People with HIV are not walking public health threats, despite how the law treats us. We are human beings and we are far more than the virus we carry. Laws based on ignorance, fear and shaming of people with HIV are the real danger to public health.
US: HIV Medicine Association calls for repeal of HIV-specific laws
The HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has issued a strong statement urging the repeal of HIV criminalisation statutes in the United States.
The HIVMA statement, which represents physicians, scientists and other health care professionals across the United States, demands the following:
- An end to punitive laws that single out HIV infection and other STIs and that impose inappropriate penalties for alleged non-disclosure, exposure and transmission
- All state and federal policies, laws and regulations to be based on scientifically accurate information regarding HIV transmission routes and risk;
- A federal review of all federal and state laws, policies, and regulations regarding the criminal prosecution of individuals for HIV-related offences to identify harmful policies and federal action to mitigate the impact of these laws, including the repeal of these laws and policies or guidance for correcting harmful policies; and
- Promotion of public education and understanding of the stigmatising impact and negative clinical and public health consequences of criminalisation statutes and prosecutions.
The HIVMA statement is another extremely important development in the Positive Justice Project’s campaign to repeal HIV-specific criminal laws in the United States.
In March 2011, the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) – a highly-respected organisation of public health officials that administer state and territorial HIV prevention and care programmes throughout the US – issued a similar statement.
The full HIVMA statement, which can be downloaded here, is published below.
HIVMA URGES REPEAL OF HIV-SPECIFIC CRIMINAL STATUTES
(Approved: October 16, 2012)
The HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) represents physicians, scientists and other health care professionals who practice on the frontline of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIVMA strongly advocates public policies that are grounded in the science that has provided the tools and knowledge base to envision a world without AIDS.
Stigma and discrimination continue to be major impediments to the comprehensive response necessary to address the HIV public health crisis. Policies and laws that create HIV-specific crimes or that impose penalties for persons who are HIV- infected are unjust and harmful to public health around the world.
In the U.S., HIV criminalization has resulted in unacceptable human rights violations, including harsh sentencing for behaviors that pose little to no risk of HIV transmission. Thirty-two states and two U.S. territories have HIV-specific criminal statutes. Thirty-two states have arrested or prosecuted individuals with HIV infection for consensual sex, biting and spitting. These laws and prosecutions unfairly target individuals with HIV infection and are not based on the latest scientific knowledge regarding HIV transmission, including the finding that transmission risk from biting or spitting is negligible.
Individuals with HIV infection can live healthy lives and approach near normal life expectancies with access to HIV care. Early diagnosis and effective management of HIV infection not only improves clinical outcomes for infected individuals but significantly reduces their risk of transmitting the virus to others. Laws that criminalize HIV infection discourage individuals from learning their HIV status and from receiving care. In doing so, they jeopardize the lives of HIV-infected individuals and place more individuals at risk of contracting an infectious disease that remains fatal if untreated.
HIV-specific criminalization fuels the stigma associated with HIV infection that slows efforts to combat the disease. Despite the availability of highly effective treatment for HIV infection, of the 1.1 million individuals living with HIV infection in the U.S., nearly 20 percent remain undiagnosed, only 37 percent are in care and just 25 percent have undetectable levels of the virus in their blood which makes it unlikely for them to be infectious to others.
All individuals must take responsibility for protecting themselves from HIV infection and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). All persons engaging in unprotected or potentially risky sexual behavior are encouraged to discuss and disclose HIV and STI status except in situations where disclosure poses a risk of harm.
HIVMA Position:
HIVMA urges a coordinated effort to address and repeal unjust and harmful HIV criminalization statutes. We support the following:
- An end to punitive laws that single out HIV infection and other STIs and that impose inappropriate penalties for alleged nondisclosure, exposure and transmission;
All state and federal policies, laws and regulations to be based on scientifically accurate information regarding HIV transmission routes and risk;
- A federal review of all federal and state laws, policies, and regulations regarding the criminal prosecution of individuals for HIV-related offenses to identify harmful policies and federal action to mitigate the impact of these laws, including the repeal of these laws and policies or guidance for correcting harmful policies; and
- Promotion of public education and understanding of the stigmatizing impact and negative clinical and public health consequences of criminalization statutes and prosecutions.
