2023 in review: A delicate balance

A DELICATE BALANCE

Working to end punitive laws and policies that impact people living with HIV is never easy, but this year has been especially hard, as we fought to maintain that delicate balance between moving forward in our advocacy and preventing the erosion of our previous gains fuelled by the anti-rights movement and the growth of right-wing populism.

For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we saw an increase in the number of reported HIV-related prosecutions: 86 cases in 18 countries. This compares with 49 cases in 16 countries last year and 54 cases in 20 countries in 2021. This year, as in previous years, the highest number of case reports come from the EECA region (Uzbekistan and Russia), followed by the United States (10 cases – a significant decrease) and the United Kingdom (5 cases – a worrying increase).

It is possible that we were seeing more case reports because there were actually more cases, but we must always consider these reported cases to be illustrative of what is likely to be a far more widespread, poorly documented use of criminal law against people living with HIV.

Although many people arrested or prosecuted were heterosexual men, we also saw a range of intersectional identities impacted by HIV criminalisation – particularly sex workers who may also have been transgender and/or people of colour and/or with a migration background.  It is clear that a convergence of multiple levels of criminalisation, discrimination and other vulnerabilities leads to over-policing of the bodies and behaviours of people living with HIV.

LATIN AMERICA

Some of the most exciting and promising developments in 2023 came from Latin America. In June, Belize repealed its HIV-specific criminal law, enacted in 2001 but never applied, primarily to enable the country to be certified as having eliminated vertical transmission. And in August, Costa Rica’s People Living with HIV organisation pushed back against a parliamentarian’s proposal to reinstate an HIV criminalisation law.

It’s also clear that sustained advocacy by civil society in Mexico – which began in earnest when the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE coalition supported the creation of the Mexican network in 2017 – is really making a difference. In March, the state of Nayarit repealed its infectious disease law that had mostly applied to people with HIV. The district of Mexico City is on its way to repeal a similar law. And another Mexican state, Baja California Sur, modernised the wording of the same law to attempt to destigmatise it, by removing the concept that communicable diseases are only prosecutable if sexually transmitted.

In November, a proposal for a new HIV criminalisation law in the state of Puebla was withdrawn following criticisms from HIV and human rights organisations, and a month later there are now proposals to reform the existing law. And civil society pressure to remove the federal HIV criminalisation law on constitutional grounds may have led to Mexico’s first trans congresswomen advocating for the repeal of the law in parliament. Given Mexico’s rights-based approach to SRHR – the country decriminalised abortion earlier this year – at least one of these repeal pathways are likely to succeed next year.

NORTH AMERICA

In the United States, we continued to see a marked reduction in the number of cases as the movement to repeal or modernise HIV criminalisation laws continued to grow due to ongoing, sustained advocacy by networks of people living with HIV with support from philanthropic funders as well as federal and state political leaders and public health institutions. Although, no states fully repealed their HIV-specific laws in 2023, and law reform proposals in Indiana, Minnesota, and North Dakota failed to pass, there were some important victories in Tennessee. Here, both law reform and strategic litigation bore fruit, the former by removing mandatory sex offender registration for those convicted under the HIV law, and the latter resulting in a ruling that Tennessee’s ‘aggravated prostitution’ statute violated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Canada – another former global HIV criminalisation leader – continued to report fewer cases, with just one new reported case in 2023. As in the United States, this is the result of many years of sustained advocacy, although the federal government has still not responded formally to its 2022 public consultation on substantially reforming its approach to HIV criminalisation. The Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization, led by HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE coalition partner, the HIV Legal Network, issued a strong statement on World AIDS Day calling for action.

AFRICA

Unlike previous years, the only country on the African continent with reported new HIV criminalisation cases in 2023 was Kenya, where lawmakers are still planning to follow Uganda in enacting even more criminalisation aimed at LGBTI people – as are Botswana, Ghana, and Niger. Following the December 2022 dismissal of the constitutional challenge to Kenya’s HIV-specific provisions in the Sexual Offences Act, there are plans to appeal and to continue to lobby for change.

Strategic litigation led by KELIN was ultimately successful in establishing that women living with HIV possess the inherent right to make informed choices regarding their reproductive decisions following a nine-year process, so sustained advocacy – and patience – may be required. Patience may also be needed in South Africa where long-awaited sex work decriminalisation was further postponed, although parliament did agree to clear COVID lockdown criminal records. Elsewhere, another positive development in the region was the repeal of Mauritius’ colonial-era sodomy law which means that the number of nations with laws against gay sex has now fallen to 66.

