Global: Powerful personal testimony and video highlight criminalisation concerns

IPPF (the International Planned Parenthood Association) has been campaigning against the criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, alleged exposure and non-intentional transmission for the past few years, and this World AIDS Day they are highlighting their ‘Criminalise Hate Not HIV’ Campaign.

They have produced a beautifully shot two minute video highlighting their ongoing campaign, which you can watch below.

IPPF has also just launched Behind Bars – a collection of interviews that highlights the effect criminal laws are having on people’s working and private lives. I was particularly struck by two testimonials from individuals with whom I have had some prior contact.

Jan Albert is a Professor of Infectious Diseases and has worked at the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI). Currently he works as an HIV researcher at the Karolinska Institute. He has been an expert witness in several trials; served as the expert reviewer for the ‘Proof’ chapter of NAM’s HIV and the criminal law; and contributed to my recent aidsmap.com news story on phylogenetic analysis. He was forced to do an about-turn in 2008 regarding the SMI helping police with their criminal investigations.

Here’s an exerpts of what he says in Behind Bars

Since I’ve been an expert witness in court trials, my personal opinion regarding people living with HIV (PLHIV) has changed. In my experience the accused persons are seldom ‘raw criminals’. Instead, they are people who have been careless or even reckless. There are many reasons for neglecting to inform sexual partners about HIV status, including denial. None, or very few, have had the intent to transmit HIV which is how these acts often are described by the media….I’ve seen prejudice in the media reporting of these cases, but that’s how the media works and I have learnt how to deal with it. They often want the sensational and spectacular news, especially tabloids. I wished there was place in the media for a more nuanced view; sometimes we see it, but not very often…Do we want to turn a proportion of our population into potential criminals every time they have sex?

Marama Pala from New Zealand also tells her story on Behind Bars. She had actually emailed me more than a year ago wanting to tell her story on my blog, and I was happy for her to do so. I prepared a version of her email for her approval but never heard back (I had especially wanted to know how to credit her – using her real name or a psedunoym). Now that IPPF have published her name and story, I’d like to post what she wrote for me, which is similar, but a little more detailed.

Marama Pala was the key witness for the prosecution when Kenyan musician Peter Mwai was prosecuted for criminal HIV transmission in 1993. Now an advocate for Māori living with HIV, she writes about her experiences and lessons learned exclusively for this blog.

KEY WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

I was 22 years old when I had a sexual liaison with Peter Mwai that changed my life forever (23 July 1993). It was six weeks later that I saw a picture of his face on the front of a national newspaper with the caption, “Face of Fear”. The article encouraged anyone that had contact with Peter Mwai to ring a detective in the New Zealand police. The detective asked, if I received a HIV-positive blood test would I help stop him from infecting other women? Not knowing what I was volunteering for, I said yes. The trial took over two years.

This was the first time that legislation written in 1963 was put to the test with charging someone with ‘wilfully infecting someone with a disease’ (maximum sentence 14 years). It was when the prosecution was unable to prove beyond a doubt that Peter Mwai was deliberately infecting people that charge was lessened to Grievous Bodily Harm (maximum sentence 7 years).

It was alleged that Peter Mwai infected an array of women before June 1993, and after six women – negative and positive – came forward and spoke to the police, they were able to charge him with reckless endangerment. I was the only one they could find who was infected after June – the date where the prosecution were able to provide evidence that he had knowledge of his HIV status. I’ve met 9 women infected by Peter Mwai. It is presumed there are many more.

I had the condoms available, and during negotiating for safe sex, I was told that he was negative, he had a healthy child, he was healthy and why would he need to wear one and they hurt… I trusted him. Bear in mind that 1993, negotiating for safe sex as a woman in New Zealand was almost non-existent, safe sex education was non-existent, and the only reason I had the condoms was because a friend had given them to me.

The court trial began. There was no doubt in my mind, should he be released back in to New Zealand society, that he would continue with his promiscuity, putting others at risk. He was found guilty. He served five years in prison, was deported on release, and shortly after died in Uganda of TB.

RETHINKING CRIMINALISATION 

I went in to hiding until 2005 due to unwanted and degrading media interference. It was when the situation within my ethnic community (Indigenous New Zealander Māori), was being threatened by HIV, that I became an advocate for Māori. We started a non-profit organisation called INA (Māori, Indigenous & South Pacific) HIV/AIDS Foundation.

