Ideas Meeting to End Harassment
posted: 13/12/2010
What should the council, NHS and other public bodies be doing to stop HIV abuse and harassment? People with HIV, their partners and friends can put forward ideas and have a say at a meeting in Manchester in late January.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission are holding a meeting for the families, friends and survivors of disability-related harassment (including HIV abuse).
Legal duty to end harassment
Public bodies all have a legal duty to ‘eliminate’ disability-related harassment and its causes. HIV abuse, threats and violence are all examples of disability-related harassment.
Most public bodies are doing nothing effective to ‘eliminate’ HIV and other forms of disability harassment. Because of the stigma associated with HIV public bodies should be prioritising the ending of HIV stigma and its causes.
What should public bodies be doing?
There is almost no limit to the creative (and cheap) ways public bodies could promote better public attitudes to people with HIV.
Ask to take part
If you have been directly affected by disability-related harassment for example because of HIV, or someone you know has, and you would like to attend the meeting, please tell them as soon as possible. They will then invite you and send you the details of the meeting. There are only a limited number of seats so please book early. Email or telephone the Equality and Human Rights Commission: 0161 829 8174
This Manchester meeting will begin on Monday 24 January at 1pm and end by 5pm.
Please note this meeting is only for people who have experience of disability-related harassment.
Campaigning actions
During 2010 George House Trust has been encouraging people with HIV and HIV organisations to take part in this Disability Harassment Inquiry.
The commission has powers to order public bodies to take action and expects to publish its report and recommendations in the first part of 2011.
Find out more about the commission’s Inquiry into disability related harassment
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Have Your Say About HIV Abuse, Threats, Bullying Harassment
posted: 06/07/2010
Have you faced HIV abuse, bullying, graffiti, threats, or violence? If anything like this has happened to you in the last 5 years, we want to know about it. An official Inquiry is underway because public bodies are not doing their legal duty to prevent and end HIV and disability harassment.
Public duty to prevent and end harassment
Public bodies like councils, the health service, public transport and others all have a legal duty to prevent and eliminate disability harassment.
Time to tell your stories of HIV hate and bullying
You can tell your story of what happened anonymously, or give your name.
Whatever happened, no matter how big or small, and whether you told anyone, whether you complained or not, is all valuable evidence.
Partners, relatives, friends, organisations can all help too with their own evidence.
How to help
The deadline for your comments is Friday 10th September 2010.
You can respond through any of the following methods:
Disability Harassment Inquiry
Equality and Human Rights Commission
FREEPOST RRLL-GHUX-CTRX
Arndale House, Arndale Centre
Manchester, M4 3AQ
Organisations and Public Bodies have a different questionnaire - an interactive pdf and Word versions of the Call for Evidence are available here
The Inquiry also welcomes information and ideas about what helps
- How public bodies and public transport deal with HIV / disability harassment
- What helps prevent and eliminate HIV / disability harassment
- How to deal with the causes of HIV / disability harassment, including prejudice and blame
- Ways of involving people with HIV in ending HIV / disability harassment and its causes
- How people with HIV can be encouraged to report HIV / disability harassment
- How age, gender, gender identity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief and sexual orientation affect HIV / disability harassment.
Equality And Human Rights Commission Disability Harassment Inquiry call for evidence
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Gay-Hate and HIV-Hate
posted: 01/04/2010
Blow the Whistle on Gay Hate is the name of a new booklet for gay and bisexual men about challenging gay hate, stigma, blaming, and abuse. This booklet could help people with HIV blow the whistle on HIV hate. Whether it is hate because of HIV, race, sexuality, gender, or disability, what you can do about it is much the same, so this booklet should help people with HIV, whether or not you are gay.
download the booklet Blow the Whistle on Gay Hate
HIV Hate Action
Have you been
- hit
- called names
- spat at
- had your things stolen or damaged
because of HIV?
That's harassment and it is a crime.
A new project helps people dealing with HIV harassment including HIV called Working it Through Together. It's run by Breakthrough UK, who are based in Manchester.
contact Working it Through Together 0161 273 5412
Official Hate Inquiry
HIV hate is also on the agenda for an official Inquiry into hate and harassment of people with disabilities (HIV counts in law as a disability). The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has started a formal Inquiry.
This is a serious step - it means they know the law is not working as it should. Public bodies (like councils and the NHS) have a legal duty to get rid of disability (including HIV) harassment but recent cases show councils are failing.
After this formal Inquiry the Equalities and Human Rights Commission can order public bodies to do things. We think this is a great opportunity to push for some real action against HIV stigma from public bodies. We're working with NAT on this and have told the EHRC they should include HIV in their Inquiry. More details here
Stonewall Gay Hate pages
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HIV Stigma and Harassment Action
posted: 24/03/2010
Ending HIV stigma and harassment has edged a little closer. An official inquiry is about to begin into progress by public authorities on eliminating disability harassment – and this includes HIV stigma. The Inquiry is called because of recent cases of severe disability harassment neglected by public authorities. Councils and the NHS, among other public bodies, are simply not doing what the law tells them to - eliminate disability harassment.
Last week George House Trust met with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in Manchester at a consultation into exactly what the disability harassment inquiry should look into.
- We made it plain that the official Inquiry must include HIV and not just people with learning difficulties or mental health problems.
- We said that people with invisible but highly stigmatised conditions like HIV face considerable disability harassment and stigma, and many barriers to complaining.
- We said that public bodies, with rare exceptions, ignore their duty to eliminate HIV disability harassment and stigma.
Over the next year the Equality and Human Rights Commission will investigate and we have offered to help gather HIV evidence. We are working with NAT to make this a nationwide effort.
What will happen?
The Commission has considerable powers to force public bodies to act if they are not doing their job. We have a right to expect things to improve and the least we expect is public campaigns to make HIV stigma and harassment socially unacceptable everywhere, a bit like the Kick Racism out of Football campaign.
The powers the EHRC has to force public bodies to eliminate HIV stigma and harassment means HIV stigma and harassment could really start to fade away. We think the Commission should start using its powers - this is one of the best hopes we have for ending HIV stigma and harassment.
We’ll keep you updated on the Inquiry and how you can give evidence confidentially.
Disability Harassment Inquiry
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Fighting HIV Stigma
posted: 15/12/2009
Our website has a whole new page of information and resources about HIV stigma and discrimination to support campaigns to cut HIV stigma.
HIV stigma is a key issue because it affects not only the lives of people living with HIV, but also whether people talk about HIV, how well people take care of their sexual health, whether people get tested, collect the test results (or not), how people cope with diagnosis, decide about treatment, and in dozens of other ways.
HIV stigma is one of the major challenges society faces in dealing with HIV. The better we deal with HIV stigma, the better our chances of supporting people living with HIV successfully and for managing the HIV epidemic here and abroad.
We have trawled the web for the best of what is available and have now added a new page of HIV Stigma Studies and Resources.
HIV Stigma Studies and Resources page
If you know of any other useful materials on fighting stigma please tell us.
image credit Together in Positive Thinking Against HIV+ Phobia
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