EASTERN EUROPE / CENTRAL ASIA

People living with HIV in the EECA region continue to face multiple challenges. In just the first six months of 2023, there were 20 cases of alleged “intentional HIV transmission” to sexual partners in Uzbekistan’s Tashkent region – the highest HIV criminalisation case count anywhere in the world. The majority of those prosecuted appeared to be women. This comes as no surprise given that an analysis of cases and laws across the ECCA region by our HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE partners, the Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS (EWNA), found that women living with HIV bear the brunt of the “legalised stigma” of HIV criminalisation in the region.

One of the main reasons for the high number of cases in the EECA region is the integration of HIV criminalisation within healthcare policies: newly diagnosed individuals are made to sign a paper acknowledging their legal liability for HIV prevention often without receiving adequate or meaningful counselling or support. In Russia – where the second highest number of cases were reported – a study found that most HIV clinicians support HIV criminalisation, and in Kazakhstan it was revealed that 1-in-1000 people newly diagnosed with HIV in 2022 filed a police report blaming someone else for their infection.

The legal environment for people living with HIV in Russia continues to worsen, as it does for all its citizens, especially LGBTI people – with trans women sex worker migrants facing the brunt of the Russia’s anti-LGBT “propaganda” law. And in Tajikistan, homophobic and HIV-phobic law enforcement practices resulted in ten gay men being arrested Dushanbe on suspicion of “infecting 86 people with HIV.” The only positive news for the region came from Ukraine, where a new protective HIV law was adopted earlier this year, although criminal liability for HIV exposure or transmission remains a possibility.

WESTERN EUROPE

December saw two contrasting developments in Western Europe. Just as Ireland’s Supreme Court overturned the country’s first-ever sexual HIV criminalisation case  – partially based on now well-established limitations of scientific evidence being able to prove who infected whom – a lower court in Latvia convicted someone of alleged HIV transmission for the first time.

And although in the United Kingdom, a long-awaited update to the Crown Prosecution Service’s guidance now unequivocally states that an undetectable viral load stops HIV transmission, five HIV criminalisation cases still took place, along with a highly publicised civil case. Per capita, this meant that in 2023 the UK had a five-fold incidence of reported HIV criminalisation cases compared to the United States!

ASIA PACIFIC

Singapore continues to lead the Asia Pacific region with four reported HIV criminalisation cases in 2023: one for blood donation, two for biting, and one involving a transgender sex worker for alleged HIV exposure. Although South Korea’s constitutional court ended up declaring most of its HIV criminalisation provisions constitutional, their recognition that U=U suggests the law may evolve to recognise up-to-date science.

Although ending HIV criminalisation cannot rely on science alone, it can help limit unjust prosecutions while we work to end the HIV-related stigma, discrimination and structural inequalities that drive criminalisation.

BRINGING SCIENCE TO JUSTICE

This year, we celebrated five years since the publication of the ‘Expert Consensus Statement on the Science of HIV in the Context of Criminal Law’ with our ‘Five-Year Impact Report’ and an HIV Justice Live! webshow focused on bringing science to justice. Both proved that the Expert Consensus Statement remains relevant, accurate and extremely useful.

Given this delicate balance between moving forward and preventing the erosion of hard-won rights there is still so much more to do to reach the global target of fewer than 10% of countries with punitive laws and policies that negatively impact the HIV response.

LET COMMUNITIES LEAD

To ensure that communities continue to lead, and to further enable the building of an intersectional movement to end punitive laws and policies that impact people living with HIV in all diversity, we made our online platform for e-learning and training, the HIV Justice Academy, more widely available in Spanish and Russian, to complement our English and French versions.

In 2023, the HIV Justice Academy was visited by several thousand learners from 110 countries. We were thrilled to learn that graduates of our flagship HIV Criminalisation Online Course told us that they really benefitted from the course, finding it relevant, interesting, and engaging.

RENEWED FOCUS FOR 2024

We will begin 2024 with a renewed focus to achieving HIV justice as we continue to:

  • build the evidence base by gathering relevant data and information from around the world. 
  • raise awareness across multiple platforms and communities of the harms of HIV criminalisation. 
  • create, collate, and disseminate advocacy tools and resources to foster more effective responses to damaging laws, policies, and media narratives; and
  • bring individuals and national, regional, and global networks and organisations together, as part of the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE coalition, to catalyse change.

Announcing Living 2024:
The People Living with HIV Pre-conference at AIDS2024!

As we commemorate World AIDS Day, a coalition that so far includes: the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW), the Global Network of Young People Living with HIV (Y+ Global), the HIV Justice Network (HJN), AIDS Action Europe (AAE), and the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) are delighted to announce our plans to host the People Living with HIV Pre-conference at AIDS2024.