On reflection, and spending time in the Pacific Islands reviewing the criminalisation of HIV in Papua New Guinea (my husband’s country) – first Pacific country to have HIV specific legislation – I began to recognise that the hyper-emotive ‘knee jerk’ reaction and subsequent dramas during the trial may have been a ‘tad’ heavy handed.

I started to become aware of how the criminalisation of HIV can cause stigma and discrimination for those living with HIV. I then started to notice the differences that criminal law had on different cultural backgrounds, producing varied levels of severe to mild discrimination. I also saw the agendas of all those who have a stake in this type of legislation. I’ve found the entire area to be a political minefield. Whose rights are we wanting to protect? The rights of negative people wanting to be safe from infection? Or the rights of positive people to be protected from stigma and discrimination? It’s been said that the sway of the pendulum will always politically favour the majority. In Papua New Guinea’s HIV laws, they do have clauses for both sides: reckless infection of others, and discrimination of PLHWA.

INA has a philosophy that we are all responsible for HIV, and when all take responsibility, the fight will be won! Negative/Positive all have equal responsibility for HIV. HIV is an individual and public health concern.

In saying that, our women and men (Māori) have difficulty in negotiating safer sex and consensual sex. We have no programmes available to target either behavioural changes. Safer sex education is also lacking for all ages within cultural demographics. Sensitivity to cultural laws and beliefs on sex are not considered at all.

I’ve been quoted before saying that perhaps counselling and therapy would have been an option for Peter Mwai. Perhaps name, blame and shame, is not the best management of someone who puts others at risk.

I now believe that New Zealand’s criminal law is an ineffective and inappropriate tool used to address HIV risk behaviour. The psychological and mental state of a person who puts others at risk is not addressed in criminal law. Punishing them may have the opposite effect. PLWHA are living longer with medication: would prison create a more calculating person that would be released eventually and continue to act with reckless disregard? There is no evidence to suggest that incarceration will offer any significant benefits in changing behaviours.

Criminal charges do little to stop the spread of HIV, within some cultures it dissuades people from being tested, having an attitude of ‘ignorance is bliss’, then they can’t be charged or fear of a positive test resulting in cultural violence, stigma and discrimination. Criminal charges do, however, divert resources and attention away from prevention initiatives already in place that are having an impact on reducing HIV transmission.

Most PLWHAs take responsibility for their bodies and their virus, practicing safer sex and disclosing to partners when necessary. I reiterate, it’s everybody’s responsibility to reduce exposure to any STI. Criminalising HIV puts the entire onus and responsibility on the PLWHA.

INFLUENCING NEW ZEALAND POLICY

My organisation, INA, would also like to acknowledge that ‘wilful’ or ‘reckless’ HIV infection continues to be an issue in New Zealand, with no criminal charges or spotlight placed on it in some communities. The cases mentioned above all involved women, with the most recent cases involving both men and women. Sadly amongst our Men who have sex with men community, the prevention message targeting them the most as ‘High Risk’ has also created an acceptance of balancing the risk and life style. With many transmission of HIV being completely hidden with an acceptance attitude.

Mental illness, significant cognitive and/or psychological impairment, or a reasonable apprehension of harm adds to the compounding situation, with criminal charges doing nothing to respond to this reality or prevent further infection in such circumstances.

There has been no National Review of HIV in New Zealand, giving us a factual ‘picture’ of the situation in New Zealand. Even with recent criminal charges, there has been no directive on assessing the situation. The complexities (homophobia, sexism, racism, stigma and discrimination) are being ignored and ‘panic’ is motivating decisions. That may be irreversible should these decisions become policy. All legal and policy responses would be best based on the best available evidence, HIV prevention, care, treatment, support and respect for human rights.

We support and advocate for a strong national policy response to HIV prevention and transmission. We support a National Review of present criminal law in relation to HIV and review of support services available. And the exploration and development of alternatives to criminal charges and HIV, incorporating alternative responses addressing the individual, environment and social contexts involved.

Evidence: Claims that phylogenetic analysis can prove direction of transmission are unfounded, say experts

I’m reproducing this news article I wrote for aidsmap.com in case anyone hasn’t seen it, because it is a really important issue. Claiming that phylogenetic analysis is so reliable as to be able to ‘prove’ who infected who in a criminal court case is reckless and somewhat self-serving.