Video: Seminar on HIV Criminalisation, Berlin, 20 September 2012 (EATG/DAH/IPPF/HIV in Europe)
This international conference on the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, potential or perceived HIV exposure and non-intentional HIV transmission took place at the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin on 20th September 2012. HIV advocates, law and human rights experts and other concerned stakeholders – including parliamentarians, prosecutors, clinicians and representatives of UNAIDS and UNDP – shared information regarding the current legal situation in Europe and Central Asia and explored ways to ensure a more appropriate, rational, fair and just response.
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetown media, for the HIV Justice Network.
Europe is second only to North America as the region with the most convictions. In recent years, some countries such as Denmark, Norway and Switzerland have started to revise their legislation. “These are encouraging signs“, says Edwin Bernard, project leader of the seminar, co-ordinator of the international HIV Justice Network and a member of the European AIDS Treatment Group. “In contrast, we are very concerned about developments in countries like Romania, which recently enacted an HIV-specific criminal law, or in Belgium, where new legal precedents were created allowing prosecutions for the first time. We are also hearing news about absurd and problematic trials for perceived HIV exposure in Austria. The conference was designed to help advocates move forward in these particularly repressive countries.”
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Professor Matthew Weait presents his initial analysis of advocacy against HIV criminalisation in Scandinavian and Nordic countries |
The conference took place on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG). The meeting was co-organised with Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (DAH), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and HIV in Europe, a multi-stakeholder initiative exchange on activities to improve early diagnosis and earlier care of HIV across Europe.
- Watch the video on the HIV Justice Network Vimeo site here.
- Download the agenda here.
- Download the concept note here.
- The meeting report is available here.
US: Public health experts and politicians support advocacy to modernise Iowa’s HIV law
Activism to modernise the unscientific, unjust and stigmatising HIV-specific criminal statute in Iowa is heating up. Last month, the Iowa HIV Community Planning Group voted to support advocacy efforts to have HIV treated like other similar conditions and threats to public health. To accomplish this, they have called for the repeal of Iowa’s HIV criminalisation statute.
Next Monday, October 15th in the state capital, Des Moines, there will be another of a series of planned CHAIN/Sero Project community forums highlighting these efforts. All Iowa legislators within a 30 mile radius of Des Moines have been invited and Iowa Senator Matt McCoy (Democrat), who earlier this year introduced a bill to repeal and modernise the law, will be in attendance. Although the bill didn’t make it out of subcommittee, he plans to reintroduce another in the legislative session that begins in January.
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HIV is not a crime: Monday 15 Oct, 6:30pm at the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines,1800 Bell Ave, Des Moines, Iowa. |
Globegazzette.com covered the last community forum, held in Mason City in September, in their story, ‘Groups call for revising HIV disclosure statute.’
The state of Iowa currently has one of the strictest HIV laws in the nation, making the lack of disclosure a Class B felony, punishable by up to 25 years in prison and a lifetime of sex offender status.
The statute makes no exception for lack of transmission of the HIV virus, nor does it take into account the fact that a person infected with HIV is taking the prescribed medication and has very little or no chance of passing it on.
Gay rights groups and others, including the Iowa Department of Public Health, are calling for modernization of the 1998 statute to focus penalties only on intentional or documented transmission of the HIV virus.
They say Iowa’s law is having the unintended effect of discouraging individuals from undergoing HIV testing and from obtaining access to medications that could save their lives and the lives of everyone with whom they may have intimate contact.
Iowa, which has a relatively low HIV incidence rate, ranks second in the nation in prosecutions for nondisclosure.
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Pictured Left to Right: Iowa State Representative Sharon Steckman and State Senator Amanda Ragan, CHAIN community organizer and Sero Advisory Board Member, Tami Haught leading Iowa’s campaign to modernize the HIV criminalization law and Sero Advisory Board Member and Activist, Nick Rhoades at a community forum in Mason City on Iowa’s HIV Criminalization Law on Monday, September 10, 2012. (Picture courtesy of The Sero Project) |
Reproduced below is the press release from CHAIN (Community HIV/Hepatitis Advocates of Iowa Network) announcing the Iowa HIV Community Planning Group vote and providing background to their advocacy.
HIV Community Planning Group Supports Repeal of Iowa HIV Criminlization Statute
Des Moines, September 25, 2012
In an historic move, the Iowa HIV Community Planning Group has voted to support advocacy efforts to have HIV treated like other similar conditions and threats to public health. To accomplish this, they have called for the repeal of Iowa’s HIV criminalization statute.