Living 2024 is planned for 20th and 21st July 2024 ahead of the AIDS2024 conference in Munich. 
 
Looking back to 1983, when the very first gathering of people living with HIV developed the Denver Principles, setting the path to the greater involvement, engagement and leadership of people living with HIV in the AIDS response, we are committed to sustain that legacy and make Living 2024 a platform for people living with HIV and our close allies and partners to connect, and strengthen global solidarity for community leadership in the AIDS response. 
 
Living 2024 will be organised under the theme, ‘‘Communities leading: advancing health, dignity, equity”.
 
This is the first time since 2016 that the global community of people living with HIV in all our diversities will meet in person to reflect on the multiple socio-political challenges faced by people living with HIV that continue to limit the civic space needed for our advocacy, as well as the inequalities that fuel stigma, discrimination and criminalisation.

We plan to build power together and identify opportunities to strengthen access to affordable and optimised treatment and diagnostics including for addressing the unique challenges of ageing with HIV.

Living 2024, is also an opportunity for people living with HIV and affected communities to come together to reflect, re-imagine and define the future of the HIV movement, as well as  our place within the broader global health and development platforms in shaping the HIV sustainability plans beyond 2030. 
 
The organisers of Living 2024 call on countries and decision-makers to refocus, recommit, and ensure that communities lead. AIDS isn’t over, our lives and dignity are still under threat, and stigma, discrimination and criminalisation still prevent us from fully benefiting from the remarkable progress of HIV science. 
 
As we prepare for this crucial convening, we invite other networks, communities, partners, and potential funders to join us in making this event successful and historic. In the coming weeks, we will share more details. For any inquiries please reach out to us on email: living2024@gnpplus.net

Download this press release as a pdf

EECA Judges’ Forum on HIV, Human Rights and the Law meet to discuss challenges presented by punitive laws

Judges from Eastern Europe and Central Asia gather in Moldova to discuss the region’s pressing issues around health, HIV, human rights and the law

The Eastern European and Central Asian Judges’ Forum on HIV, Human Rights and the Law – an independent body of judges from the region yearly convened by UNDP – starts their two-day meeting on 27 November 2023 in Chișinău, Moldova, to discuss challenges that punitive laws present to the full realization of the rights of people living with and affected by HIV.

The Forum, started in Moldova five years ago, returns this year to address challenges that remain in the region, as well as to highlight the progress made by countries like Moldova in addressing them.

“The Ministry of Justice is taking all measures to bring criminal policy in line with European standards, ensuring human rights is a priority. To this end, sanctions have been adjusted in criminal law with the aim of humanizing and clearly distinguishing cases of drug use from drug dealing. In addition, it is proposed to diversify the penalties in order to promote alternatives to imprisonment. Improving the human rights protection system remains a priority for the Ministry of Justice, and each of us understands that we must apply a proactive policy in the area of combating drug use, enhancing the role of the judiciary in ensuring the rights of this category of people are reconceptualized,” noted Veronica Mihailov-Moraru, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Moldova.

“At the core of our discussions during the Forum are real people – individuals whose lives and rights depend on the decisions made within the walls of courtrooms. It is our responsibility to protect these rights, to champion the cause of justice, and to ensure that no one is left behind in our fight against HIV,” said Andrea Cuzyova, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative to the Republic of Moldova.

The Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) region is among three in the world where HIV infections and deaths are still on the rise. Fifteen countries in the region still criminalize HIV transmission, and many others, in law or practice, restrict access to life-saving services for key populations. People who use drugs are still the most impacted by HIV in the region; rigid drug policies often drive people away from vital health services. This exacerbates the HIV epidemic and facilitates high incarceration rates, contributing to a burgeoning tuberculosis epidemic and other health and social challenges for individuals upon release.

Prior to the war in Ukraine, labor migration has been a significant driver of HIV and TB epidemics in the EECA region, and currently internally displaced persons and migrants have limited access to vital health services, including HIV and tuberculosis, and legal support. HIV decriminalization and pro-active drug policy reforms are long overdue in the region.

“We now have evidence that countries with more enabling societal and legal environments where punitive policies are replaced with those that put people and health at the center and protect rights to non-discrimination are associated with bigger declines in HIV incidence,” said Vera Ilyenkova, Adviser, Key populations & Communities engagement in UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. UNAIDS report this year focused on the opportunities that countries can take for legal reform and innovation to stem HIV epidemics.

