Global study reveals 50 countries still enforce HIV-related travel restrictions

A new global study presented this week at the 13th IAS Conference on HIV Science in Kigali (IAS 2025) has revealed that 50 countries around the world continue to enforce HIV-related travel and residence restrictions, in clear violation of international human rights principles.

The data, shared by the HIV Justice Network through its new platform Positive Destinations, highlights the persistence of discriminatory laws and policies that prevent people living with HIV from freely travelling, working, studying, or settling in many parts of the world.

Despite progress – 83 countries now have no HIV-specific travel restrictions, and many others have adopted more inclusive approaches – 17 countries still impose severe measures such as outright entry bans, mandatory testing, and deportation. These include Bhutan, Brunei, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait, Malaysia, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates. Migrants and students are often disproportionately affected, with some unaware of the rules until after testing or disclosure, resulting in forced returns, loss of income, and separation from families.

Another 33 countries – including Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore – have partial restrictions. These include requirements for HIV testing in visa applications, discretionary decisions based on perceived healthcare costs, and reduced access to essential services. Although these policies may appear neutral on the surface, they continue to disadvantage people living with HIV.

“These restrictions are rooted in outdated public health thinking and perpetuate stigma,” said Edwin J Bernard, HIV Justice Network’s Executive Director. “They obstruct access to healthcare, education, and family life, especially for migrants and refugees.”

   Click on the image to download the poster

In 2024, Positive Destinations documented several cases of deportation based solely on HIV status: Kuwait deported over 100 people, Russia’s Dagestan region deported nine, and Libya deported two. Such practices are increasingly being challenged by legal action. In Canada, for example, a court case led by the HIV Legal Network contests the “excessive demand” clause of immigration law, arguing it violates the country’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

However, policy reform has been uneven. Australia raised its health cost threshold for visa eligibility, slightly easing access to temporary stays, but permanent residency remains elusive for many people with HIV. A recent case saw an Italian teacher denied residency due solely to his HIV-positive status.

The study also underscores how HIV-related migration barriers often intersect with other forms of criminalisation and discrimination. In Uzbekistan and Russia, HIV criminalisation laws are paired with mandatory HIV testing for migrants. In the U.S., HIV-positive and LGBTQ+ asylum seekers continue to face mistreatment in detention centres. And in a tragic case in Turkey, a Syrian trans woman was reportedly deported after her HIV status was disclosed and later killed upon return.

The authors of the study call for urgent action: “Eliminating these harmful policies is essential to ending AIDS, achieving universal health coverage, and upholding the dignity and rights of people living with HIV everywhere,” said Bernard.

Positive Destinations, which hosts the updated Global Database on HIV-Specific Travel and Residence Restrictions, is available at www.positivedestinations.info


EP0623 Addressing HIV-related travel restrictions: Progress and challenges in eliminating discriminatory policies by Edwin J Bernard, Sylvie Beaumont, Elliot Hatt, and Sofía Várguez was presented at IAS2025 by Brent Allan at the 13th IAS Conference on HIV Science, Kigali, Rwanda.

France: Young man with HIV detained without treatment faces expulsion, despite years of residency

For two months, the 23-year-old man has been detained at the CRA in Cornebarrieu (Haute-Garonne), where he has not received his HIV treatment. The associations are asking for a reassessment of his file. Politis was able to reach him.

His voice is weakened, almost inaudible. He seems exhausted. Joes arrived in France at the age of 11, then was adopted by his grandmother. He has 22 today. All his life is here. He went to college and then high school in the North, did two years of art school and then multiplied odd jobs, in catering and sales. In the meantime, he learns that he has HIV. He should have filed his birth certificate at the age of 18 to be officially regularized but he forgot and then covid-19 arrived and the administrations remained closed. He receives an OQTF (obligation to leave French territory).

“I didn’t really take it seriously. Instead of challenging her, I preferred to work, keep a low profile, thinking that things would work out, “says the young man. “If my birth certificate had been filed, they could have registered me in the civil registry and I would be French. From there, everything degrades. The man, detained at the administrative detention center (CRA) in Cornebarrieu, near Toulouse, was to be expelled by plane on Monday, June 23 to his country of origin in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A country he doesn’t know.

International aid stopped

To avoid being sent back, Cimade advised him to apply for asylum as a matter of urgency to the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra). The aim was to re-evaluate his case. A new element was added, as Julie Aufaure, in charge of detention at Cimade, explains: “Care for people with HIV in the DRC is a little better than it used to be. But doubts have returned with the decision by the United States to withdraw its international aid, particularly on health issues”.

More and more foreign nationals living with HIV are being refused entry to the country.It was the Pepfar programme (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which financed a very large part of access to treatment in developing countries – particularly the DRC – with almost 54%. However, “this decision is not yet measurable, but there are major concerns on the ground. And the professionals in the field know that this is going to become a real problem very, very quickly”, continues Julie Aufaure.

This concern is shared by Adrien Cornec, head of mission for the AIDS charity Aides. He explains that France has had a right to residence on medical grounds since 1990. “But for some years now, the authorities have been calling it into question. We’re seeing more and more foreign nationals living with HIV being refused residence. In particular, people who have been refused residency following applications for renewal. In other words, people who have been here for several years.

He adds: “From one day to the next, these people find themselves in an irregular situation, obliged to leave French territory and go to a country where they haven’t lived for long and are not guaranteed access to care.

“We were rejected everywhere”

Julie Aufaure admits that Joes’ situation is complicated. “We’ve been rejected everywhere, unfortunately, because the prefectural authorities and the European Court of Human Rights base their decision on the decision of the Office’s doctor, who says that the treatment exists.

