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 Criminalisation Harms Women
Endorse 10 Reasons Why Criminalisation of HIV Exposure or Transmission Harms Women
Calling for rights-based approaches in the response to HIV and AIDS, the publication ‘10 Reasons Why Criminalisation of HIV Exposure or Transmission Harms Women’ clearly illustrates how criminalising HIV exposure or transmission – far from providing justice for women – endangers and further oppresses women. This document, launched on 01 December 2009, affirms the protection and advancement of women’s rights as key for effective HIV and AIDS responses, and opposes laws that criminalise 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 criminalise 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.
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.
To affirm the need to protect and advance women’s rights in the response to HIV and AIDS, we invite you to read the ‘10 Reasons Why Criminalisation of HIV Exposure or Transmission Harms Women’, and encourage you to endorse the document.
Last Updated: 9/1/2010
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