“A large number of incarcerated people across the Eastern European and Central Asian region are serving prison terms for drug related offenses, in many cases simple possession with no harm to others. It is time to reflect on whether this is an effective measure, whether it is the right public investment, whether it is justified and proportionate. I invite all participants to the Judges forum to consider that the answer to these questions is NO and that drug policies in the region should undergo significant reforms” said Prof. Michel Kazatchkine, Special Advisor to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe)

The role of judges in addressing health and other social issues is critical. The justice system can either impede or facilitate social and public health efforts to provide equitable health care, thus ultimately contributing to the achievement of universal health coverage. In addition, an independent, impartial, accountable and professional judicial system, as well as the protection of fundamental rights, is increasingly a topic of discussion in the region, where some countries are candidates for EU accession.

“Our region is presented with many challenges and as judges we are also impacted. The choice is ours – not to pay attention to the issues or to ask hard questions and to apply the law with the view of protections of human rights, so that no one is left behind,” said Sharof Alanazarzoda, Judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tajikistan and member of the Forum Steering Committee.

The two-day forum includes judges from Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Moldova; high-level officials from Moldova, Eastern and Central European and Central Asian Commission on Drug Policy; development partners and civil society leadership from the region and from Moldova. Topics addressed will include HIV decriminalization, EU integration, drug policy reform, migration and fostering collaboration between civil society, UN, and the judiciary in achieving high-level targets on HIV elimination.

What do our HIV Justice Academy graduates think of the HIV Criminalisation Online Course?

The HIV Criminalisation Online Course is the centrepiece of our free online learning hub, the HIV Justice Academy, which launched just over a year ago.

More than 500 HIV justice advocates from around the world have since enrolled in the HIV Criminalisation Online Course. Those who have completed the course – and told us their thoughts in the end-of-course survey – are extremely positive about the experience, finding it relevant, interesting, and engaging. They especially liked the video content and personal testimonies which they tell us brought the issues to life. And we heard from both beginners and experts alike that the course was pitched right for them – no mean feat!

“Although I have been working on HIV discrimination for years, it was spectacular to refresh the memory,” wrote one. “The course met my expectations fully…now I really feel strongly equipped to continue doing my community work,” said another. “The course took a holistic approach to explaining HIV criminalisation. It lends legal, scientific, and social perspective, it also went further to touching on how I could be an advocate,” said a third.

 

One recent Academy graduate is HIV advocate and HIV criminalisation survivor, Lashanda Salinas, from the US state of Tennessee. She told us that the HIV Criminalisation Online Course “helped me learn things that I didn’t know, including how people are criminalised in other countries.” She also tells us that she found the course’s comprehensive Glossary and the Academy’s Resource Library “amazing and helpful”.

Like all the advocacy tools and resources contained within the HIV Justice Academy, the HIV Criminalisation Online Course is free to all, and available in English, French, Russian and Spanish.

The course can be done at your own pace, and you will receive a certificate of completion once you have passed the end-of-course test. 

We’re delighted that Lashanda and all the other graduates of the HIV Justice Academy’s HIV Criminalisation Online Course have learned new information and gained new skills as we work together to achieve HIV justice.

Do you know someone who might benefit from the HIV Criminalisation Online Course, or the other resources in the HIV Justice Academy – our Action Toolkits and Resource Library? Why not share this link with them today: academy.hivjustice.net

The unseen consequences of HIV criminalisation and its impact on marginalized communities

How civil commitment can ensnare people prosecuted under HIV criminalization

By
Robert Suttle

TheBody recently published, “We Keep Ignoring HIV Criminalization,” an article that addressed the lack of attention given to HIV criminalization laws.

These laws criminalize people living with HIV for a range of actions―such as having sex without first disclosing their serostatus―often, even when they are virally suppressed and therefore incapable of transmitting the virus. As is always the case, ignorance of the law is no defense against it.

In some states, HIV criminalization laws punish people living with HIV for biting or spitting even though, once again, these acts cannot transmit the virus. But losing one’s freedom under these laws doesn’t stop at simple prosecution. In some states, people prosecuted under these laws are required to register on state sex-offender registries, even when no sexual assault has taken place.

It should be noted that prosecuting and equating people living with HIV with rapists and other violent sexual assailants does nothing to decrease HIV transmissions. Rather, as “We Keep Ignoring HIV Criminalization” notes, these harsh measures promulgate stigma, possibly discourage people from getting tested, and place targets on the foreheads of anyone living with the virus.

Beyond this, part of what makes HIV criminalization laws so insidious is that they have additional components to them that can destroy a person’s life in ways that few people are aware of—until they’ve been prosecuted and deemed a “sexually dangerous person” by the state. This is called civil commitment and can keep a person imprisoned indefinitely without the basis of a new offense.

