HJN commemorates the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia!

Today, May 17, is celebrated globally as the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (IDAHOT).

According to the May 17 website, the day “represents a major global annual landmark to draw the attention of decision-makers, the media, the public, corporations, opinion leaders, local authorities, etc. to the alarming situation faced by people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or expressions, and sex characteristics.”

This is a day to not only say no to violence and discrimination against LGBT+ persons but also a rallying cry to ensure equality, dignity, and full respect for human rights of all sexual and gender minorities, including all LGBT+ living with HIV.

The day was created in 2004 to draw attention to the violence and discrimination experienced by LGBT+ people and all other people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or expressions, and sex characteristics.  The date of May 17 was specifically chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision in 1990 to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder.

The theme for this year is “Together: Resisting, Supporting and Healing”

At HJN, we note that HIV still disproportionately affects many in the LGBT+ community. In many regions of the world, punitive laws and practices against LGBT+ individuals continue to block effective responses to HIV. Evidence and experience have shown that punitive laws and practices drive sexual minorities away from HIV services.

Some of these punitive practices include criminalisation of same-sex relationships, ‘effeminate’ behavior, cross-dressing, sodomy, and ‘gender impersonation.’

To learn more, this Wednesday, the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Groups on HIV & AIDS; Global LGBT+ Rights; and STOPAIDS will host a virtual parliamentary event: HIV and the criminalisation of LGBT+ communities to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia.

The event will bring together leading HIV and LGBT+ community representatives from around the world. Through a panel discussion and Q&A, they’ll be exploring the barriers that LGBT+ communities face from realising their right to health and how parliamentarians and the UK Government can advance the decriminalisation of LGBT+ and HIV.

Chaired by Rt Hon David Mundell MP, panelists include:

  • Joel Simpson – Managing Director, Guyana’s Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD Guyana)
  • Simran Shaikh, Co-Founder of Rajmala Welfare Society and Director Transgender Health at John Hopkins University School of medicine
  • Jesse Sperling, Deputy Director, Kaleidoscope Trust
  • He-Jin Kim, Regional Key Populations Programme Officer, AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA)
  • Saoirse Fitzpatrick, Advocacy Manager, STOPAIDS

To RSVP, please email Anna Robinson at anna.robinson@parliament.uk

Uganda’s new Sexual Offences law a setback for HIV justice and human rights

The HIV Justice Network (HJN) joins other civil society and human rights organisations in condemning the passage of the Sexual Offences Bill in Uganda earlier this week.

The move by Ugandan Parliamentarians to pass the Sexual Offences Bill is a major concern for those working to end HIV and intersectional criminalisation. Considering that Uganda already passed the HIV Prevention and Control Act in 2014, which criminalises HIV transmission, attempted transmission, and behaviour that might result in transmission by those who know their HIV status, this new law goes further.

One of the definitions of rape in the Bill is ‘misrepresentation’, which runs the very real risk of being interpreted by the criminal legal system as HIV status non-disclosure, and if the accused is found to be living with HIV, this results in the death penalty.

The Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF) stated: “Singling out HIV and AIDS as a factor for aggravated penalty for rape, discriminates against people living with HIV. The provision places the burden on people living with HIV which do not fall to those living with other infectious illnesses. Using HIV and AIDS as a factor for aggravated offence treats people with HIV as vectors of disease, rather than as people with an interest in their own health and rights. This provision undermines the efforts to eliminate the stigma that surrounds people living with HIV and AIDS. … [This] law falls most heavily on those who ‘took the trouble’ to get tested and may even by engaging in safe sex options. This may discourage those who do not know their status from having an HIV test.”

The Bill, which attempted to fill a gap in current legislation around issues of sexual assault and rape, goes much, much further by also criminalising same-sex acts and sex work.

“It is clear from the Bill that some of the clauses directly reinforce sections of the Penal Code Act Cap 120 of Uganda that criminalise homosexuality and sex work. This is, therefore, a direct threat of chapter 4 of the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda that promotes human rights of all Ugandans,” said Richard Lusimbo, the National Coordinator of the Uganda Key Populations Consortium.

