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From:	Reshma Pattni
Subject:	Fwd: ISRRC - What is the impact of criminalizing HIV transmission?
Sent:	Nov 29th, 2010 - 12:44:47

	---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rachel Lander Date: Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:44 AM Subject: ISRRC - What is the impact of criminalizing HIV transmission?> NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 29 November 2010 ** Contact: Paul Bell, 020 7939 8233 or pbell (at) ippf.org Kevin Osborne, 020 7939 8275 or kosborne (at) ippf.org What is the impact of criminalizing HIV transmission? Behind Bars a collection of interviews published online today by the International Planned Parenthood Federation - exposes how criminal laws on HIV transmission are affecting peoples working and private lives all around the world. The stories illustrate the personal and professional dilemmas faced by doctors, lawyers, researchers and advocates. They include the stories of a doctor who was forced to aid a police investigation against her ethical principles, a woman living with HIV who prosecuted her former partner and a lawyer who advocated in an HIV transmission case. The nature and impact of the criminal law and its impact on the response to HIV is neither well documented nor well understood. But it risks further marginalizing people already vulnerable to HIV infection, including women, men who have sex with men, sex workers and people who use drugs. Legislation and legal practice is different in every country around the world, and collectively we need to become more conscious of the impact of both the criminal law and its implementation on national responses to HIV. By fuelling stigma, criminalization undermines efforts to prevent, treat and care for HIV. From the UK to the USA, Mali to Mozambique, Azerbaijan to Australia, criminal laws are increasingly being used to prosecute HIV transmission or exposure. But, as the interviews reveal, criminal law is a blunt instrument for HIV prevention. Behind Bars show how a simplistic law-and-order response to HIV can intensify a climate of denial, secrecy and fear and provide a fertile breeding ground for the spread of HIV. The drive for criminalization of wilful transmission of HIV is proving a costly intervention - in terms of time and money spent on investigating individuals private lives and determining the burden of proof - and seems to have had limited impact on HIV prevention. Contributor Jan Albert, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the Karolinska Institute Sweden, says: Since Ive been an expert witness in court trials, my personal opinion regarding people living with the virus has changed. In my experience the accused are seldom criminals. 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. There will be more and more HIV infected people living in Sweden, and the rest of the world. Do we want to turn a proportion of our population into potential criminals every time they have sex? Kevin Osborne, Senior HIV Advisor for IPPF, said: These stories show that criminalizing the transmission of HIV is actually undermining our efforts to prevent the spread of HIV. Fear of prosecution deters people from coming forward for testing and counselling; policing the bedroom effectively drives the problem underground. Behind Bars is published as part of IPPFs Criminalize hate, not HIV campaign, for World AIDS Day (1 December). Ends The Behind Bars interviews can be found at www.ippf.org. Notes for Editors As part of its* Criminalize Hate, Not HIV campaign, IPPF is screening a short campaign video that highlights the dimensions and impact of laws that criminalize HIV transmission. The film is available on YouTube and on the IPPF website (www.ippf.org). The two-minute film is stylized and artistic, showing the humanness of sex, of relationships and of HIV. The people in the film share their own, diverse stories (they are not professional actors), and many are living with HIV. It builds on IPPFs Declaration of Sexual Rights and purposefully focuses on sex irrespective of how, where, with whom and why people have sex. The film hints at not only the laws criminalizing HIV transmission and exposure, but also laws criminalizing behaviours associated with HIV transmission (drug injection, sex work and sex between men). The film will be live on World AIDS Day, 1 December 2010 http://bit.ly/criminalization Facts* The law has been used to criminalize the transmission of HIV since the end of the 1990s - almost 20 years after the HIV virus was first discovered. In some countries this has been under old laws (from the nineteenth century or exported through colonialism) and in others under new laws explicitly drafted as part of the national response to HIV. Some 16 countries are in the process of considering HIV-specific laws at the moment, and half of them are in Africa. · At least 16 prosecutions by the Crown Prosecution Service have taken place in the UK since 2001 disrupting lives and damaging public health gains. · 41 countries 20 per cent of the countries in the world have laws under which HIV transmission or exposure has been prosecuted 27 in Africa, 13 in Asia, 11 in Latin America and the Caribbean, nine in Europe and two in North America.[1] · Europe is second only to North America as the region with the highest number of criminal prosecutions for HIV transmission in the world. [2] Legal standards set by many European countries do not provide models for imitation. · To date prosecutions have primarily been for sexual transmission or exposure. · In some countries, such as Canada and the USA, laws have been used to send mothers to prison for transmitting HIV to their child. · In Egypt, merely living with HIV can lead to prosecution for crimes of debauchery. · The USA and Canada lead the world in terms of number of prosecutions and convictions of HIV transmission, with more than 300 convictions between them. Sweden leads Europe with at least 38 known prosecutions; and Australia for the Pacific region with more than 11 known convictions.[3] · Of any country in the world, Sweden has the highest number of criminal prosecutions per 1,000 people living with HIV.[4] · In Africa, although the legal provisions exist in many countries, there are a few known cases relating to HIV transmission to date, for example in Burkina Faso, Malawi, Togo and Zimbabwe. · The media coverage of HIV criminal prosecutions in the UK has generated headlines such as AIDS Assassin, undermining decades of work to reduce the stigma associated with HIV. · In the UK, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) produced guidelines for reporting on HIV in 2007[5] . In 2009 these were updated by the National AIDS Trust (NAT), NUJ and Society of Editors to include issues relating to criminalization.[6]In 2010 NAT also produced Guidelines for Reporting HIV: Advice for Editors and Journalists Writing about HIV in the UK.[7] Rachel Lander \| Writer: Communications and Policy Advocacy and Communications (ACT) International Planned Parenthood Federation Central Office \| 4 Newhams Row, London SE1 3UZ UK email* rlander (at) ippf.org \| phone +44 (0) 20 7939 8224 web** www.ippf.org ------------------------------ [1] Edwin J Bernard, Presentation at XVIII International AIDS Conference, Vienna, July 2010, 'Where HIV is a crime, not just a virus: a global ranking of prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission.' [2] Edwin J Bernard, Presentation at XVIII International AIDS Conference, Vienna, July 2010, *'Where HIV is a crime, not just a virus: a global ranking of prosecutions for HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission.' [3] GNP+ (2010). 2010 Global Criminalisation Scan Report [4] GNP+ (2010). 2010 Global Criminalisation Scan Report. [5] NUJ (2007). Guidelines for Reporting HIV. [6] NAT and NUJ (2009). Guidelines for Reporting HIV: Supplementary Information. [7] NAT (2010). Guidelines for Reporting HIV: Advise for Editors and journalists writing about HIV and AIDS ------------------------------ "This email and any attachments are intended only for the use of the individual or entity to which it is directed and may contain information that is confidential. If you have received this email and you are not the intended recipient or person responsible for delivering this email to the intended recipient, please inform the IPPF IT Department immediately by emailing servicedesk (at) ippf.org and then delete the email from your system. If you are not a named addressee you must not use, disclose, distribute, copy, print or reply to this email. 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If you wish to unsubscribe from this list please visit http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/isrrc-l -- Reshma Pattni Program Director Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS, a program of TakingITGlobal reshma (at) gyca.org www.gyca.org www.tigweb.org (T) +1-212-661-6111 540 President St, 3rd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11215 USA GYCA is a youth-led global network of more than 4,500 young leaders and adult allies working on youth and HIV and AIDS in 150 countries worldwide. GYCA's mission is to empower young leaders with the skills, knowledge, resources and opportunities they need to scale up HIV and AIDS interventions amongst their peers.