To help shed light on this shadowy form of incarceration and what can happen to people who have been prosecuted for HIV criminalization, TheBody spoke with two members of the Center for HIV Law and Policy: staff attorney Kae Greenberg (pronouns he/him), and policy and advocacy manager Amir Sadeghi (pronouns he/him).

Robert Suttle: The Prison Policy Initiative recently published, “What Is Civil Commitment?” Can you speak about how it can be applied to HIV criminalization, especially when sex offense has been included in the prosecution?

Amir Sadeghi: I’m so glad we’re talking about this. People across the country have been wrestling with this because 20 states have these laws in place. Civil commitment is a system of civil laws that detain people convicted of certain sex offenses long after serving their criminal sentences. This kind of state custody and detention happens on top of somebody’s criminal sentence.

Suttle: So basically an added punishment after one has “repaid their debt to society.” Some people might look at this and celebrate. How do you talk about this with people who are opposed to eliminating these laws?

Sadeghi: I think about questions that people usually ask prison abolitionists: What are you going to do about sexual violence? What are you going to do about these really hard cases?

I think the most important thing I want to foreground in discussions about sex offense civil commitment is that I don’t downplay the harm of sexual violence. It’s a deeply personal and real thing that happens in our society.

However, it is unclear that detaining people with very little due process has any measurable or meaningful impact on reducing gender-based violence and sexual violence. And actually, there’s been a huge mobilization of survivor-led movements and organizations who have begun to condemn harsh responses that happen in their name. For instance: sex-offense civil commitment, sex-offense registries, detention, and state violence.

I think that the history of laws that punish people long after their criminal sentence via sex-offense civil commitment [comes from] highly publicized cases about sexual violence [and has] motivated politicians and the public to react very strongly against these cases. It has created a very draconian system of facilities that many advocates and people who’ve been in sex-offense civil commitment themselves call shadow prisons.

Kae Greenberg: I want to clarify something about people serving or being punished long after their crimes. People are incarcerated because they have been convicted or have pleaded guilty to a crime. But they are in civil commitment because they have been deemed a potential [risk] of reoffending in some way or incapable of controlling themselves. It’s essentially some dystopian RoboCop or Judge Dredd situation where they’re trying to predict whether or not you will potentially commit a future serious crime and, therefore, lock you away from society just in case.

When we talk about the minimal protections in the criminal justice system, like the standard of proof or reasonable doubt, we know that’s a very high standard, hypothetically. Something that would stop you or cause you to make an important life decision. Civil commitment is a much lower standard of proof; it’s just beyond 50%. We only know a little about what happens in these hearings because they are not open to the public.

What’s used is the speculation of mental health practitioners, and I’m not trying to disparage the mental health community. I’m a big proponent of mental health practitioners, but we’re talking about having someone confined indefinitely for something they “might do.” There is potentially no end to this. It’s until [the state] decides that you’re done.

Suttle: Let’s address the elephant in the room: Nushawn Williams. Where do things stand with his ongoing detainment related to the civil commitment in New York?

Sadeghi: Many people know that the Center for HIV Law and Policy (CHLP) has filed amicus briefs supporting Nushawn Williams in the past. We are a proud member of the Free Nushawn Coalition, which was founded by Brian C. Jones and Davina Connor, who I think a lot of HIV activists know warmly and lovingly.

The New York State Department of Health cooperated with prosecutors in the case to criminalize Nushawn Williams. Why did they do this? Because his HIV status and race were weaponized against him. Newspapers called Nushawn an AIDS monster, an AIDS predator. Then-Mayor [of New York City] Rudy Giuliani said he wanted Nushawn Williams tried for, quote, “attempted murder or worse.” There was a horrific stigmatizing frenzy to lock him up and throw away the key.

Nushawn pled guilty in 1999 to statutory rape and reckless endangerment and served his maximum criminal sentence relating to that plea agreement. But in 2010, his release from Wende Correctional Facility in upstate New York was blocked by then–Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who filed an Article 10 Mental Hygiene Law petition to have Nushawn civilly committed. I think the frenzy and racist spectacle that was made to paint Nushawn as a monster makes it clear that his HIV status and race are major factors in what the state decided to do.

Editor’s note: An example of this spectacle is that two corrections officers reported that Williams “stated that he intended to continue that behavior [sex without sharing his HIV status] upon his release, specifically referencing underage girls”―an absurd and unlikely contention when one considers that such a statement would expose him to undue scrutiny as well as the very punitive treatment he is currently experiencing. In its explanation for why Williams is still detained, the state lists his prior substance use, sexual offenses, prison record prior to 2006, and his “failure to complete sex offender treatment,” without detailing what completion entails. Taken as a whole, it is clear that the state unfairly views Williams as the person he was when he entered prison 24 years ago.

