Launch of ‘10 Reasons Why Criminalization of HIV Exposure or Transmission Harms Women’.

‘The legislative trend toward criminalizing HIV exposure or transmission undermines public health and women’s human rights.’

Tyler Crone, Co-Founder and Coordinating Director of the ATHENA Network.

Responding to current trends towards criminalizing HIV transmission and exposure, human rights and AIDS activists are raising concerns about the implications of these laws, especially for women.

Calling for rights-based approaches in the response to HIV and AIDS, the publication ‘10 Reasons Why Criminalization of HIV Exposure or Transmission Harms Women’ clearly illustrates how criminalizing HIV exposure or transmission – far from providing justice for women – endangers and further oppresses women. This document, with 21 original endorsing organizations from around the world, affirms the protection and advancement of women’s rights as key for effective HIV and AIDS responses, and opposes laws that criminalize HIV exposure or transmission.

Women continue to be disproportionately infected and affected by HIV and AIDS. More than half of all people living with HIV are women, and women continue to be at high risk of HIV infection and of related rights abuses. Thus, any response to HIV and AIDS should take into account the effects that the pandemic, and the responses to it, have upon women and women’s vulnerability to HIV infection. Given the gendered societal context in which laws that criminalize HIV transmission or exposure will be applied and implemented, it is more likely to be women who will be prosecuted and feel the consequences of such legislation.

Recently, more than 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa alone have passed legislation with clauses ranging from mandatory HIV testing and disclosure, to criminalizing exposure or transmission of HIV. Similar laws have been enacted, or are pending, in parts of Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. However, as argued by Johanna Kehler, Director of the AIDS Legal Network, South Africa:

‘What we need are interventions that address women’s HIV risks; not legislation that increases women’s vulnerabilities to HIV transmission and to rights abuses. We need laws that protect women’s rights and not tools that criminalize women. We need to focus on removing barriers to effective HIV responses, not on creating additional obstacles for women’s access to available HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support. Criminalizing HIV transmission is indeed ‘bad policy’; as it threatens human rights and harms women.’

While a call to apply criminal law to HIV exposure and transmission is often driven by a well intentioned wish to protect women, it does nothing to address the gender-based violence or the deep economic, social, and political inequalities that are at the root of women’s and girls’ disproportionate vulnerability to HIV.

‘Laws that criminalize HIV exposure and transmission will further victimize and oppress women; as these laws will aggravate the risk of violence and abuse, reinforce gendered inequalities, promote fear and stigma, and ultimately increase women’s risks to HIV and HIV-related rights abuses’ stated Michaela Clayton, Director of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa.

Endorse ‘10 Reasons Why Criminalization of HIV Exposure or Transmission Harms Women’ by sending an email with your name, country of residence, and affiliated institution to admin@athenanetwork.org.

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Addressing Emerging Trends and Neglected Issues at the Intersection of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and HIV

ATHENA has launched the Bridging the Gap series at the Fourth National South African AIDS Conference.

• ‘Mapping Emerging Trends and Neglected Issues at the Intersection of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and HIV’, as an outcome document from the ATHENA 2008 SRHR and HIV Retreat
  
  
• Fact Sheet on ‘HPV, Cervical Cancer, and HIV: Screening and Prevention’, authored by Fiona Hale
  
  
• Policy Brief ‘Developing a Human Rights Framework to Address Coerced Sterilization and Abortion: Articulating the Principle of Free and Informed Decision-Making’, authored by the Health Equity and Law Clinic, International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program of the University of Toronto
  
  
• Case Study ‘Documenting Human Rights Violations in Healthcare Settings: Experiences of HIV Positive Women in Namibia’, containing the direct documentation of Namibia Women’s Health Network members
  
  
• Bridging the Gap report

These materials are part of a broader initiative to advance the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women living with HIV, particularly the right to safe, healthy motherhood and to reproductive choices. The broader initiative includes the on-going development of human rights frameworks, policy briefs, and fact sheets; the use of human rights mechanisms, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur; community-led documentation projects; capacity building; and community mobilization.

With support from the Packard Foundation Population Program, the ATHENA Network has formed and launched a Reference Group to identify and address emerging trends and neglected issues at the intersection of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and HIV, with a core focus on the priorities and perspectives of women living with, and affected by, HIV.

Current ATHENA Reference Group members include the AIDS Legal Network, Center for Reproductive Rights, Health Systems Trust, ICW, ICW Southern Africa, Ipas, Namibia Women’s Health Network, and the Salamander Trust.