human rights defenders working at the intersection of media and HIV criminalisation.

About HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE

HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE is an initiative made up of global, regional, and national civil society organisations–most of them led by people living with HIV–who are working together to build a worldwide movement to end HIV criminalisation. All of the founding partners have worked individually and collectively on HIV criminalisation for a number of years.

HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE is run by a 10-member Steering Committee: AIDS Action Europe / European HIV Legal Forum; AIDS-Free World; AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA); Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network; Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+); HIV Justice Network; International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW); Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN-USA); Sero Project (SERO); and Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC).

To learn more and to join the movement, visit: http://www.hivjusticeworldwide.org.

Download the media release as a pdf here: http://bit.ly/HIVJusticeToolkitMediaRelease

Lawyers for HIV and TB Justice 2018 Training (Johannesburg, 2018)

This playlist contains recordings of a training for lawyers on strategic litigation, legal defense and advocacy on HIV and TB justice from 20-23 February 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), HIV Justice Worldwide, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the Stop TB Partnership, the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), and the Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN). The training was funded under the Africa Regional Grant on HIV: Removing Legal Barriers. Resources and more information on the training are available here: http://www.southernafricalitigationce… With thanks to Nicholas Feustel of Georgetown Media.

Important new resource, SALC’s HIV Criminalisation Defence Case Compendium, published this week

An important new resource for lawyers defending clients and working on strategic litigation was published by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC) this week. SALC is one of the newest members of HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE Steering Committee.

The HIV Criminalisation Defence Case Compendium was developed to accompany a four-day training for lawyers on HIV and TB criminalisation, due to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, later this month.

The Compendium aims to provide lawyers with a tool to successfully defend people living with HIV who are being prosecuted for alleged HIV non-disclosure, exposure, or transmission. It catalogues and analyses criminal cases from across the world where “strong defence arguments have resulted in an acquittal or reduced penalty”.

Cases range from prosecutions for spitting or biting to the landmark 2016 Malawi case of a woman successfully released on appeal after having been sentenced for breastfeeding.

To find pertinent cases quickly and effectively, the Compendium is split into three parts:

  • The first section outlines the key issues raised in the judgement, such as proof of intent, and classifies the cases accordingly in an easy to navigate table format.
  • The second section, organised by country, catalogues the categories of argument raised by the defence.
  • The third section summarises the facts of each case and the Court decisions, highlighting the key points.

The Lawyers for HIV and TB Justice: Strategic Litigation, Legal Defence and Advocacy Training will be streamed live on The Southern Africa Litigation Centre Facebook Page between 20-22 February.

The Compendium can be downloaded from the SALC website and is included as the newest resource in the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE toolkit.

 

Webinar: PWN-USA HIV Criminalization First Responders Series: Combating Stigmatizing Reporting (PWN-USA, 2018)

The third and final webinar in the First Responder series focuses on working with the media. Hosted by Kamaria Laffrey (Sero) and featuring presentations from Carrie Foote (HIV Modernization Movement, Indiana) and Olivia G Ford (former PWN-USA Comms Dirctor).