His sentiments are echoed by Women with a Mission and Triumph Uganda, who have analysed the Bill’s implication to the LGBTQ+ and sex workers community, and who have urged for a re-review and amendments to the problematic clauses, which were passed suspiciously.

“We urge the President of Uganda to task parliament to re-review provisions of the Bill that will fuel human rights violations, impede, and undermine the registered gains in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We urge all stakeholders in the health sector to voice the negative implications of the law against HIV/AIDS, STIs, and justice on the key priority and marginalized communities and civil society organizations in Uganda.

With the passage of the legislation, the President is expected to assent the Bill into law within fourteen working days. The legislation was first tabled by Hon Monica Amoding, MP for Kumi Municipality on April 14, 2016, and was described as consolidating and amending the law to sexual offences from various enactments. At the third reading of the bill, the MPs included the various contentious clauses and amendments that are now being challenged.

[Update] Let’s ensure ending HIV criminalisation is a priority in the 2021 Political Declaration

You can’t end HIV without ending HIV criminalisation!

We must ensure that HIV criminalisation is included as a key indicator in the High-Level Meeting (HLM) 2021 Political Declaration.

It is crucial to ensure political commitment to remove laws and policies that unjustly impact people living with HIV in all of our diversities.

And so, HJN is calling on civil society to ensure that a specific focus on HIV criminalisation is included in the 2021 Political Declaration.

Today, 23 April, you can attend an interactive multi-stakeholder hearing that will be streamed live on the GNP+ Facebook page as well as on UN Web TV.  The hearing starts at 9 am in New York / 3 pm in Geneva.


You can also join the civil society debrief during the break at 12.30 pm New York / 6.30 pm Geneva if you register here.

This Civil Society Engagement Guide to the HLM 2021 includes some important engagement opportunities and places to start on this journey.

Other ways to get involved:

  • Contact key government officials engaged with the HLM to influence your country’s input into the negotiations around the Political Declaration
  • Advocate for your government to include representatives of affected communities in the country delegation to the HLM and advocate for the highest level of government representation at the HLMs
  • If your civil society organisation doesn’t already have ECOSOC status, you can register for special accreditation to participate in the HLM until this Sunday, 25 April.
 
April 16, 2021

 

HJN is urging all stakeholders engaged with the civil society dialogue on the new Global AIDS Strategy and the 2021 High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS to ensure that HIV criminalisation is included as a key indicator in the 2021 Political Declaration. We must ensure political commitment to remove laws and policies that unjustly target people living with HIV, who are often also members of other criminalised or marginalised populations.

The High-Level Meeting (HLM), which takes place between 8-10 June 2021, will review the progress made in ending HIV as public health threat since the last HLM in 2016. We expect the UN General Assembly to adopt a new political declaration to guide the future direction of the response as the world marks 40 years since the first case of AIDS was reported, and the 25th anniversary since UNAIDS was established.

As noted in the new Global AIDS Strategy 2021–2026, End Inequalities, End AIDS, ending HIV criminalisation is central to ending HIV as a public health threat by 2030, noting: “Punitive laws, the absence of enabling laws and policies, and inadequate access to justice contribute to the inequalities that undermine HIV responses.”

The Strategy furthers states that HIV and other forms of criminalisation are a violation of human rights. “SDG 3 cannot be achieved if stigma, discrimination, criminalization of key populations, violence, social exclusion, and other human rights violations in the context of HIV are allowed to continue and if HIV-related inequalities persist. The evidence consistently shows that the criminalization of people living with HIV and key populations reduces service uptake and increases HIV incidence.”

HJN is therefore calling on all stakeholders to ensure that a specific focus on HIV criminalisation is included in the 2021 Political Declaration. Here’s how:

  • Contact key government officials engaged with the HLM to influence your country’s input into the negotiations around the Political Declaration
  • Advocate for your government to include representatives of affected communities in the country delegation to the HLM and advocate for the highest level of government representation at the HLMs
  • If your civil society organisation doesn’t already have ECOSOC status, you can register for special accreditation to participate in the HLM until 25 April.

