GENEVA, 2 December 2019—UNAIDS applauds the decision by the parliament of Australia’s Northern Territory to decriminalize sex work. The Sex Industry Bill 2019 enhances the safety of sex workers and their clients by applying public health legislation to operators of sex service businesses and by allowing sex workers to work together. The legislation explicitly prohibits the exploitation of sex workers, supports their access to justice and outlaws any involvement of children.

“I commend this decision by Australia’s Northern Territory, which upholds the human rights of sex workers and means that they can operate within existing laws and regulations, including laws relating to employment, occupational health and safety, workers’ rights and discrimination,” said the UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima. “The decriminalization of sex work reduces the risk of HIV transmission for both sex workers and their clients.”

Globally, sex workers are 21 times more likely to acquire HIV than the general adult population. A 2014 study published in the Lancet indicated that the decriminalization of sex work is the single intervention that would have the greatest impact on the course of the HIV epidemic over 10 years, with reductions in new HIV infections among sex workers and their clients estimated at between 33% and 46%.

“This is a huge achievement built on the advocacy of sex workers and their supporters over many years and the result of best practice collaboration between the government and sex workers,” said the Chief Executive Officer of Scarlet Alliance, the Australian Sex Workers’ Association, Jules Kim. “Decriminalization means that sex workers in the Northern Territory are able to access justice in the event of a crime without fear of being arrested. We will also be able to implement occupational health and safety strategies and prioritize the health and safety of all those involved in sex work.”

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Fifty years after the Stonewall riots in New York, United States of America―a major milestone in the modern struggle to recognize the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people―more people are benefiting from the rights that the Stonewall protesters campaigned for. The number of people living in countries that criminalize consensual same-sex sexual relationships has steadily declined since 1969.

In June 2019, Botswana became the latest country to decriminalize same-sex relationships, but Africa still accounts for about half of the world’s population living in countries with anti-homosexuality laws. In 2018, the proportion of the world’s population that lives in countries that criminalize same-sex sexual relations plummeted from about 40% to 23% following the Indian Supreme Court’s decision that decriminalized all consensual sex among adults. This was the largest annual decline since China decriminalized same-sex sexual relationships in 1997.

Prohibitive laws and policies against key populations increase their vulnerability to HIV. It is therefore vital to ensure the full respect of the human rights of all people, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity, including through repealing laws that prohibit sex between consenting adults in private, enforcing laws to protect people from violence and discrimination and addressing homophobia and transphobia.

Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in at least 67 countries and territories worldwide.

A new website that enables people to identify national laws and policies related to the AIDS response has been launched by UNAIDS.

Covering areas as diverse as a country’s ability to diagnose HIV among young babies, the existence of laws that discriminate against transgender people and whether people are prosecuted for carrying condoms, the Laws and Policies Analytics website aims to give a full overview of a country’s laws and policies related to the HIV response. It also allows to view policy data jointly with other data on the HIV epidemic and response.

“We must better understand legal and policy environments to drive effective responses to the HIV epidemic. This new tool will provide access to data on national laws and policies and allow for joint analysis with data on the epidemic and response, so that we can drive more deeply-informed decision-making,” said Shannon Hader, UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director, Programme.

Under the 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, countries committed to accelerate efforts to significantly increase the availability of high-quality data on HIV. The information used on the new website was reported since 2017 and most recently in 2019 through the National Commitments and Policy Instrument (NCPI), a part of the Global AIDS Monitoring mechanism through which countries report their progress against the commitments they made in the 2016 Political Declaration.

Data were provided by national authorities, civil society organizations and other nongovernmental partners engaged in the AIDS response. Data on HIV-related laws and policies compiled from other external official documents complement the nationally supplied data. UNAIDS carries out a thorough validation of all policy data included to ensure their accuracy. Data will be updated annually.

The website hosts data from over 140 countries. Users can search by country or region through an interactive map or can select a specific topic.

Through making policy data widely available, UNAIDS seeks to promote transparency and an increased use of policy data in analyses of the HIV epidemic and the response to HIV in countries worldwide.

The Laws and Policies Analytics website can be accessed at lawsandpolicies.unaids.org.

Laws discriminate in many ways, but the criminalization of people is one of the most devastating forms of discrimination. Despite calls for reform and the commitments under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to remove discriminatory laws and reduce inequalities:

• Sixty-nine countries still criminalize same-sex sexual relationships.
• More than 100 countries criminalize drug use or the personal possession of drugs and 98 countries criminalize some form of sex work.
• One in five people in prison are there because of drug-related crimes and 80% of those are there for personal possession or use.
• Nineteen countries deport non-nationals on the grounds of their HIV status.