A report from the United States published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims to show for the first time that direction of HIV transmission from one individual to another for use as evidence in criminal trials can reliably be established by phylogenetic analysis. However, international experts in phylogenetics who have acted as forensic advisors in criminal courts tell aidsmap.com that the report “draws unwarranted conclusions”.

The report, co-authored by Michael Metzker, associate professor at the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center and David Hillis, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Texas, details the phylogenetic analysis methodology used in two criminal HIV transmission cases in the United States, in Washington State in 2004 and Texas in 2009, respectively.

These cases were only the second and third times that phylogenetic analysis was used as evidence in a criminal prosecution in the United States, despite at least 350 convictions under HIV-specific and/or general criminal laws for HIV non-disclosure, alleged exposure and/or transmission since prosecutions began in the mid-1980s (CHLP, 2010). Of note, both of these cases involved allegations of multiple heterosexual transmissions from a single source. Such allegations are extremely rare in criminal cases.

Phylogenetic analysis requires the use of complex computational tools to create a hypothetical diagram (known as a phylogenetic tree) that estimates how closely related the samples of HIV taken from the complainant(s) and defendant are likely to be in comparison to other samples.

The report refers to several recent studies (including a 2008 study from Keele and colleagues) which suggest to the authors that a “significant genetic bottleneck” may occur during HIV transmission, and that at least three-quarters of infections may result from a single virus. It also notes that since HIV evolves rapidly following initial infection, this results in “increased diversity of HIV sequences within a newly infected individual.”

However, the report argues that if blood samples are taken from the accused and complainant(s) “shortly after a transmission event” the population of viral sequences in one individual would be expected to be more closely related to the population in the other(s) than other populations of viral sequences used for comparison. This is known as a “paraphyletic relationship.” The paper then suggests that “paraphyly provides support for the direction of transmission and, in a criminal case, could be used to identify the index case (i.e., source).”

In both cases, the investigators were blinded as to the identity of the accused and the complainants, which was only revealed in court once they had provided their report to the prosecution. Again, in both cases, the sample they identified as being the source of infection was that of the accused. It is unknown how much weight the judge and jury gave to the phylogenetic reports, but it is known that the prosecution provided a great deal of supporting evidence – including, in the Texas case, contact tracing and HIV testing of most of the complainants’ prior sexual partners – and that it was the totality of such evidence that led to guilty verdicts and lengthy prison sentences in both cases.

The paper and its assertions have been widely disseminated via a press release and several articles primarily aimed at the scientific community. Such articles include quotes from the investigators that suggest their methods are unquestionably sound and it was this evidence alone that led to the guilty verdicts. “This is the first case study to establish the direction of transmission,” Professor Metzker was quoted in an AFP story with the headline ‘ Lab detectives use science to nab HIV criminals’.

He asserted to the American Statesman that “[our analysis] provided sound scientific evidence of the direction of transmission, and from that we could identify the source.” The article also quotes the main prosecutor in the Texas case, who characterises phylogenetic analysis as “good evidence”. Of note, the defence attorney in the case is quoted as saying they were unable to find an expert to testify in court against the reliability of Hillis and Metzker’s findings.

“It made a lot of difference in trying the case because we couldn’t find an expert for our side,” he said.

However, Professor Metzker’s claims and the paper’s assertion that he and his colleagues have established that their methodology is both a new and reliable method of proving the direction of transmission has been questioned by several international experts contacted by aidsmap.com. All of the experts have served as witnesses in criminal trials outside of the United States.

These experts all agree that phylogenetic analysis remains an informed but sometimes imperfect estimate of the relationship between viruses. Although there are a variety of methods by which it is possible to increase the confidence that the samples are very closely related in comparison to other samples, there could never be complete confidence that the defendant infected the complainant(s) based on phylogenetic analysis alone.

Anne-Mieke Vandamme, a professor at Leuven Catholic University and Rega Institute in Belgium, has serious reservations regarding the paper’s assertions. “This paper draws unwarranted conclusions,” she tells aidsmap.com. “There is still the possibility that there is a missing link, a consecutive transmission with an intermediate missing link. I would only use such paraphyletic clustering to exclude a direction of transmission. The elimination of all other possible contacts is something to be done outside the phylogenetic analysis.”