I would just like to let folks know that Nushawn is still in state custody today, well over a decade beyond his maximum criminal sentence. And there is no end in sight to his civil commitment. Many people, especially people living with HIV, were rightfully dismayed and disturbed by the prosecution and the decision to civilly commit him. That has brought, I think, a lot of energy and activism to addressing the systemic issue of sex-offense civil commitment. For instance, Black men in New York are nearly two times more likely to be civilly committed than white men.

Suttle: When you talk about detainment, this is in a civil commitment facility. How do they look? Are they different from prisons?

Sadeghi: They have iron-clanging doors. They are surrounded by barbed wire. You are heavily surveilled and subjected to constant searches. They look like prisons because they are prisons. And people are not being successfully or meaningfully treated. People are being detained and punished, often as political prisoners.

So, you don’t have a lot of the protections afforded by the safeguards of the criminal legal system because you are not in criminal custody anymore. You are a “patient” being “treated” in a “secured treatment facility.”

Suttle: The idea that this is being done against a person’s will is obviously troubling. But how do you respond to people who diminish treatment for a sexual offense as being “not so bad?”

Greenberg: The idea of sex-offender “treatment” is very complicated. If one meaningfully engages in some treatment and talks about anything that could potentially (A) allude to their being a risk to others or (B) shows they engaged in some other potentially criminal activity, they could find themself facing new charges or extended civil commitment―just because they were trying to engage in this treatment honestly.

Being engaged in this kind of sex-offender rehabilitation and treatment is kind of a sword of Damocles. One needs to engage in it enough socially. But, potentially, if one engages with full force, they might be putting themself at further risk of consequence. I join with Amir in saying I’m not trying to minimize sexual violence or what the victims of sexual violence have gone through. But it also scares me to live in a society where we lock up people for something they haven’t done.

If we want to talk about how this is tied to other systems―they’re trying to roll out all kinds of sentencing algorithms to determine what someone’s bail should be. What’s scary is it’s all about whether there’s a scientific way to decide who will recidivate and essentially plan to punish people for future crimes [they might not commit]. Ruha Benjamin has done a lot of writing about this, showing how racist and awful these algorithms and sentencing are. Civil commitment is tied to other larger systems throughout the criminal legal system.

Suttle: Would you say that’s why marginalized groups or people should be concerned about this?

Sadeghi: Yes. It’s a really important issue at the intersection of criminalizing sex identity, class, race, and beyond. Research by the Williams Institute on sex-offense civil commitment has shown that Black men are two times more likely than their white peers to be civilly committed after they’ve already served their criminal sentences.

If you think about sexual violence and you find yourself overwhelmed with a sense that people are irredeemable and need to be warehoused in a cage indefinitely, I’d like you to reflect on how that same mentality and rhetoric has often been used to justify HIV criminalization. HIV criminalization laws are often defended and justified by arguments that they prevent intimate partner violence and sexual violence.

But, in reality, we know that women living with HIV have higher rates of experiencing sexual violence. And that women living with HIV are overwhelmingly overrepresented in arrests and prosecutions of people targeted because of their health status as people living with HIV. So I think when we recognize the truth about HIV, health, and criminalization, we can start to understand the rationale that has gone into justifying detaining people. And then we can think about how the state has used these instruments to target and punish “undesirable people,” who are often also suffering in the middle of an axis of different kinds of marginalization.

Again, I think it’s important to note that networks of survivors of sexual violence think it’s ridiculous to confront unconsensual acts of violence with unconsensual treatment and state violence. And we have to take that seriously.

Suttle: Going back to Nushawn, is there anything that people can do to support him or get involved in the coalition to end civil commitment in New York?

Sadeghi: There is a burgeoning campaign of sexual survivor–led movements, people living with HIV, and racial justice advocates. If you’re feeling animated and ready to challenge these draconian systems that target and criminalize and incarcerate people, please reach out to us at CHLP. We’d love to work with you to challenge and end sex-offense civil commitment and other harsh policies that target, criminalize, and incarcerate folks who have been historically marginalized.

Suttle: What is your hope for the future of health and human rights for communities most affected by these issues?

Greenberg: To a certain extent, my hope combines two parts of the question. Health is seen as a human role and not limited by access. As awful as things are―following the Dobbs decision―we’ve also been presented with an opportunity to reframe some of these issues. So instead of dealing with individual access, individual rights to privacy, individual concerns, we can reframe them as public health concerns and about a right to health. We’ve been stripped down to the bare bones, but I’m holding on to that right now. In terms of hope, we can build up in a way that will reach and impact people who haven’t previously had access to meaningful health care and health.