Joes, for his part, ‘hopes from the bottom of his heart’ for a positive response from Ofpra. Especially as he has been subjected to mockery in the detention centre since his arrival on 6 April. Medical confidentiality has been broken. He has been subjected to ‘moral and physical harassment’ by both ‘officers and detainees’. According to him, the detention centre officers spread the information to everyone in the centre. Some felt sorry for them, others laughed. His fellow detainee added that this stigmatisation was recurrent.

Apart from his roommate, with whom he talks, the young man has withdrawn into himself. “It’s still really a wolf’s world here. I prefer to be on my own. People can fight over a piece of bread or a cigarette. It’s a disgrace”, says Joes.

Worse still, he says he has never received his treatment since his arrest. When he arrived, he had a blood test and a check-up a fortnight later. But since then, radio silence. ‘They nearly put me on the plane, in this state, without me having had the treatment…’. As he is HIV-positive, it is essential that he takes his medication every day. The absence of treatment can have serious effects on his health, such as a drop in his immunity, making him extremely vulnerable to other illnesses. According to the Cimade employee, this is a case that ‘borders on the legal’, but she assures us that the procedure is long and going well.

Action still possible

If the asylum application is rejected or deemed inadmissible, Julie Aufaure plans to lodge an appeal with the national court for the right of asylum (CNDA) and ask the administrative court to suspend the deportation until the court has made its decision, but ‘that’s pretty much the last option for him’, she says.

Adrien Cornec says he is very concerned about ‘these refusals of residence and their accommodations’. Aides and the other associations are calling for the application of the decree of 5 January 2017, which states that ‘in all developing countries, it is therefore not yet possible to consider that HIV-positive people can have access to antiretroviral treatment or to the medical care required for all carriers of an HIV infection as soon as they are diagnosed’.

The Aides representative alerted Senator Anne Souyris. The ecologist sent letters to the prefects of the Pyrenees and Haute-Garonne, and also directly to the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau. “We don’t expel people who can’t be treated in their own country. There’s a political issue behind it”, she told Politis.

According to the senator, this is a real ‘death sentence’ for Joes, given that international funding has stopped. The senator goes further than the individual case and calls for all the people who could be affected to be automated: “There should be a circular (…). This should also be a textbook case for managing this situation.

UK: Legal victory for HIV-positive migrant after prolonged detention

High Court grants interim relief and orders the Home Office to release HIV positive detainee

In R(DJR) v Secretary of State for the Home Department AC-2025-LON-000975, the High Court ordered the Secretary of State for the Home Department to release DJR from immigration detention.

DJR had been detained for several months and had been diagnosed with HIV while in detention. Due to the difficulties of him complying with his anti-retroviral medication regime while in detention, the Secretary of State for the Home Department had decided to release him.

However, over two months later, DJR had not been released and the Secretary of State for the Home Department had refused two applications for accommodation, despite insisting that he needed to be provided with accommodation before he could be released.

DJR initially asked the Court to order his release without accommodation, however, the Court was reluctant to make such an order because this might potentially lead to a breach of his post-sentence supervision requirements.

Instead, the Court decided to order the Secretary of State for the Home Department to provide DJR with accommodation on an urgent basis so that he could be released.

US: New report reveals dire conditions for LGBTQ and HIV-Positive asylum seekers in U.S. immigration detention facilities

“No Human Being Should Be Held There”: The Mistreatment Of LGBTQ And HIV-Positive People In U.S. Federal Immigration Jails

Asylum in the United States is a lifesaving necessity for LGBTQ and HIV-positive people. For decades, many have fled to the United States to seek refuge from persecution and torture. However, the United States subjects hundreds of thousands of people yearly, including LGBTQ and HIV-positive people, to its massive network of jails and prisons. These jails, run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are infamous for their inhumane and abusive conditions. For LGBTQ and HIV-positive people, these conditions routinely include high rates of physical and sexual violence, improper and prolonged solitary confinement, and inadequate medical care among other forms of systemic abuse and neglect.

For this report, Immigration Equality, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), and Human Rights First (HRF) surveyed 41 LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants who were detained by CBP and ICE. This survey revealed:

  • Approximately one third of survey participants (18 out of 41) reported sexual abuse, physical assaults or sexual harassment in immigration detention due to their LGBTQ identity;
  • Nearly all of the participants (35 out of 41), reported being targets of homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, racist, or other verbal and nonverbal abuse in ICE and CBP jails that included threats of violence and assault;
  • A majority of participants (28 out of 41) reported receiving inadequate medical care or asking for medical care and not receiving it while in ICE or CBP detention.
  • Nearly half of participants (20 out of 41) interviewed reported new or increased mental health symptoms while in detention, including hives, panic attacks, mental health crises, flashbacks, and self-harm;
  • Roughly half of participants (20 of 41) were subject to solitary confinement;
  • Nearly half of participants (18 of 41) reported having their sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV status or other confidential medical information disclosed in custody without their consent;
  • More than a quarter of survey participants (12 out of 41) reported that ICE or CBP separated them from their loved ones, whether a partner, spouse, or sibling;
  • Survey participants routinely struggled to access their attorneys or find one, while in ICE or CBP detention;
  • The majority of survey participants living with HIV (13 out of 17 participants) reported medical neglect or denial of medical HIV treatment.

The executive branch and Congress can take steps to end this unnecessary suffering and protect the rights of LGBTQ/H individuals. These include steps to apply parole authority, issue guidance on vulnerable populations, support legislative action and phase out immigration detention. Read the full report here.