Jan Albert, a professor at the Karolinska Institute and Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden, tells aidsmap.com that “the study suggests, but does not prove, transmission between the examined persons. The main reason for the caveat is that the analyses do not exclude the existence of unsampled persons belonging to the same clusters. The paraphyly does not exclude this possibility. In light of this it is surprising that only 20 local controls were investigated in the Washington case and none in the Texas case.”

Thomas Leitner, staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States, tells aidsmap.com that the methodology described in the paper to test the hypothesis of direction of transmission is not, in fact, new, and that along with co-author Walter Fitch he published a paper outlining a similar methodology eleven years ago. (Leitner T, Fitch WM 1999) He adds that his research suggests that even when all persons involved in an alleged transmission chain are sampled, it may still be the case that the two closest samples in a phylogenetic tree are two individuals who may not have ever met.

Professor Vandamme is also lead author of a paper currently in press with The Lancet Infectious Diseases along with several authors including Professor Albert and Dr Anna Maria Geretti, of University College London Medical School, Royal Free Hospital, in London, which highlights the substantial risk of miscarriages of justice based on a flawed view of the science behind phylogenetic analysis. It concludes, in concurrence with a briefing paper co-authored by Professor Vandamme and Dr Geretti and published by NAM and NAT in 2007, that the only ‘safe’ use of phylogenetic analysis in criminal HIV transmission cases is to exonerate the accused.

A fuller discussion of how phylogenetic analysis and other evidence can – and cannot – be used to establish the fact of transmission from the accused to complainant(s) in a criminal case can be found in the ‘Proof’ chapter of NAM’s new international resource, HIV and the criminal law.

References

Scaduto DI et al. Source identification in two criminal cases using phylogenetic analysis of HIV-1 DNA sequences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online before print November 15, 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1015673107, 2010.

Abecasis AB et al. Science in court: the myth of HIV ‘fingerprinting’. Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2010 (In Press).

Center for HIV Law and Policy (CHLP) Ending and Defending Against HIV Criminalization: State and Federal Laws and Prosecutions, Vol.1, CHLP’s Positive Justice Project, First Edition, Fall 2010.

Leitner T, Fitch WM The phylogenetics of known transmission histories. Pp. 315-345 in K. A. Crandall. Molecular Evolution of HIV. Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD 1999.

Canada: Civil HIV exposure case over consensual lesbian sex in jail – analysis

Last week, a woman in Kamloops, BC, arrested for drunkenness and who subsequently engaged in consensual lesbian sex with a fellow prisoner (revealed 10 days later as being HIV-positive) – and who were watched by seven members of the Royal Canadian Mountain Police – filed a lawsuit in the British Columbia Supreme Court seeking damages from the provincial and federal governments, the City of Kamloops, the seven policemen and the woman with HIV.

Now, journalist Shawn Syms has written a great analysis of the case for Xtra West. Highlights below and full text at Xtra.ca.

Describing herself as “horrified and scared and mad,” the woman told the Kamloops Daily News that she feared for her health: “It was the worst thing in the world that could have possibly happened to me. Every day is a struggle.”

Her legal advisor, Victoria personal-injury lawyer Erik Magraken, told the paper, “This is all about the duty to protect. If the RCMP has someone in their custody, they have a duty to protect that individual from harm. If harm comes from ignoring that duty, damages can follow.”

According to Cecile Kazatchkine, senior policy analyst with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, this is the first time to her knowledge that HIV non-disclosure has been implicated in a legal case involving lesbian sex.

Contacted by Xtra, Magraken refused to specify if the harm he was referring to is, in fact, HIV. He says he’s speaking “very generally” to the notion of “any kind of harm.” But according to the Daily News, Magraken did argue that “if they fail to disclose they have HIV, that is an aggravated assault and there can be no consent in those circumstances.”

Well yes, criminal charges have been been laid on that basis more than once, but what’s been affirmed by the courts is slightly different. To date, we know that HIV disclosure is required in instances where there is actually a serious risk of grevious bodily harm. (BC Crown spokesperson Neil MacKenzie told Xtra the police have submitted an investigative file on the case, but there has been no decision yet as to whether any charges will be laid, or against whom.)

The thing is, there’s a difference between serious risk and virtually no risk. Health Canada describes the risk of woman-to-woman HIV transmission as “unlikely,” and after more than two decades of tracking, the Centres for Disease Control in the US have no confirmed cases of lesbian HIV transmission in their databases.