Sadeghi: Over the years, I’ve observed that in the face of this kind of injustice and stigma, it is so important to build power from the bottom up and by cross-movement organizing. I think we, as HIV advocates and people working in the HIV anti-criminalization space, really need to deepen our relationships, partnerships, and accountability to sex worker–led groups, advocacy groups, sex work decriminalization groups, racial justice groups, and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionists.

To do that, we need to partner with and build power with these very communities and people who are most likely to be criminalized because of their health status. I’m excited about that new direction. I think I feel it in our movement that we are going there. And I’m looking forward to seeing what happens over the next few years.

Robert Suttle:  Robert Suttle is a New York City-based advocacy consultant and movement leader in the global HIV community with expertise in decriminalization, human rights, and the intersection between equity and social justice.

New HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE website now live!

The new website for the HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE (HJWW) coalition is now online, in four languages – English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
 
HJWW is an international coalition working to shape the discourse on HIV criminalisation, as well as share information and resources, network, build capacity, mobilise advocacy, and cultivate a community of transparency and collaboration.
 
The HIV Justice Network serves as the secretariat, co-ordinating a global work plan; monitoring laws, prosecutions, and advocacy; providing tools and training for effective advocacy and communications; and connecting and convening a diverse range of stakeholders. With this structure, each coalition member can achieve more mission-aligned impact through their engagement in HJWW.
 
HJWW was founded in March 2016 during a meeting in Brighton, UK, that was funded by a grant from the Robert Carr Fund. Since then, we have expanded from seven founding partners to our current fourteen coalition members, with more than 130 organisational supporters from around the world. You can see our collective impact by visiting the Milestones page.
 
The new website – optimised for mobile screens as well as computers and tablets – reflects the work of our expanded coalition. It also provides information and links to websites and key resources explaining what HIV criminalisation is, why we care so much about it, and how you can stay informed and show your support.
 
Visit and share the new website today. After all, we won’t end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, or end HIV-related stigma, discrimination and criminalisation without HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE!

IAS 2023: Five-year impact of Expert Consensus Statement – poster published today

Today, 24th July, at the 12th IAS Conference on HIV Science on Brisbane, we presented our research findings on the five-year impact of the ‘Expert Consensus Statement on the Science of HIV in the Context of Criminal Law’.

Click on the image above to download the pdf of the poster

Tomorrow, 25th July, we will publish the full research report and discuss the findings on our live webshow, HIV Justice Live!

Hosted by HJN’s Executive Director, Edwin J Bernard, the show will include a discussion with the report’s lead author, HJN’s Senior Policy Analyst Alison Symington, as well as interviews with Malawian judge Zione Ntaba, Taiwan activist Fletcher Chui, and SALC lawyer Tambudzai Gonese-Manjonjo on the Statement’s impact.

We’ll also hear from some of the Expert Consensus Statement’s authors, including Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Salim S Abdool Karim, Linda-Gail Bekker, Chris Beyrer, Adeeba Kamarulzaman, Benjamin Young, and Peter Godfrey-Faussett.

Ugandan lawyer and HJN Supervisory Board member Immaculate Owomugisha will also be joining us live from the IAS 2023 conference where she is serving as a rapporteur, to discuss the Statement’s relevance today.

HIV Justice Live! Episode 5: Bringing Science to Justice will be live on Facebook and YouTube on Tuesday 25th July at 3pm CEST (click here for your local time).

WHO publishes new policy guidelines describing the role of HIV viral suppression on stopping HIV transmission

New WHO guidance on HIV viral suppression and scientific updates released at IAS 2023

The World Health Organization (WHO) is releasing new scientific and normative guidance on HIV at the 12thInternational IAS (the International AIDS Society) Conference on HIV Science.

New WHO guidance and an accompanying Lancet systematic review released today describe the role of HIV viral suppression and undetectable levels of virus in both improving individual health and halting onward HIV transmission. The guidance describes key HIV viral load thresholds and the approaches to measure levels of virus against these thresholds; for example, people living with HIV who achieve an undetectable level of virus by consistent use of antiretroviral therapy, do not transmit HIV to their sexual partner(s) and are at low risk of transmitting HIV vertically to their children. The evidence also indicates that there is negligible, or almost zero, risk of transmitting HIV when a person has a HIV viral load measurement of less than or equal to 1000 copies per mL, also commonly referred to as having a suppressed viral load.

Antiretroviral therapy continues to transform the lives of people living with HIV. People living with HIV who are diagnosed and treated early, and take their medication as prescribed, can expect to have the same health and life expectancy as their HIV-negative counterparts.