And through the leadership of our HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE partner, GNP+, you can make your voice heard and included by responding to a survey that will support the development of a civil society statement with clear community recommendations to the HLM and Political Declaration.

The responses to this survey, which should take less than 10 minutes, are confidential and will only be used for the purpose of the HLM process. The closing date to submit your responses is next Tuesday, 20th April 2021.

English: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/27QGLGD
French: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/S9WWY58
Spanish: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/W9WSTJ6
Russian: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WSZBW88
Portuguese: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WJJK257

 

Virginia becomes eighth US state since 2012 to modernise its HIV criminalisation laws

Even as Virginia’s Governor, Ralph Northam, signed legislation late last month to modernise the US state’s HIV criminalisation laws, advocates noted that the inclusion of a felony penalty means that more work needs to be done to ensure that HIV criminalisation is finally ended in the state.

As the first US state in the South to modernise its laws (after Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, California, North Carolina, Michigan and Washington), Virginia’s Senate Bill 1138 removes a number of discriminatory laws that are often used against marginalised populations, like sex workers and people who use drugs, and helps bring HIV in line with other sexually transmitted infections for which there is preventative care and treatment.

According to NBC News, the legislation repeals the felony criminal ban on blood, tissue or organ donation by people with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections; makes HIV testing optional (rather than mandatory) for people convicted of certain ‘crimes’, including sex work and drug charges; and strikes down a statute making failure to disclose HIV-positive status before sex a crime.

HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE partners, Positive Women Network-USA (PWN) and the Sero Project (Sero), said the signing was a “culmination of over two years of organizing and advocacy led by ECHO VA–the coalition founded by Positive Women’s Network – USA Virginia State Lead Deirdre Johnson and Dr. Cedric Pulliam–with the collaboration of PWN, Equality Virginia, and the Sero Project.”

They said the signing into law is the latest achievement of the movement to end HIV criminalisation in the United States. “And it’s great news for people living with HIV and who care about ending the HIV epidemic in Virginia,” they added.

However, even as the advocates celebrated this milestone, the new law’s “intentional transmission of HIV”, or “infected sexual battery,” remains a felony in Virginia, rather than a misdemeanor, as proponents had hoped. However, the new legislation now requires proof of actual infection, rather than just an allegation of potential or perceived exposure.

This is something PWN, Sero, and their partners hope to change in the near future. “Our next steps are to continue to work with our partners… to change the felony penalty to a misdemeanor. We are also working on making sure that the news of this historical change reaches communities impacted by these changes.”

Currently, 32 US states still have laws that criminalise HIV non-disclosure and/or potential or perceived HIV exposure, but efforts are currently underway across the US, many of them supported by PWN and Sero, to modernise or repeal these outdated and unjust laws.

Honouring Transgender Day of Visibility (March 31)

Honouring Transgender Day of Visibility

The International Transgender Day of Visibility is held annually on March 31 to celebrate trans-diverse people globally and honour their courage and visibility to live openly and authentically.

This year’s 12th annual celebration is a day to also raise awareness around the stigma and discrimination that trans people still face, especially young transgender people, trans people living with HIV, trans people who are currently transitioning and are therefore more likely to be identified as transgender, and transgender sex workers.

We also acknowledge there are too many invisibilities around the impact of HIV criminalisation on trans persons. Cecilia Chung, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives and Evaluation of the Transgender Law Center, who is also a member of our Global Advisory Panel told our Beyond Blame @HIV2020 webinar that there is not enough data on the impact of HIV criminalisation laws on transgender persons. She said such data are not “uniformly collected across the world… The numbers still remain invisible even though we know for sure there are [HIV criminalisation] cases.”