Lesbian AIDS advocate Cindy Patton famously encapsulated safer-sex strategies back in the 1980s in this way: “Don’t get semen in your anus or vagina.” Since neither woman in this case has been identified as trans, we can probably assume that this risk did not come into play.

The case “shows how much fear, prejudice and ignorance around HIV and the risks of transmission can easily divert people’s attention from what really matters – the issue of people’s security and privacy while in custody,” says Kazatchkine.

She points to a BC Supreme Court case from 2003 where a woman was awarded $15,000 in damages after being stuck with a syringe in a cab in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In that case, the plaintiff claimed she was plagued with fear of becoming HIV-positive for seven years after the incident, which is not medically plausible unless she subsequently got HIV from some other activity.

[…]

We can be fairly certain no HIV was transmitted in the jail cell that night. If the RCMP’s original account is any indication, it appears two people who were equally willing – and equally intoxicated – engaged in erotic play, that neither took undue advantage of the other, and no one was genuinely placed at significant risk of any harm as a result of their tryst.

US: Positive Justice Project publishes essential new advocacy resource

The Center for HIV Law and Policy has released the first comprehensive analysis of HIV-specific criminal laws and prosecutions in the United States. The publication, Ending and Defending Against HIV Criminalization: State and Federal Laws and Prosecutions, covers policies and cases in all fifty states, the military, federal prisons and U.S. territories.

Ending and Defending Against HIV Criminalization: State and Federal Laws and Prosecutions is intended as a resource for lawyers and community advocates on the laws, cases, and trends that define HIV criminalization in the United States. Thirty-four states and two U.S. territories have HIV-specific criminal statutes and thirty-six states have reported proceedings in which HIV-positive people have been arrested and/or prosecuted for consensual sex, biting, and spitting. At least eighty such prosecutions have occurred in the last two years alone.

People are being imprisoned for decades, and in many cases have to register as sex offenders, as a consequence of exaggerated fears about HIV. Most of these cases involve consensual sex or conduct such as spitting and biting that has only a remote possibility of HIV exposure. For example, a number of states have laws that make it a felony for someone who has had a positive HIV test to spit on or touch another person with blood or saliva. Some examples of recent prosecutions discussed in CHLP’s manual include:

• A man with HIV in Texas is serving thirty-five years for spitting at a police officer;

• A man with HIV in Iowa, who had an undetectable viral load, received a twenty-five year sentence after a one-time sexual encounter during which he used a condom; his sentence was suspended, but he had to register as a sex-offender and is not allowed unsupervised contact with his nieces, nephews and other young children;

• A woman with HIV in Georgia received an eight-year sentence for failing to disclose her HIV status, despite the trial testimony of two witnesses that her sexual partner was aware of her HIV positive status;

• A man with HIV in Michigan was charged under the state’s anti-terrorism statute with possession of a “biological weapon” after he allegedly bit his neighbor.

The catalog of state and federal laws and cases is the first volume of a multi-part manual that CHLP’s Positive Justice Project is developing for legal and community advocates. The goal of the Positive Justice Project is to bring an end to laws and policies that subject people with HIV to arrest and increased punishment on the basis of gross ignorance about the nature and transmission of HIV, without consideration of the actual risks of HIV exposure.

The manual’s completion was supported by grants for CHLP’s anti-criminalization work and Positive Justice Project from the MAC AIDS Fund and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Download the manual here (2.3MB)

Opinion: I Am HIV Positive and I Don’t Blame Anybody—Including Myself

A few months ago, I received an email from a young researcher and activist living with HIV. Kirk Grisham said some very nice things about my work, and told me that I had inspired him to both write about the issues behind criminalisation, as well as to ‘come out’ publically about his HIV status.

The result is this fantastic analysis for ColorLines around personal responsibility for HIV prevention that really expresses many of my own thoughts on the issue, but in a much more accessible way than I could have ever achieved.

Kirk concludes that for him, criminalisation means that

I bore no responsibility for the epidemic, until I had HIV, when it became entirely my problem.

I’m including the opening paragraph here. Click on the link to read the entire article at ColorLines.

I am HIV positive, and I don’t blame anybody for it—not myself or anybody else.