A high-level political forum is meeting in New York, United States of America, from 9 to 18 July to review the progress made against the commitments of Member States towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including those on inequality and on peace, justice and strong institutions.

“As a judge, I have seen the effect that criminal law can have on communities. It takes people outside systems of protection, declares their actions or identity illegitimate, increases stigma and excludes them from any protections our judicial, social and economic systems may provide,” said Edwin Cameron, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

Criminalization affects access to health services, housing, education, social protection and employment. The criminalization of same-sex sexual relationships, sex work or drug use prevents people from accessing health-care services, including HIV prevention, testing and treatment. Data show that gay men and other men who have sex with men are 28 times more at risk of HIV than the general population, people who inject drugs are 22 times more at risk and sex workers and transgender women are 13 times at risk. 

“To fully implement the Sustainable Development Goal agenda and make sure that no one is left behind, we need to ensure the laws are protecting people from discrimination and not pushing people into hiding from society,” said Lloyd Russell Moyle, United Kingdom Member of Parliament.

Groups that represent criminalized people are often barred from registering as nongovernmental organizations, and, for example, sex workers often can’t unionize. Propaganda laws may mean that information on, for example, HIV prevention can’t be disseminated.

“Ending AIDS and meeting the health-related Sustainable Development Goals targets will not be possible without addressing discrimination, violence and exclusion. We have an opportunity to harness the lessons from the AIDS movement and place rights and the meaningful participation of the most marginalized at the centre of the response,” said Luisa Cabal, Director for Human Rights and Gender, UNAIDS.

Criminalized groups often experience higher rates of violence than the general population. Victims of violence who are also criminalized often can’t report crimes against them to the police, and lawyers risk violence and other repercussions if they take up their cases.

“Discrimination against and criminalization of people living with HIV still continues to this day. And we are facing in Indonesia persistent stigma against and criminalizing of key populations. We will never end AIDS if we are not making their needs and rights a top priority for access to health care, protection against violence and realization of the right to health,” said Baby Rivona, from the Indonesian Positive Women Network.

Countries that decriminalize drug use and make harm reduction services available have seen reductions in new HIV infections. Evidence shows that decriminalizing sex work could avert between 33% and 46% of new HIV infections among sex workers and clients over 10 years. However, reductions in new HIV infections are not the only outcome—other outcomes include improvements in well-being and trust in law enforcement, reductions in violence and increased access to health-care and support services. Above all, however, decriminalization of people results in them no longer being seen as criminals and stigmatized by society.

New data show that in 2019 around 48* countries and territories still have restrictions that include mandatory HIV testing and disclosure as part of requirements for entry, residence, work and/or study permits

GENEVA, 27 June 2019—UNAIDS and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are urging countries to keep the promises made in the 2016 United Nations Political Declaration on Ending AIDS to remove all forms of HIV-related travel restrictions. Travel restrictions based on real or perceived HIV status are discriminatory, prevent people from accessing HIV services and propagate stigma and discrimination. Since 2015, four countries have taken steps to lift their HIV-related travel restrictions—Belarus, Lithuania, the Republic of Korea and Uzbekistan.

“Travel restrictions on the basis of HIV status violate human rights and are not effective in achieving the public health goal of preventing HIV transmission,” said Gunilla Carlsson, UNAIDS Executive Director, a.i. “UNAIDS calls on all countries that still have HIV-related travel restrictions to remove them.”

“HIV-related travel restrictions fuel exclusion and intolerance by fostering the dangerous and false idea that people on the move spread disease,” said Mandeep Dhaliwal, Director of UNDP’s HIV, Health and Development Group. “The 2018 Supplement of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law was unequivocal in its findings that these policies are counterproductive to effective AIDS responses.”

Out of the 48 countries and territories that maintain restrictions, at least 30 still impose bans on entry or stay and residence based on HIV status and 19 deport non-nationals on the grounds of their HIV status. Other countries and territories may require an HIV test or diagnosis as a requirement for a study, work or entry visa. The majority of countries that retain travel restrictions are in the Middle East and North Africa, but many countries in Asia and the Pacific and eastern Europe and central Asia also impose restrictions.

“HIV-related travel restrictions violate human rights and stimulate stigma and discrimination. They do not decrease the transmission of HIV and are based on moralistic notions of people living with HIV and key populations. It is truly incomprehensible that HIV-related entry and residency restrictions still exist,” said Rico Gustav, Executive Director of the Global Network of People Living with HIV.