Iowa, like most states, has a law that prohibits intentional transmission of communicable diseases. This statute, Iowa Code 139A.20 is part of public health code. HIV, however, is covered by a separate criminal code, Iowa Code 709C, which makes exposing someone to HIV without their consent a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Repeal of 709C would allow HIV to be covered by the same public health code that governs other infectious diseases.
The National HIV/AIDS Strategy and the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors has called for review of HIV criminalization statutes to bring them in line with contemporary science and knowledge about the real routes, risks, and consequences of HIV transmission. The Iowa Department of Public Health has echoed the call for review of the statute. In a letter to the editor of The Des Moines Register on July 29, Randy Mayer, Chief of the Bureau of HIV, STD, and Hepatitis, asked that HIV be treated in the same way as other serious infectious diseases.
“Testing and treatment are our best tools for fighting the epidemic in Iowa Research has now demonstrated that the statutes haven’t had the intended effect of promoting disclosure. We believe that our public health efforts will be more successful without having to fight the stigma that these statutes can create,” said Mayer.
“Having the prestige and expertise of the HIV Community Planning Group working to repeal Iowa’s criminalization statute is vitally important,” said Tami Haught, an HIV+ Nashua resident who is coordinating CHAIN’s statewide campaign to reform the Iowa statute. “The members of the CPG include some of the best-informed and most respected public health professionals and community advocates combating HIV We believe their recognition that the criminalization statute is hurting the public health will be persuasive with legislators.”
Iowa’s statute 709C imposes harsh penalties on persons with HIV who cannot prove they disclosed their HIV status in advance to sex partners. About 25 Iowans with HIV have been charged to date, with some convictions resulting in lengthy sentencing and lifetime sex offender registration requirements, even though HIV was not transmitted and there was little or no risk of it being transmitted.
The statute has been criticized by public health officials, legal experts, and patient advocates in Iowa and across the country as counter-productive, discriminatory, and contributing to further stigmatization of people with HIV. About 36 U.S. states and territories have HIV-specific criminal statutes Originally intended to slow HIV transmission, these laws were typically passed years ago when much less was known about HIV transmission A growing body of research shows how these statutes drive stigma, discourage testing, and are making the epidemic worse.
“HIV criminalization discourages people from getting tested—you can’t be prosecuted if you don’t know your HIV status—yet we know that most new infections are transmitted by people who have not yet gotten tested,” said Jordan Selha, co-chair of Iowa’s Community Planning Group “It’s time we treat HIV like other communicable diseases and use public health science rather than criminal law to guide our approaches to prevention No other disease is singled out as a criminal threat in this way.”
CHAIN has coordinated a statewide campaign to educate and mobilize communities to lobby lawmakers to review the statute when the legislature goes into session in January 2013. They have held community forums in Mason City and Ames.
You can help efforts to repeal the statute by contacting your state legislators and the governor’s office and asking that Iowa Code 709C be repealed. CHAIN will be holding an educational forum on October 15th at the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines and at Simpson College in Indianola on January 16, 2013.
The HIV Community Planning Group promotes, through an ongoing participatory process, effective HIV programming in Iowa in order to reduce the spread of HIV and to provide access to services for those infected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mandated community planning for HIV prevention in 1993. The process is designed to create a collaborative effort between public health and the communities they serve.
CHAIN is very excited to have the support of the Iowa HIV Community Planning Group. To join CHAIN’s listserve or get involved with CHAIN and the education and mobilization campaign, contact tami.haught2012(at)gmail.com, or follow CHAIN on Facebook.
AIDS groups go after Ontario attorney general
A coalition of Ontario HIV/AIDS groups has launched a new phase of their campaign to compel the province’s Attorney General to stop prosecuting HIV-positive Ontarians for non-disclosure.
Overcoming HIV criminalisation together! (Press release)
This is an unofficial English translation of the press release: Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe: Overcoming HIV criminalisation together!
Berlin – An international conference on the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, potential or perceived HIV exposure and non-intentional HIV transmission will take place at the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin on 20th September. Well-known activists and experts – including from UNAIDS, the HIV/AIDS programme of the United Nations – will share the current legal situation in Europe and Central Asia, network with each other, and explore ways to ensure a more appropriate, rational, fair and just response to the issue.
Experts agree that the criminalisation of non-intentional HIV transmission, and sexual behaviour that risks HIV exposure or transmission, contributes to the spread of HIV. Even where people with HIV are legally obligated to disclose their HIV status prior to sexual encounters, this does not help to prevent infection, but harms HIV prevention.