He didn’t rape me and he did not trick me. It was through our unprotected sex that I became HIV positive. Since seroconverting, I have been very conscious of the language I use to discuss transmission, particularly my own. To say “he gave me HIV” obscures the truth, it was through a mutual act, consensual sex, that I became HIV positive. When speaking to him a couple months after my diagnosis I gathered that he knew he was positive when we had sex. But that is beside the point; my sexual health is mine to control, not his.

Read the entire article at ColorLines.

Ukraine: Revised HIV law may no longer mandate disclosure

A new version of Ukraine’s HIV-specific law, adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament in its first hearing on 21 October, promises several positive changes, including removal of the statute mandating disclosure of known HIV-positive status prior to any activity that may risk exposure.

According to a press release from the International AIDS Society, the following changes will be implemented:

People living with HIV will no longer be barred from entering, staying or seeking residence in Ukraine based solely on HIV positive status;

NGOs providing HIV treatment, prevention and care services will have the right to apply for state contracts

People living with HIV will have the right to seek compensation for the unlawful disclosure of their HIV status

HIV-positive injecting drug users (IDUs) and other IDUs will have the right to receive Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST)

People living with HIV will be encouraged to disclose information about the risk of HIV transmission, however they will no longer be required by law to disclose their status to partners

WHO Europe notes

The revised law is the result of two years intensive and collaborative work, including the involvement of non-governmental sector, especially All-Ukrainian Network of People living with HIV, the support from the USAID-funded HIV/AIDS Service Capacity Project in Ukraine and the United Nations Team Group on HIV/AIDS. The change would not have been successful without a close collaboration with the Parliamentarian Committee on Public Health and its chair Dr Tatyana Bakhteeva who was very much committed to the issue.

Dr Volodymyr Kurpita, Executive Director of All-Ukrainian Network of People living with HIV told me in an email that since the final version of the revised Prevention of AIDS and Social Protection of Population Act is still awaiting parliamentary approval in the second hearing, the final wording of the law on HIV disclosure is still not known, but “we can highlight it is more progressive and less restrictive as previous one.”

In Ukraine, newly diagnosed individuals must undergo a period of mandatory hospitalisation during which it is expected that they will sign an undertaking to obey this 1998 disclosure law. The reckless or intentional “conscious exposing to danger of infection [HIV exposure], or infection [HIV transmission]” is also subject to prosecution, with a maximum penalty of ten years’ imprisonment. There have been at least six prosecutions and four convictions under these laws.

US: Sean Strub blogs on why tackling criminalisation is crucial

POZ magazine founder, fellow anti-criminalisation advocate – and friend – Sean Strub, recently joined forces with the incredible Catherine Hanssens and her amazing team at the Centre for HIV Law & Policy to launch the Positive Justice Project.

In his latest blog post at POZ.com, Criminalization 101, he explains why the criminalisation of non-disclosure, exposure and non-intentional transmission has become one of the most pressing issues of our time.

I’m including his introduction here. Read the entire post at POZ.com.

Over the last several years, as I’ve talked to a wider circle of advocates, people with HIV and policy leaders about HIV criminalization, it has become apparent to me that many people are not well-informed on the topic. Some instinctively favor prosecuting people with HIV for not disclosing their HIV status prior to intimate contact, but these opinions usually evolve quickly as a person learns more about the issue.

Here’s a background piece I have been using–and continuing to modify–to introduce the issue to others. It is a bit lengthy for a blog post. If you would like a footnoted and properly formatted version emailed to you, just shoot me a note at sstrub (at) hivlawanndpolicy.org. I look forward to any comments or suggestions.

(Read more at POZ.com)

Limiting the Law: Silence, Sex and Science (Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, 2010)

A community forum on the criminalization of HIV in Canada
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Toronto, Ontario

Presentations by:
Edwin J. Bernard, British HIV-positive writer, editor and activist; editor, HIV and the Criminal Law and “Criminal HIV Transmission” blog
Richard Elliott, Executive Director, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
Eric Mykhalovskiy, Associate Professor, York University, Department of Sociology
Tim McCaskell, The Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure
Rai Reese, Women’s Prisons Program Coordinator, Prisoners’ HIV/AIDS Support Action Network

US: Positive Justice Project launches, aims to remove HIV-specific laws

Press Release: HIV Advocacy Group Launches Positive Justice Project To Fight Stigma and Discrimination by Repealing HIV-specific Criminal Statutes

The Positive Justice Project, a campaign of the Center for HIV Law and Policy, was launched this week to combat HIV-related stigma and discrimination against people with HIV by the criminal justice system. A day-long organising meeting, held September 21st in New York, included more than 40 participants from legal, government, grant-making and community service organisations.

