Behind bars – an international collection of interviews, exposes the effect criminal laws on HIV transmission are having on people’s working and private lives.  

The stories illustrate the personal and professional dilemmas faced by:

• doctors
• lawyers
• researchers 
• advocates
• parliamentarians

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 is published as part of IPPF’s Criminalize hate, not HIV campaign.

The interviews

Malawi - A bad law is more breached than honoured

Sweden - Why turn a proportion of our population into potential criminals every time they have sex? 

Notes to accompany press release  

About criminalization

Almost 20 years after the HIV virus was discovered, at the end of the 1990s, the law has been used to criminalize the transmission of HIV.  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.

• 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
• Australia leads for the Pacific region with more than 11 known convictions
• In Africa, although provisions exist in many countries, there have been few known cases to date – in Togo and Burkina Faso 

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.

About Criminalize Hate, not HIV

Launched at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, July 2010, ‘Criminalize Hate, not HIV’ is part of a growing campaign to raise awareness about issues relating to the criminalization of HIV transmission. 

The short-film we produced is stylized and artistic, showing the humanness of sex, of relationships and of HIV.

The people in the film are from many walks of life, are not professional actors, and many are living with HIV.

It builds on Sexual rights: an IPPF declaration 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). 

Criminalization of HIV transmission

Legislation that criminalizes the forward sexual transmission of HIV is now appearing in some countries.

This can lead to people living with HIV being prosecuted for another person becoming HIV positive. Prosecuting people on the basis of their HIV status may serve an individual’s desire for justice, but it will have significant implications for public health.

Criminalizing HIV transmission will deepen stigma and discrimination, remove incentives to HIV testing (if an individual doesn’t know their status they cannot be prosecuted) as well as undermining trust in healthcare providers.

Criminalizing HIV transmission also places the responsibility for HIV prevention solely with people living with HIV, whereas in reality HIV prevention is the equal responsibility of all and not just people living with HIV. All these factors will hinder access to HIV prevention, treatment and care services.

Moves to criminalize HIV transmission are frequently intended to allow action in instances of rape and abuse. Although legal action is undoubtedly necessary in cases of violence like this, the legal instruments used should be based on rape or abuse and not on HIV status.

IPPF opposes legislation that criminalizes HIV transmission, whether classified as reckless or intentional. Alternatives to the criminal law must be sought to resolve conflict in these instances.

Useful international resources

• Global commission on HIV and the Law (launched June 2010)
www.hivlawcommission.org/

• Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Anand Grover (27 April 2010)

• HIV & the Criminal Law, NAM (2010)
www.aidsmap.com/law/

• Criminal HIV Transmission blog, by Edwin J Bernard
 
• IPPF, GNP and ICW (2008), Verdict on a Virus (in English, French, Russian)

• IPPF (2008), Sexual rights: an IPPF declaration

• UNAIDS (2008). Criminal Law, Public Health and HIV Transmission: A Policy Options Paper

• UNAIDS (2006). International Guidelines on HIV and Human Rights

Get involved

1. Watch Criminalize Hate, Not HIV

2. Share information about the campaign and upload the website link on facebook/twitter

3. Inform yourself about the laws affecting HIV in your country

Contacts at IPPF Central Office

Kevin Osborne, Senior HIV Adviser
0207 939 8275

Lucy Stackpool-Moore, HIV Officer: Stigma
0207 939 8283