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

Don't Prosecute HIV Young People

posted: 09/03/2009

Young people living with HIV should not face the threat of prosecution for passing on HIV, leading HIV charities are urging.

A conference at the end of February looked at the impact of prosecutions for HIV transmission on young people. At least one person under 18 has been investigated and the recent report, Policing Transmission, included a review of one case.

Now HIV charities are lobbying the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to clarify guidelines for charging young people with the offence.

The move follows the London conference at the National Children's Bureau, attended by George House Trust and Barnardo's, which discussed the prosecution prospects and the harm caused to young people living with HIV.

Prosecutions opposed

George House Trust is opposed to HIV transmission prosecutions in principle because they cause far more harm than good to public health. They worsen stigma, shaming and blaming around HIV and make it less likely people will be tested early and start treatment on time, which are the most effective ways of stopping the spread of HIV.

Young people with HIV have all been infected through mother to baby transmission (which is now rare). This is the first generation of teenagers with HIV and as pioneers the young people have had a particularly tough time. Some are vulnerable and have been looked after by the state. Some have learning difficulties as a result of HIV.

Any teenager has a tough time growing into the world of sex and relationships amid raging hormones, and having HIV makes this far more complicated. In the view of the charities at the conference, prosecutions of teenagers for HIV transmission would not be in the public interest.

The charities at the conference called on the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines on prosecution for sexual transmission of disease to ban prosecutions of all teenagers and other young people.

Canadian Call on HIV Crimes

posted: 16/02/2009

Canadian HIV organisations and respected scientists have joined the international calls to stop prosecutions for HIV transmission.

When a Toronto (Canada) man was charged last week with sexual assault for knowingly exposing his woman partner to HIV, it may have seemed the logical thing for police to do, and it follows the increasing number of Canadian cases. (There are many more prosecutions and convictions in Canada than in the UK and fewer people diagnosed with HIV. Canada's population is about half the UK's population).

It was the second charge of its sort in two weeks in Ontario, and comes in the midst of a landmark murder trial of someone living with HIV who allegedly infected several women, two of whom later died.

But HIV orgnaisations -- and now two respected HIV scientists -- say such prosecutions are doing more harm than good, and are calling for authorities to stop criminalising what they consider a public-health issue.

Blame and shame worsens HIV

Dr. Mark Wainberg, a Montreal scientist who headed the International AIDS Society for two years, publicly joined the anti-criminalisation movement with an editorial in the journal Retrovirology last month, and admits his stance might seem “counter-intuitive.”

But, like others, he argued that publicity about the scores of criminal HIV cases that have cropped up across Canada is adding to the negative aura around the disease, discouraging people from coming forward to get tested, and thus furthering the virus’s spread.

Prosecute only intended transmission, not the reckless

The criminal law should be used when someone deliberately tries to infect another person -- through a needle prick or similar malicious action -- but not through consensual sex, he said.

“We don’t want to stigmatise and, in a way, you are stigmatising HIV-positive status,” said Dr. Wainberg, who received the Order of Canada for his HIV-AIDS research. “We’re not doing enough to encourage testing, and decriminalising transmission would be a step in the right direction.”

Dr. Wainberg conceded that there is little evidence yet that criminal cases are, in fact, keeping potentially infected people underground.

Prosecutions impact on people affected by HIV

But a study about to get underway in Ontario will examine how the criminal cases are affecting people who already know they are HIV-positive, said Barry Adam, a University of Windsor sociologist and research director of the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, who is leading the survey.

Not everyone in the field, though, views the criminal cases with distaste. Dr. Robert Remis, head of Ontario Epidemiologic Monitoring Unit, said other avenues, such as counselling and public health laws should be used first on people who exhibit irresponsible sexual behaviour. But using the criminal law is “just the right thing to do” in some circumstances, he said. “To knowingly and sort of willfully expose someone else to a what can be a fatal disease I think is unacceptable,” said Dr. Remis.“It’s beyond the limit, just like it’s illegal to bash someone on the head with a stick. It just happens to be a viral stick. But it’s a potentially serious assault.”

Over 80 prosecutions and rising faster in Canada

Though definitive statistics are hard to find, more than 80 people -- mostly men -- have been charged in Canada with criminal offences for exposing sexual partners to HIV, according to a study about to be published in the Canadian Journal of Law and Society by Dr. Adam and colleagues.

The Supreme Court provided the legal underpinning in a 1998 decision that said someone who does not disclose he or she has HIV does not have their partner’s consent for sex, making the act an assault. Darren Eke, a spokesman for Rob Nicholson, the justice minister, suggested the Harper government has no plans to change that law.

Meanwhile, prosecutions have picked up steam of late, with at least 10 in each of the last three years, said Alison Symington of the Canadian HIV-AIDS Legal Network, which is opposed to most of the cases.

In the latest case, a 29-year-old Toronto man was charged with aggravated sexual assault after having consensual, unprotected sex with a female friend and failing to tell her he was HIV-positive. Police said they believe there were other unsuspecting partners, as well.

A similar charge was laid last month against a 53-year-old man from St. Catharines, Ontario.

Earlier in December, the Ontario Court of Appeal imposed a one-year jail sentence on a man convicted of aggravated sexual assault after he had unprotected sex twice with his girlfriend, and failed to tell her during their 18 months together about his HIV status. The trial judge had given him a lighter, conditional sentence. The appeal judges disagreed and increased his sentence saying the man had “deceived [her] throughout their entire relationship concerning a medical condition that could expose her to a life-threatening illness.”