The focus of the Positive Justice Project is the repeal of “HIV criminalisation” statutes — laws that create HIV-specific crimes or which increase penalties for persons who are HIV-positive and convicted of criminal offences.

The Positive Justice Project is the first coordinated national effort in the United States to address these laws, and the first multi-organizational and cross-disciplinary effort to do so. HIV criminalisation has often resulted in gross human rights violations, including harsh sentencing for behaviors that pose little or no risk of HIV transmission, including:

A man with HIV in Texas who is now serving 35 years for spitting at a police officer;
A man with HIV in Iowa, who had an undetectable viral load, was sentenced to 25 years after a one-time sexual encounter during which he used a condom;
A woman with HIV in Georgia, who was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for failing to disclose her viral status, despite it having been published on the front page of the local newspaper and two witnesses who testified her sexual partner was aware of her HIV-positive status;
And a man with HIV in Michigan who was charged under the state’s anti-terrorism statute with possession of a “biological weapon,” after an altercation with a neighbour.

In none of the cases cited was HIV transmitted. Actual HIV transmission—or even the intent to infect—is rarely a factor in HIV criminalisation cases.

Instead, most prosecutions are not for HIV transmission, but for the failure to disclose one’s HIV status prior to intimate contact, which in most cases comes down to competing claims about verbal consent that are nearly impossible to prove. Anti-criminalisation advocates support prosecution only in cases where the intent to harm can be proven.

HIV criminalisation undercuts the most basic HIV prevention and sexual health message, which is that each person must be responsible for his or her own sexual choices and health. Criminalisation implies a disproportionate responsibility, providing an illusion of safety to the person who is HIV-negative or who does not know his or her HIV status.

As a result, ignorance of one’s HIV status is the best defence against prosecution in these cases, ultimately providing a disincentive to testing and self-awareness. Only by getting an HIV test and knowing one’s HIV status is one subject to arrest and prosecution. This flies in the face of established evidence that it is those who are untested – i.e., those who are safe from prosecution – who most frequently transmit HIV.

Research has demonstrated that HIV criminalisation statutes do nothing to reduce HIV transmission and, in fact, because they further stigmatise already-marginalised populations and discourage HIV testing, they may contribute to further HIV transmission.

The Center for HIV Law and Policy also this week released a draft of the first detailed analysis of HIV-specific laws and prosecutions in all 50 states, U.S. territories and the military. With more than 400 prosecutions to date, the U.S. has had more HIV-specific criminal cases than any other nation on earth.

According to the Positive Justice Project organisers, the challenge of repealing laws that punish people on the basis of their HIV status cannot be met without:

Broader public understanding of the stigmatising impact and negative public health consequences of criminalisation statutes and prosecutions that are perpetrated under their guise;
Greater community consensus on the appropriate use of criminal and civil law in the context of the HIV epidemic;
Clear, unequivocal leadership and statements from federal, state and local public health officials on the causes and relative risks of HIV transmission and the dangers of a punitive response to HIV exposure and the epidemic;
And a broader and more effective community-level response to the ongoing problem of HIV-related arrests and prosecutions.

“Misperceptions about the routes and risks of HIV transmission continue to fuel fear and myths about people with HIV that leads to lower acceptance of HIV testing and greater stigma and discrimination. Nearly 30 years into the epidemic, people still fear contact with people with HIV, working with them or allowing them near their children,” said Catherine Hanssens, the founder and executive director of the Center for HIV Law and Policy.

“HIV-specific laws have created a viral underclass. There is no more extreme manifestation of stigma than when it is enshrined in the law,” said Sean Strub, who has lived with HIV for more than 30 years. Strub is a senior advisor with the Center for HIV Law and Policy and joined in launching the Positive Justice Project.

Vanessa Johnson, a Positive Justice Project planning committee member and Executive Vice President of the National Association of People with AIDS, said, “When the government uses the fact of a person’s HIV test and subsequent result to turn around and encourage prosecution of that person for behavior that otherwise is legal for people who are untested, it engages in dangerously confusing double-speak that undermines the very HIV testing and prevention goals it claims to prioritize.”