Carsten Schatz, member of the Board of Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe, therefore argues that:
“Criminalisation runs against successful communication on prevention in Germany – that every person ought to be responsible for protecting themselves from HIV infection. The criminal law offender-victim logic is not suited to consensual sexual encounters. To place the entire responsibility for HIV prevention on the shoulders of persons with HIV contributes to their stigmatisation. Recent judgments and media reporting brand people with HIV as potential offenders. HIV criminalisation fosters fear and thereby jeopardises exactly what it is supposed to bring about: open communication about HIV prevention. It can also discourage people from seeking an HIV test since only those aware of their status can be prosecuted. Those who wish to limit new HIV infections to a minimum, should ensure that criminal law stays out of the matter.”
Morever, again and again, people are being prosecuted and punished despite there being no significiant risk of HIV transmission. Effective HIV treatment is now considered as reliable against HIV transmission as a condom. However, such scientific advances are rarely heard or regognised in German courts. In Germany, people with HIV, in line with established case law, have a duty to ensure the protection of the partner or to inform them about their HIV status.
Europe is second only to North America as the region with the most convictions. In recent years, some countries such as Denmark, Norway and Switzerland have started to revise their legislation.
“These are encouraging signs“, says Edwin Bernard, project leader of the seminar and co-ordinator of the international HIV Justice Network and a member of the European AIDS Treatment Group. “In contrast, we are very concerned about developments in countries like Romania, which recently enacted an HIV-specific criminal law, or in Belgium, where new legal precedents were created allowing prosecutions for the first time. We are also hearing news about absurd and problematic trials for perceived HIV exposure in Austria. The conference is designed to help advocates move forward in these particularly repressive countries.”
The conference is taking place on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the European AIDS-Treatment Group (EATG). The meeting is co-organised with Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe (DAH), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), and HIV in Europe, a multi-stakerholders initiative exchange on activities to improve early diagnosis and earlier care of HIV across Europe.
The seminar will take place in English. Representative of the media may attend all three plenary sessions as well as workshop two about the legal situation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This workshop will take place in German.
Download the agenda and concept note (in English).
Groups call for revising HIV disclosure statute
MASON CITY – Nick Rhoades served time in prison, including six weeks in solitary confinement, lost many of his privacy rights and must register as a sex offender for life. His crime: not disclosing to a partner with whom he was intimate that he was HIV-positive. “Does the punishment fit the harm done?”
Canada: Ontario attorney general snubs HIV group
A letter from a top government official confirms that Ontario has halted discussions with a coalition fighting to reduce the use of criminal law in HIV-nondisclosure cases. The letter, from Mark Leach, acting deputy attorney general, to the Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure (CLHE), says that the province will wait until the Supreme Court of Canada releases its decision in R v Mabior before resuming work with the group.
HIV prosecutions: global ranking (AIDS 2012)
Presented by Edwin J Bernard at 19th International AIDS Conference, Washington DC, July 22-27, 2012.
Video produced by Nicholas Feustel, georgetownmedia.de, for the HIV Justice Network
Introduction by Susan Timberlake [00:00]
Introduction by Laurel Sprague [01:54]
Start of Edwin J Bernard’s presentation [03:33]
Slide 01: Overview [04:40]
Slide 02: Global Commission on HIV and the Law [05:19]
Slide 03: Case Study: Take a Test, Risk Arrest [05:21]
Slide 04: Global Overview of Laws and Prosecutions [08:29]
Slide 05: Law Enforcement: Top 30 Jurisdictions [09:47]
Slide 06: Law Enforcement Hot Spots [10:58]
Slide 07: Top 15 Global HIV Criminalization Hot Spots [11:19]
Slide 08: Focus On Africa [12:09]
Slide 09: Focus On Africa: Positive Developments [13:08]
Slide 10: Focus On Europe and Central Asia [14:10]
Slide 11: Focus On Europe and Central Africa: Positive Developments [15:18]
Slide 12: Oslo Declaration on HIV Criminalisation [17:45]
Updated abstract based on final data
Criminal prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission: overview and updated global ranking
E.J. Bernard (HIV Justice Network, Berlin, Germany/ Criminal HIV Transmission (blog), Brighton, UK)
M. Nyambe (Global Network of People Living with HIV, GNP+, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Background: Many jurisdictions continue to inappropriately prosecute people living with HIV (PLHIV) for non-disclosure of HIV-positive status, alleged exposure and non-intentional transmission. Although most HIV-related criminal cases are framed by prosecutors and the media as being cases of ´deliberate´ HIV transmission, the vast majority have involved neither malicious intent nor has transmission actually occurred or the route of transmission been adequately proven.
Methods: This global overview of HIV-related criminal laws and prosecutions is based on latest data from GNP+ Global Criminalisation Scan and media reports collated on criminalhivtransmission.blogspot.com. Final ranking will be based on the total number of prosecutions by July 1 2012 per 1000 PLHIV.
Results: At least 66 countries have HIV-specific criminal laws and at least 47 countries have used HIV-specific (n=20) or general laws to prosecute HIV non-disclosure, exposure or transmission. Despite growing national and international advocacy, prosecutions have not diminished, particularly in high-income countries, with the greatest numbers in North America. Since 2010, prosecutions have taken place in Belgium and Republic of Congo for the first time. In 2011, although HIV-specific laws were suspended in Denmark and rejected in Guyana, Romania passed a new HIV-specific criminal statute. In Africa, the continent with the most HIV-specific criminal laws but with few known prosecutions, Guinea, Togo and Senegal have revised their existing HIV-related legislation or adopted new legislation in line with UNAIDS guidance.
Conclusions: Given the lack or inadequacy of systems to track HIV-related prosecutions in most places, it is not possible to determine the actual number of prosecutions for every country in the world. These data should be considered illustrative of a more widespread, but generally undocumented, use of criminal law against people with HIV. Improved monitoring of laws, law enforcement, and access to justice is still required to fully understand impact on HIV response and PLHIV.
HIV Criminalization – An Epidemic Of Ignorance? Press Conference at AIDS 2012 (Press Release)
For Immediate Release
****MEDIA ADVISORY****
Press Conference: 10am, Wednesday 25th July, Press Conference Room 2
HIV Criminalization – An Epidemic Of Ignorance?
Laws and prosecutions that single out people with living with HIV are ineffective, counterproductive and unjust.
As delegates from around the world meet this week in Washington DC at AIDS 2012 to discuss how to “end AIDS” through the application of the latest scientific advances, laws and policies based on stigma and ignorance are not only creating major barriers to prevention, testing, care and treatment, but also seriously violating the human rights of people living with HIV.
This is especially true in the United States, where 36 states and 2 territories have HIV-specific criminal statutes that single out people living with HIV as potential criminals. However, this growing epidemic of bad laws and prosecutions is a global problem that requires an internationally co-ordinated and concerted effort to overcome.
Come meet people living with HIV who have been involved in both sides of a prosecution as well as some of the experts and advocates who are part of a growing global movement, supported by UNAIDS and the UNDP-led Global Commission on HIV and the Law, working to ensure that the application of criminal laws, if any, to people living with HIV is fair, consistent, restrained, proportionate and appropriate, and serves justice without jeopardising public health objectives and fundamental human rights.
As well as two very personal stories that embody just how HIV criminalization is fundamentally wrong-headed and unjust, presentations will include:
· New data on the Top 15 global HIV criminalization hot-spots
· Preliminary results of SERO criminalization survey highlighting the devastating impact of HIV criminalization in the United States
· The Positive Justice Project’s consensus statement and the latest information on Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act
Hosted by (in alphabetical order):
· Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), Netherlands
· HIV Justice Network, United Kingdom/Germany
· INA (Maori, Indigenous & South Pacific) HIV/AIDS Foundation, New Zealand
· The SERO Project, United States
· Terrence Higgins Trust, United Kingdom
· UNAIDS, Switzerland
Chaired by Paul de Lay, Deputy Executive Director, UNAIDS, Switzerland, speakers will include:
· Nick Rhoades, HIV criminalization survivor, United States
· Marama Pala, former complainant, New Zealand
· Edwin J Bernard, Co-ordinator, HIV Justice Network, and Consultant, GNP+ Global Criminalisation Scan
· Laurel Sprague, Research Director – SERO, United States
· Lisa Fager Bediako, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation/ Positive Justice Project, United States.
A question and answer session will follow. The press conference will end at 10.45am.
To arrange interviews with any of the speakers please contact Edwin J Bernard via email or mobile.
Media Contact
Edwin J Bernard, Co-ordinator, HIV Justice Network
Mobile: +1.347.681.8411
Email: edwin(at)hivjustice.net