Murder charges

Grabbing most attention, though, is the case of Johnson Aziga, on trial now in Hamilton, Ontario, on two counts of first-degree murder after allegedly having a spate of unprotected sexual encounters with partners who never learned of his HIV infection. Two eventually died of HIV-related cancers.

The jury saw video testimony given by one of the women, looking gaunt and emaciated, just weeks before she died.

Vancouver’s Dr. Julio Montaner, another world-renowned HIV researcher, said criminal prosecution of transmission during consensual sex is a complicated issue but he, too, said he sees little benefit from it except in the most extreme cases.

And he noted that police never charge people for passing on other infectious diseases.

“HIV is a problem but so is human papilomavirus (HPV), which leads to cervical cancer and anal cancer,” he said, referring to another sexually transmitted infection. “Are we going to legally prosecute anyone who transmits a communicable disease? Is that the kind of society we live in?”

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Disability Hate Crime Conference

posted: 02/02/2009

Manchester is to have a Disability Hate Crime conference in March. Disability hate crimes are crimes where prejudice and discrimination were behind the main offence - so a physical attack with abuse about having HIV would be assault made worse because of the disability hate crime abuse.

The law automatically treats HIV as a disability so people living with HIV have this extra legal protection. The way the law works is if a person is found guilty of the main offence (such as assault), then the court should then consider whether there is also evidence of a hate crime. If there is evidence of a hate crime, the punishment should be increased.

The Manchester conference will look at how well the law is actually working. The problem is people rarely report any disability hate crimes, especially those involving stigmatised conditions like HIV. However there has been at least one HIV disability hate crime that did come to court in the NorthWest - a violent assault over HIV disclosure

The Crown Prosecution Service conference is a way to work with disabled people and local advocacy groups to identify what CPS Greater Manchester and other Manchester Criminal Justice Agencies can do to boost the confidence of people with HIV and other disabilities to report hate crime. It will also show how Criminal Justice Agencies are trying to support disabled people who have endured hate crimes.

On the conference agenda is the chance to

• talk about your needs and concerns

• talk about practical ways to boost confidence in reporting Disability Hate Crime.

Want to take part?

The conference is on Thursday 5 March (9:30 am – 4:00pm) at Manchester Town Hall.

To attend you need to book a place. Please complete both the booking and monitoring forms and return them to david.leighton@cps.gsi.gov.uk by Monday 16 February or call 0161 827 4715. The conference agenda is here.
 

Positive Women - Rights and Social Wrongs

posted: 29/01/2009

Hear and watch a talk by the well-known and respected human rights barrister Helena Kennedy QC to Sophia, on prosecutions for HIV transmission.

Sophia is a network of women and organisations around the UK, part of the UNAIDS-coordinated Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. You can sign up for e-mail updates from Sophia at the bottom of this page

Sophia aims to:

• Create effective, long-lasting policy change, to provide HIV prevention for women and better access to treatment for women with HIV.
• Promote HIV awareness amongst organisations, influential individuals, and women, so that they commit to fighting the HIV pandemic.
• Promote inclusion and access to their rights for women with HIV throughout the world.

Sophia organises awareness-raising events, shares experiences and best practice, lobbies decision-makers and opinion-formers, and provides an open forum for anyone concerned about HIV and how it affects women and girls. Many of their current supporters are individuals active in development, health and HIV work, and many others contribute experience from business, law and education.

Take action for positive change: find out more, use your influence and talk to your colleagues, friends and family members.

Helena's talk - Legal Rights and Social Wrongs needs the Flash player installed on your computer. Go here to download the latest version of Flash

Hear and watch the talk by human rights barrister Helena Kennedy to Sophia

Comments from the audience

"I found Helena Kennedy's talk rousing and delivered in such a way as to be appealing and accessible to a wide range of people, whether or not they had direct personal experience of living with HIV or AIDS. I also came away quite profoundly affected by meeting some of the women from PozFem and Positively Women, and reading the literature included in the packs (which I read from cover to cover!) that were handed out. I would like to know more about the work of SOPHIA and these other organisations, and to be able to offer assistance in any way I can." Angela Randall (Lawyer)

"I came along to the event to further my knowledge about HIV and AIDS, hear some new perspective, and challenge the views I already had. As a trainee social worker I have recently become really aware of the issues surrounding transmission, particularly concerning negative media coverage about prosecution, which prevents people from getting tested. This lecture made me aware of all the factors that are in place, particularly from the perspective of a person living with HIV, which is often the forgotten voice in the media, both in the UK and abroad. One of the best elements of the event was the emphasis upon action, as we can learn about an issue endlessly but it really is action that makes a difference. I took in a lot from the lecture, and have used some of the material and somewhat unknown statistics to talk to my own peers about sexual health and HIV. I have also not only tried to inform but to encourage them in turn to talk to their peers so that we all become advocates for the cause, which was a clear message in the lecture." Rhiannon Spencer (Trainee Social worker)

"As someone who works in the commercial legal world, I am not exposed to discussions about HIV/AIDS in my daily life. This lecture was a real eye-opener for me, leaving me feeling personally implicated in the discussions about general levels of ignorance and neglect. So I see this as a call to arms, and hope to involve some of the law firms I work with in the drive to educate and engage." Caroline Walker (Legal research consultant)

"I was pleased to be able to hear Helena Kennedy speak at the lecture organised by the Sophia Forum recently. It was an informative and well organised event which attracted an interesting and diverse audience. Well done!" Sarah Hayward
 

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