The Human Rights Council, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, this week for its 41st session, has consistently drawn the attention of the international community to, and raised awareness on, the importance of promoting human rights in the response to HIV, most recently in its 5 July 2018 resolution on human rights in the context of HIV.

“Policies requiring compulsory tests for HIV to impose travel restrictions are not based on scientific evidence, are harmful to the enjoyment of human rights and perpetuate discrimination and stigma,” said Dainius Pūras, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. “They are a direct barrier to accessing health care and therefore ineffective in terms of public health. I call on states to abolish discriminatory policies that require mandatory testing and impose travel restrictions based on HIV status.”

The new data compiled by UNAIDS include for the first time an analysis of the kinds of travel restrictions imposed by countries and territories and include cases in which people are forced to take a test to renew a residency permit. The data were validated with Member States through their permanent missions to the United Nations.

UNAIDS and UNDP, as the convenor of the Joint Programme’s work on human rights, stigma and discrimination, are continuing to work with partners, governments and civil society organizations to change all laws that restrict travel based on HIV status as part of the Global Partnership for Action to Eliminate all Forms of HIV-Related Stigma and Discrimination. This is a partnership of United Nations Member States, United Nations entities, civil society and the private and academic sectors for catalysing efforts in countries to implement and scale up programmes and improve shared responsibility and accountability for ending HIV-related stigma and discrimination.

*The 48 countries and territories that still have some form of HIV related travel restriction are: Angola, Aruba, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei Darussalam, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, New Zealand, Oman, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos, Tuvalu, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

In 2019, 48 countries and territories impose some form of HIV-related restrictions and mandatory HIV testing that prevent people living with HIV from legally entering, transiting through or studying, working or residing in a country, solely based on their HIV status.

Mehdi Beji (not his real name) couldn’t wait to start his new job in a North Africa Middle East country. He had packed his belongings and said his goodbyes in Tunisia and filed all the paperwork requested by his new employer. Before his contract was approved, he had submitted the results of the blood tests he had been asked to take, but after he started work he was requested to get his blood tested again.

“After a month, I was contacted for an appointment to get my credit card, and when I arrived at the mall, I was arrested by the police,” Mr Beji said.  At the police station he was informed he was HIV-positive and that the country’s laws deny residency to people living with HIV.

"They deported me back to Tunisia without money and I was not able to recover my two months salary,” Mr Beji said. “When I contacted the bank, they informed me that the only way to access my account was through the bank card that they refused to grant me.”

Treated like a criminal

For 12 years Karim Haddad (not his real name) lived and worked in a North Africa Middle East country. As part of his medical check-up for his residency permit, his blood was tested for HIV without his consent. On the day he went to collect the test results, he said, police officers handcuffed him and locked him in a room.

Four days later, the authorities informed him that his deportation was imminent because of his HIV status. “I didn’t know anything about the virus, so I asked what HIV is and got no answer,” Mr Haddad said. He recalled feeling paralysed with fear.

When he asked about his wife and children, he was told that they would all board the same flight and would meet him at the airport. As for his financial rights or his belongings, he said they just kept repeating, “You have no rights.”

“I left the country as if I were a criminal,” Mr Haddad said, still in disbelief.

Nightmare

The above tales are experiences that Amina Zidane (not her real name) knows all too well. She left Algeria at the age of 19 for work. After a few years, her annual medical check-up did not go as usual.

“I could hear the nurses whispering to each other, “This is the one.”” She suspected something was wrong, so she asked her sister, who had accompanied her to the clinic, to get her results. “My sister told me that the police were downstairs saying that they had come “to arrest a woman with AIDS,”” she said.

She recalled being taken to jail and prayed that there had been a mistake or that it was just a bad dream. “They did not open the door, they just sent me food through a small window," Ms Zidane said.

A week later, the authorities deported her. “I was left at the border with my passport and my son,” she said. Her husband escaped because he didn’t want to be deported. “Fourteen years of my life disappeared just like that and I had done nothing wrong.”

Lost son

Sabrina Abdallah (not her real name) lived in a North Africa Middle East country most of her childhood. After passing a computer science degree, she married a fellow Sudanese. They rejoiced when they had a baby boy.

At barely three months old, their son’s cold would not clear up. Despite being in a hospital, his condition didn’t improve. “It's really hard to see one’s child suffering and feeling so helpless,” she said. At first, her doctor thought that her son might have cancer, but he was eventually tested and found to be living with HIV. “While I was in the midst of my anxiety and fear, news spread at the hospital about my son, and they placed him alone in a room, with no one looking after him,” she said.

Ms Abdallah tested for HIV and found out that she was also living with HIV. “They asked me to take my son and go home,” she said. “They wouldn’t let us leave him at the hospital and even assigned a police officer to escort us and make sure we would not leave the baby behind.”

Child in hand, she tried to get some answers. That’s when her husband told her he had known his HIV-positive status all along. She couldn’t understand why he would hide something like that from her. The police took her husband to jail and 10 days later they were all deported to the Sudan. She started treatment but unfortunately it was too late for her son.

She eventually divorced her husband because, she said, she could never forgive him for the death of their son. 

Student uprooted

For two years, Miriam Pepple (not her real name) studied at a university in central Europe. She paid her tuition fees and adapted to student life far from home. When she started having abdominal pains, she went to the student clinic. They advised her to have surgery. She had blood tests done, but thought nothing of it, since she had submitted her clinical tests to get a student permit while in her home country, Nigeria.

She said that the university asked her to take more blood tests and to bring her passport. After being told to visit various offices at the Ministry of Health, she was told to report to a police station. A day later, the authorities handed her an airline ticket to Abuja, Nigeria, along with a letter from the immigration office that claimed that she was an inadmissible immigrant.

What shocked her even more, she said, is the letter she received from her university. “They said that I had terminated my studies on my own accord,” Ms Pepple recalls.

“I lost my self-esteem, dignity and respect,” she said. Her hope is that no one should ever go through such treatment because of the huge social and psychological affect it had on her.

Life crushed

Pradeep Agarwal (not his real name) was a successful businessman, working throughout the Middle East. He worked in three Gulf countries for more than 10 years until his life came crashing down around him.

“In a matter of hours, I lost my job, my dignity and my home,” Mr Agarwal said. “I was informed I was HIV-positive and had to leave the country.” He recounts being escorted by the police to a quarantine room. “After being treated for years with respect and dignity, I found myself with other people from all nationalities, among them doctors and engineers, treated in the same inhuman way,” he said.

“I was not even given a medical report that could enlighten me and I was spoken to in Arabic, which I do not understand,” he said. “I suddenly had become a criminal in their eyes.”

After his return to India, he became depressed and has been unable to find another job. He believes that deporting people who are living with HIV gives governments a false assurance that their societies are safe. “In fact, these travel restrictions and expulsions drive people underground, so it makes the situation worse,” Mr Agarwal said. “I want people to be more aware of these violations,” he added. “I want them to stop, so others do not suffer the same horrible fate I suffered.”

UNAIDS believes that these laws discriminate, impact on human rights and have no public health justification.

“For many of the millions of people living with HIV around the world, travel restrictions are a daily reminder that discrimination continues to be entrenched in harmful policies,” said Luisa Cabal, UNAIDS Director, a.i., of the Community Support, Social Justice and Inclusion Department. “They deny people’s freedom and, even worse, force people to abandon their workplace, school and home.”

GENEVA, 13 June 2019—UNAIDS welcomes the decision of the Constitutional Court of Colombia to remove the section of the criminal code that criminalizes HIV and Hepatitis B transmission. Overly broad criminalization of HIV transmission is ineffective, discriminatory and does not support efforts to prevent new HIV infections.

“Public health goals cannot be pursued by denying people their individual rights. The decision by the Constitutional Court of Colombia is a concrete step to ensure the law works for the HIV response, and not against it,” said Gunilla Carlsson, UNAIDS Executive Director, a.i. “UNAIDS will continue to advocate for a protective legal environment and the removal of punitive laws, policies, practices, stigma and discrimination that block effective responses to HIV.”

The Constitutional Court of Colombia established that the law violated the principles of equality and non-discrimination, as it singled out people living with HIV, stigmatising them and limiting their rights. The Court established that the law created a differential treatment that is not reasonable —and therefore constituted discrimination. The Court further established that such law violated the sexual rights of people living with HIV and it was ineffective to meet any public health objectives.

Overly broad and inappropriate application of criminal law against people living with HIV remains a serious concern across the globe. Nine jurisdictions in South and Central America and at least 77 others worldwide still criminalize HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission.

UNAIDS filed an intervention before the Constitutional Court of Colombia indicating that no data support the broad application of criminal law to HIV transmission to prevent HIV transmission. Rather, such application risks undermining public health goals and human rights protections. UNAIDS strongly commends the decision taken by the Constitutional Court to restore the dignity and rights of people living with HIV in Colombia.

In 2018, UNAIDS, the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care and the International AIDS Society convened an expert group of scientists who developed an Expert Consensus Statement on the Science of HIV in the Context of Criminal Law. The statement calls on the criminal justice system to ensure science informs the application of the law in criminal cases related to HIV. 

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.