Although this day primarily serves to celebrate and honour trans-diverse persons, it also offers allies an opportunity to contribute to supportive legislation, policy and financial commitment of trans-diverse communities globally.

HJN also celebrates trans-diverse people globally and we honour their courage and visibility to live openly and authentically. We also call for more visibility for trans people in data collection, including our own, as well as reforms of HIV-related criminal laws and their enforcement that disproportionately target trans-diverse people.

HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE is five years old!

The HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE (HJWW) coalition which campaigns to end HIV criminalisation around the world, will next week mark five years since its launch. It was on March 24th, 2016 when the seven HJWW founding partners and our key allies met in Brighton, UK to launch this coalition to coordinate a global response to the unjust use of criminal and similar laws against people with HIV.

The original seven founding partners were the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (now known as the HIV Legal Network), the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW), the Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN-USA), the Sero Project (Sero) and HIV Justice Network (HJN) which co-ordinates the joint work plan and serves as the secretariat for HJWW.

At the time of the launch, HJWW wanted to end HIV criminalisation by empowering people living with HIV and those who advocate on their behalf to ensure policymakers, criminal justice actors and other relevant stakeholders abolish existing laws and oppose the passage of proposed laws designed to regulate, control, and punish people living with HIV on the basis of their HIV status.

HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE founding partners* and supporters at the launch of the coalition in Brighton, March 24th, 2016. Back row L-R: Rhon Reynolds (GNP+*), Edwin J Bernard (HIV Justice Network*), Jessica Whitbread (ICW*), Boyan Konstantinov (UNDP), Patrick Eba (UNAIDS), Sean Strub (SERO*). Front row L-R: Julian Hows (GNP+*), Sylvie Beaumont (HIV Justice Network*), Cécile Kazatchkine (Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network*), Naina Khanna (PWN-USA*) and Michaela Clayton (ARASA*).

Five years on, we have achieved some remarkable progress. What started as a core group of seven working to shape the discourse on HIV criminalisation, has now grown to include more than 110 organisations and individuals sharing information and networking; building capacity; mobilising advocacy, and cultivating a global community collaborating to address HIV criminalisation.

From working on progressive, impactful statements on HIV science and the criminal law, and on COVID-19, to providing technical support to challenge proposed laws and strike down existing laws in various countries, to training advocates on how to work with the media, HJWW has also joined with other movements to highlight the intersectional aspects of HIV criminalisation with other key populations, as well as with movements for gender, racial and migrant justice, including during its flagship meeting, Beyond Blame.

However, although some progress has been made in preventing new laws from being passed, and reforming or repealing HIV criminalisation laws, many countries around the world continue to enforce a wide range of unjust laws against people living with HIV.

There’s still so much more to do, and we can do more when we collaborate. Why not join the movement? An an individual, network, or organisation you can help to make HIV justice worldwide a reality!

“We want a people’s vaccine, not a profit vaccine”

Yesterday was the Global Day of Action for a #PeoplesVaccine.

On 11 March, one year since the World Health Organisation declared a COVID-19 pandemic, influential leaders including Winnie Byanyima from UNAIDS and social justice organisations like Human Rights Watch, joined tens of thousands of individuals and organisations all over the world demanding a People’s Vaccine – a vaccine that is made freely available to everyone, everywhere.

Countries in the global South are currently unlikely to receive a COVID-19 vaccine until 2023. This is a scandal and threatens everyone.

In a feature story published yesterday, UNAIDS highlighted that as developing countries are facing critical shortages of oxygen and medical supplies to cope with COVID-19,  few have been able to administer a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. In contrast, rich nations have vaccinated their citizens at a rate of one person per second over the last month.

We wholeheartedly support this campaign to pressure pharmaceutical companies and governments to end vaccine monopolies.  Following yesterday’s WTO vote by rich countries  against waiving patent rules, we stand in solidarity with its demands that:

  • Pharmaceutical companies openly share vaccine know-how. They can do this by joining the World Health Organisation COVID-19 Technology and Access Pool (C-TAP).
  • Governments suspend patent rules at the World Trade Organisation on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and testing during the pandemic. This will help break Big Pharma monopolies and increase supplies so there are enough doses for everyone, everywhere.