“For more than 20 years, countries all over the world have relied on WHO’s evidence-based guidelines to prevent, test for and treat HIV infection,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “The new guidelines we are publishing today will help countries to use powerful tools have the potential to transform the lives of millions of people living with or at risk of HIV.”

At the end of 2022, 29.8 million of the 39 million people living with HIV were taking antiretroviral treatment (which means 76% of all people living with HIV) with almost three-quarters of them (71%) living with suppressed HIV. This means that for those virally suppressed their health is well protected and they are not at risk of transmitting HIV to other people. While this is a very positive progress for adults living with HIV, viral load suppression in children living with HIV is only 46% – a reality that needs urgent attention.

Coming soon:
HIV Justice Live! Episode 5: Bringing Science to Justice

Five years ago, twenty of the world’s leading HIV scientists published the ‘Expert Consensus Statement on the Science of HIV in the Context of Criminal Law’ to address the misuse of HIV science in punitive laws and prosecutions against people living with HIV for acts related to sexual activity, biting, or spitting.

More than 70 scientists from 46 countries endorsed the Expert Consensus Statement prior to its publication in the Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS). The Statement was launched on 25th July 2018 at AIDS 2018, with the press conference generating global media coverage.

Building upon our initial 2020 scoping report, we recently undertook further extensive research to examine the impact of the Expert Consensus Statement in the five years since its publication.

On 25th July 2023 – exactly five years to the day of the original launch – we will not only be presenting our findings at the 12th IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2023), we will also be launching the five-year impact report during our live webshow, HIV Justice Live!

Hosted by HJN’s Executive Director, Edwin J Bernard, the show will include a discussion with the report’s lead author, HJN’s Senior Policy Analyst Alison Symington, as well as interviews with Malawian judge Zione Ntaba, Taiwan activist Fletcher Chui, and SALC lawyer Tambudzai Gonese-Manjonjo on the Statement’s impact.

We’ll also hear from some of the Expert Consensus Statement’s authors, including Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, Salim S Abdool Karim, Linda-Gail Bekker, Chris Beyrer, Adeeba Kamarulzaman, Benjamin Young, and Peter Godfrey-Faussett.

Ugandan lawyer and HJN Supervisory Board member Immaculate Owomugisha will also be joining us live from the IAS 2023 conference in Brisbane, Australia where she is serving as a rapporteur, to discuss the Statement’s legacy and relevance today.

There will be opportunities to let us know the impact the Expert Consensus Statement has had in your advocacy and to ask questions live, so please save the date and time.

HIV Justice Live! Episode 5: Bringing Science to Justice will be live on our Facebook and YouTube pages on Tuesday 25th July at 3pm CEST (click here for your local time).

 

HJN’s Executive Director remarks
to the UNAIDS Board (PCB)

These remarks were made during the thematic session on reducing health inequities through tailored and systemic responses in priority and key populations especially transgender people, and the path to 2025 targets.

The HIV Justice Network is a community-based NGO leading a co-ordinated global response to HIV criminalisation. We’ve have heard so far about many different structural inequalities but not so much about HIV criminalisation, also covered in the background note, which disproportionately affects key populations, including transgender people, who are already criminalised or otherwise targeted by discriminatory legal systems and policies.

In fact, over 90 countries have criminal laws – based on stigma, not science – that single out people living with HIV based on our HIV-positive status. Another 40 or so countries have applied general criminal laws to unjustly prosecute and imprison people with HIV for acts that cause no risk, no harm or for which there is scant proof of either.

HIV criminalisation selectively scapegoats people living with HIV for a collective failure in HIV prevention policy including the responsibility of governments to create supportive and enabling legal environments for HIV prevention in the first place.

I last attended the PCB 12 years ago as a journalist highlighting the injustices of HIV criminalisation, which at the time was mostly overlooked as a significant legal barrier to the HIV response.

I return to the PCB as the HIV Justice Network’s Executive Director, financially supported by the Robert Carr Fund for civil society networks. Thank you to the governments that support the Fund, and for recognising that community-led global and regional networks of PLHIV and KPs are necessary and irreplaceable partners.

In the intervening years some progress has been made but far too many unjust laws continue to impact far too many people living with HIV, including trans people, gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, sex workers and women and girls.

Today, I call on all member states that still have punitive and harmful laws that single out people living with HIV (and that’s almost all of you) to fulfil the commitments most of you made in the 2021 Political Declaration.

It would make our work so much easier if you returned from Geneva to persuade your own governments to do the right thing:  either fully fund the Unified Budget, Results and Accountability Framework (UBRAF) or – the cheaper option – get rid of your own ineffective, counterproductive, punitive, discriminatory laws once and for all so we can finally achieve HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE!