Panel at United Nations highlights extent of criminalization of HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission globally

On June 13, 2019, at the United Nations in New York a mix of participants from the Center for Reproductive Rights, United Nations Country Delegations, UNICEF, HousingWorks and activists including LGBTI activist Najeeb Fokeerbux of Young Queer Mauritius joined experts such as Boyan Konstantinov of UNDP, Venita Ray, Deputy Director of the Positive Women's Network-USA, PWN; Sean Strub, Activist and SERO Project founder and Susana Fried, Senior Advisor, Global Programs at CREA to discuss #HIV criminalization in a panel moderated by Fabrice Houdart of OHCHR.

Summary of points made:

• Sean Strub gave a 101 on HIV criminalization in which he highlighted some individual cases:

1. Gave an historical background including the early extremist suggestions of tattooing buttocks and forearms, calls for quarantine, unauthorized status disclosure etc.. by people like William F. Buckley, Jr. and former Congressman Dannemeyer;
2. Sean said compassion for PLWHIV is at its lowest and stigmatization as its highest in the US;
3. Data shows that criminalization adversely impacts both human rights and public health outcomes – it does not work. That Parliamentarians that might be putt off by the human rights arguments could be sensitive to the effectiveness argument;
4. Willie Campbell is serving a 35-year sentence for spitting on someone. Rather than assault his sentence was escalated to attempted murder;
5. Sean concluded the meeting with a strong call to empower the support networks of PLWHIV and the “stigmatized” to fight stigmatization.

• Boyan Konstantinov completed this picture at the global level highlighting some progress such as the work and recommendations of the Commission on HIV and the law

1. Reiterated that overly broad criminalization of HIV transmission is ineffective, discriminatory and does not support efforts to prevent new HIV infections;
2. Nine jurisdictions in South and Central America and at least 77 others worldwide still criminalize HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission;
3. These laws focus invidiously on vulnerable and marginalized populations;
4. Discussed the overarching goals of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition.

• Venita Ray highlighted the links with both racial discrimination and poverty and how the burden of HIV Criminalization falls on the most vulnerable:

1. The epidemic is driven by racial injustice in the US: 13% of the population is black and yet black people represent 50% of HIV cases;
2. Mentioned that without addressing poverty and racial injustice, no chance to achieve the vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths;
3. Trans people and people of color are most exposed but also most neglected in the response. Women of color – trans and cis – bear the burden of criminalization;
4. She discussed local coalition dedicated to ending HIV based criminal prosecutions in certain states;
5. She had this great formula “when did we go from hospitals and pills to prisons and handcuffs”;
6. Finally, she spoke of communities where talk of sex is not of pleasure but of fear.

• Susana Fried as someone who stands with one leg in the women’s movement and another in the HIV movement, completed this with her understanding of the intersectionality between HIV, sexuality, adult consensual sex and bodily integrity – including the recent backlash on abortion:

1. Highlighted that our society bought into the idea that criminalization to solve many of the social issues we face while in fact evidence shows that it doesn’t;
2. Criminalisation spreads outward, e.g. sex workers aren’t often arrested for sex work but loitering, indecent conduct etc.
3. Siri May of the Center for Reproductive Rights and Susana discussed intersectionality and bringing various social justice movements together during the Q&A;
4. She mentioned how the broad criminalization of HIV non-disclosure reproduces uncertainty, fear, stigma, and violence; we cannot ignore the danger that condom negotiation & HIV disclosure pose for #WLWH.

Bios

Susana Fried. Visiting Fellow Yale, 2015–present Susana T. Fried, currently an independent consultant, was most recently the Senior Gender Advisor at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) HIV/AIDS Group (Bureau for Development Policy). Susana has over twenty years of experience working on gender equality, sexuality, HIV and human rights. She was the Program Director at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Policy and Advocacy Director at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. Her consultancies have included Women Won’t Wait: End HIV and violence against women and girls Now! campaign, Amnesty International, International Women’s Health Coalition, Columbia University, and the Sexual Health and Rights Program of the Open Society Foundations.

Boyan Konstantinov serves as Policy Specialist for key HIV populations and LGBTI rights and the HIV, Health and Development Group of UNDP. He has sixteen years of international experience in human rights, law reform, capacity development, program development, policy work with the most marginalized. Boyan has over nine years of experience in policy advice and technical support to governments in the area of HIV and the Law at UNDP - including reforming punitive laws and promoting enabling legislations, access of key HIV populations to services, access to treatment. Boyan has worked for international human rights and civil society organizations focusing on poverty housing reduction and housing rights, as well as on free legal aid for asylum seekers, refugees, and other migrants. He holds law degrees from Sofia University in Bulgaria (LL.B., 2000) and Columbia Law School in New York (LL.M. 2008).

Venita Ray is an attorney with a passion for social and racial justice, advocacy and equity. Venita currently serves as the deputy director of the Positive Women’s Network-USA, a national membership organization for women living with HIV. Venita served as the public policy manager for Legacy Community Health, a federally qualified health center in Houston, TX, for 4 years where she monitored HIV related health policy and managed an advocacy training program for people living with HIV. Venita advocates and speaks on a number of local and national issues impacting the HIV community and in 2016 led a citywide effort to develop a plan to end the HIV epidemic in Houston. Venita is a founding member of the Texans Living with HIV Network, HIV Racial Justice Now and the Texas chapter of PWN-USA. Venita was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 and is deeply committed to issues like HIV criminalization, meaningful involvement of people living with HIV and racial justice.

Sean Strub is a long-time activist and writer who has been HIV positive for more than 33 years. He is the founder of POZ Magazine, the leading independent global source of information about HIV, and served as its publisher and executive editor from 1994 to 2004. He presently serves as the executive director of the Sero Project, a network of people with HIV fighting for freedom from stigma and injustice and as treasurer of the U.S. Caucus of PWHA Organizations. He served on the board of directors of the Global Network of People living with HIV/AIDS from 2009 to 2012 and as co-chair of its North American affiliate from 2011 to 2012. He is a popular speaker and is frequently cited in the media as an expert on HIV prevention and treatment policy and the intersection of sex, public health and the law. He is a recognized global leader in the effort to empower people with HIV to be meaningfully engaged in the response to the epidemic and in combating HIV-related stigma, discrimination and criminalization. Strub was active with the People With AIDS Coalition/New York in the mid 80s, co-chaired the fundraising committee for ACT UP/New York in the late 80s and in 1990 became the first openly HIV positive person to run for the U.S. Congress. He was the producer of David Drake’s hit play, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, which has now been performed in more than 20 countries. In 2010, he co-founded the Positive Justice Project and produced the short documentary film, “HIV is Not a Crime,” about HIV criminalization in the U.S. He has also been active in environmental protection, historic preservation and community redevelopment efforts in rural Pike County, Pennsylvania, since the late 1990s. He has helped launch cultural festivals, pass an open space preservation bond and in 2007, produced “Nature’s Keepers” a documentary film about the conservation and land stewardship history in the region. Strub co-authored, with Steven D. Lydenberg and Alice Tepper Marlin, Rating America’s Corporate Conscience, (Addison-Wesley, 1987) and, with Dan Baker and Bill Henning, Cracking The Corporate Closet, (HarperBusiness, 1995) and is the author of Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS & Survival (Scribner, 2014). A native Iowan, Strub attended Georgetown and Columbia Universities. He and his partner, Xavier Morales, live in Milford, Pennsylvania and New York City. His new book, Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS and Survival, will be published by Scribner in January 2014.