Click the link below to learn more about how you can support the People’s Vaccine campaign.

Learn more

Celebrating positive women and challenging HIV criminalisation on International Women’s Day

Women are often seen both as victims and perpetrators in regard to HIV criminalisation. There are, at least, ten reasons why HIV criminalisation harms women including, “negative public health outcomes, increased gender-based violence, and greater social and political inequalities for women.”

Consequently, women – especially women who experience racism, sex workers, sexual and gender minority women, those living with disabilities, refugees, and women who use drugs – are impacted by HIV criminalisation in a number of ways, and are often multiply criminalised due to their intersecting identities.

It is against this backdrop that, every year, we mark International Women’s Day on 8th March. The day celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

The campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is ‘Choose To Challenge‘. The theme is important in terms of HIV criminalisation as it is a call to all stakeholders – including governments – to protect the human rights of all women living with HIV.

Next week, some of our HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE partners are hosting events to commemorate this day.

For the AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), International Women’s Day is a time to challenge HIV criminalisation against women, who historically, have been disproportionately prosecuted under HIV criminal laws.

“This International Women’s Rights Day we #ChooseToChallenge HIV criminalisation because evidence has shown that women, especially in East and Southern Africa have been at higher risk of prosecution under HIV criminalisation laws. Women living with HIV have been stigmatised and discriminated against because of the HIV status in families and communities. HIV criminalisation leads to negative public health outcomes, increased gender-based violence, and greater inequalities for women.”

ARASA will also host a webinar titled “#ChooseToChallenge – Young African Women Fighting for Bodily Autonomy and Integrity.” Together with ATHENA Network, they will co-host a Twitter chat, under the “#WhatGirlsWant” campaign titled: “Disability, leadership, and sexuality”: how girls and women living with disabilities dream of, engage in and enjoy (or not) sex, what do they want the world to know about their sexuality and leadership capabilities?

Register here

Later in the week, Positive Women’s Network-USA (PWN-USA) and other Black women leaders in the HIV movement will be launching the first annual Celebrate and Honor Black Women in the HIV Movement Day on 12th March. PWN-USA want to honour the expertise of Black women working for, and volunteering with, HIV organisations; support and fund Black women-led organisations, and demand a US HIV response that centres upon the needs and leadership of Black transgender and cisgender women.

Register here

Editorial: “Leave no-one behind” when working to end HIV criminalisation

An editorial published to coincide with Zero Discrimination Day (March 1) by leaders in the HIV Justice movement celebrates “the courage and commitment of the growing global community of advocates, human rights defenders and others around the world who are challenging laws, policies and practices that inappropriately and unjustly criminalize people living with HIV”, but warns that this work must include and benefit those populations who are the most marginalised, and who remain most vulnerable to prosecution, despite advances in HIV science that are being used to challenge and modernise these laws.

Writing in the Journal of the International AIDS Society, the authors – who include HJN’s Executive Director, Edwin J Bernard; HJN’s Supervisory Board member, Michaela Clayton; and HJN’s Global Advisory Panel member, Edwin Cameron, along with Chris Beyrer, Desmond M. Tutu Professor of Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and GNP+’s Alexandra Volgina – note that despite many advances in the science of HIV there remains one area that is still an “all too common a threat to the lives and wellbeing of people living with HIV, as well as to the goal of ending the epidemic” – HIV criminalisation.

HIV criminalisation describes the unjust application of criminal and similar laws to people living with HIV ostensibly based on their HIV status, either via HIV‐specific criminal statutes or general criminal or other laws.

Citing data collated from HJN’s global case monitoring which suggests that HIV criminalisation intersects with “discrimination or criminalization on the basis of ethnicity, sex, gender identity, immigration status, sex work, sexuality and/or substance use,” they note that HIV criminalisation can be seen as a “surrogate marker for state‐sponsored stigma and discrimination against marginalized groups of people at higher risk of HIV.”

The editorial also addresses public health and healthcare workers who are often viewed as an extension of the criminal justice system by marginalised populations. “We are also seeing a frightening trend of prosecutions being initiated by those working in healthcare or public health without specific complaints. In some cases, police were notified of a person’s HIV diagnosis by health authorities, which then became a prompt to investigate the person’s relationship with their partner.”

Relatively few countries have repealed or modernised their laws, although efforts are currently underway across the globe, assisted by the 2018 publication of the Expert consensus statement on the science of HIV in the context of criminal law authored by 20 of the world’s leading HIV scientists, including Professor Beyrer.

The editorial celebrates and encourages the growing number of global advocates, human rights defenders and others around the world who are challenging HIV criminalisation but notes that everyone involved in the HIV response needs to play their part. “Ending HIV criminalization is the responsibility of us all,” they argue.

“It is important that we all understand how to ensure justice for all people living with HIV, not just those who have access to treatment and are fortunate enough to be undetectable,” they conclude, “so that we can finally end these outrageously unjust laws, policies and practices against people living with HIV in all of their diversity.”

HIV Justice Network’s Supervisory Board gains new members and a new Chair

The HIV Justice Network (HJN) is delighted to announce a number of significant changes to its Supervisory Board.

Following a joint meeting of the Supervisory and Management Boards earlier this month, Kevin Moody was appointed as the new Chair of the Supervisory Board, taking over from Lisa Power who stepped down after almost four years as the “start-up” Chair.

“Like all organisations that want to survive it’s vital that HJN grows and changes to meet an ever-changing world, the changing faces of HIV and the stigma that leads to criminalisation,” said Ms Power. “I’m very confident in handing over to Kevin Moody (as Chair) that this will continue. I think the greatest challenge in the next decade is to engage and enthuse the newer generations of people with HIV and allies to continue the fight; to challenge inappropriate, unfair and often intersecting laws and those who enforce them without heed to human rights, science and common sense.”

Mr Moody, who was appointed to the Supervisory Board in September 2020, is an independent consultant working on evidence-based research, policy and programming to support the development of person-centred initiatives to improve the health and quality of life of people living with and affected by HIV. A former CEO of the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), he has previously worked with the World Health Organization and Médecins sans Frontières.

Mr Moody said he was excited to Chair the Supervisory Board as “it is an opportunity to work with incredibly talented people at HJN. I hope to support the continued development and success of HJN as it works globally to eliminate the unjust regulation, control and punishment of people living with HIV.”

In addition HJN welcomed three new members to the Supervisory Board this month, including former founding Director of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), Michaela Clayton who was elected Treasurer; George Ayala, Deputy Director of the Alameda County Public Health Department and the former Executive Director of MPact Global Action for Gay Men’s Health and Rights; and Sarai Chisala-Tempelhoff, a Malawian human rights lawyer and a legal researcher with over 15 years of experience in women’s access to justice. Australian lawyer and activist, Paul Kidd, will continue in his role as Secretary.

Ms Chisala-Tempelhoff said she ‘felt at home’ with her new role. “I am celebrating my new role serving HJN on the Supervisory Board! HIV decriminalisation has been my passion and research focus since I wrote my undergrad dissertation on this two decades ago! This role and this organisation feel like home.”

Lisa Power, as outgoing Chair, will remain on the Supervisory Board as a member without portfolio. Reflecting on her term as Chair, Ms Power said, “The great public achievement of HJN in the past few years has been the Expert Consensus Statement, but I think the most notable feature of HJN – and this is down to [Executive Director, and sole Management Board member] Edwin J Bernard’s leadership – is the universal regard for the organisation and its work in a very difficult and often fraught field, which has been a constant. All I did was give Edwin the space to create while being a sounding board for his concerns as he steered HJN from being one man with a very bright idea to a solid organisation.”

You can read more about the Supervisory Board here.