Advocacy Issues
Access to Treatment
The introduction of antiretrovirals (ARVs) has significantly raised the possibility of a majority of persons living with HIV/AIDS ("PLHAs") living longer and healthier lives. Most PLHAs in developing countries, however, are unable to access treatment because of the prohibitive cost of drugs and tests for monitoring toxicity and drug resistance.Read more
Sex Work
The need and urgency to address human rights issues in the context of sex work is underscored by the failure of HIV prevention programmes that espouse punitive measures in contrast to the success of interventions that enable sex workers to exercise their rights (including the right to refuse 'unsafe sex' vis-à-vis curtailing the incidence of HIV.)Read more
Quacks
“A poor health infrastructure, expensive and inaccessible private healthcare and the withdrawal of the welfare State combined with poverty, ignorance, mistrust of allopathy and ineffective regulation to provide a rich breeding ground for the proliferation of 'quacks'. Quacks may be unqualified practitioners, persons who prescribe or dispense any substance, powder, unlicensed drugs, etc., licensed medical practitioners who cross practice and tantriks or godmen who claim cures by way of magic remedies.”Read more
Sexual Violence
‘Sexual violence against women over the centuries has been the ultimate expression of dominance over communities, cultures and individuals. Particularly in times of conflict, it has been used to humiliate and torture communities by defiling 'pure, chaste' women who are the 'keepers of culture’. Nonetheless existing evidence on gender and sexual inequality, the nature and scale of sexual violence read with data on the distribution of HIV among specific groups and locations, suggest that it is likely to be significant. Besides the risk of direct transmission, the fear of sexual violence reduces a person’s ability to negotiate safer sex for the prevention of HIV.’Read more
Mother to Child Transmission
In India, perinatal transmission is a cause for concern as one in every four infected persons is a woman. In States with high sero-positivity, increasing numbers of women attending antenatal clinics are testing positive for HIV. Perinatal transmission accounts for 2.04 percent of all HIV infections in India. Infection rates among pregnant women also show considerable variation ranging from 0 to 2.6 percent.Read more
Prisoners
The importance of a rights-based approach to HIV/AIDS legislation is brought into sharp focus in the context of prisons and the criminal justice system. Since the start of the epidemic, prison populations have been subject to coercive measuresthat are not used in the general community, such as segregation, isolation and mandatory HIV testing.Read more
Media
Since reports on HIV first appeared in the early 1980s, media spins on the epidemic and stereotypes of high-risk populations and behaviour have been less than satisfactory.However, critiques of media responses and actions to HIV/AIDS cannot undermine its importance in defining the epidemic and shaping societal responses to it.Read more
Consent
Public health strategies have grappled with human rights issues to determine whether consent should be taken prior to testing, whether testing should be voluntary or mandatory, whether consent be informed, how much information is required for consent to be truly informed, when testing can be done without consent and so on.
The principle of consent is based on the fundamental principle of autonomy of an individual, which has been recognised within the meaning of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India”Read more
Confidentiality
The maintenance of confidentiality of an individual's health status is one of the cornerstones of rights-based legal and public health responses to HIV/AIDS. The right to confidentiality rests on principles of autonomy and respect for privacy and has been viewed as crucial in encouraging those most at risk to come forward for HIV testing, counselling and treatment.Read more
Men who have Sex with Men
In India, as in other parts of the world, men who have sex with men (MSM) are heavily stigmatised and marginalised and subject to discrimination, criminalisation and violence, resulting in acute vulnerability to and the disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS.Read more
Injecting Drug Users
Injecting drug users (IDUs) are disproportionately affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic due to practices that are stigmatised by social norms and looked on unfavourably by legal institutions.Read more
Criminal Law and the Transmission of HIV
“ Transmission of HIV is seldom criminal or even intentional. When and under what circumstance persons with HIV may be criminally prosecuted for transmission or risking transmission requires a review and appropriate rendition of existing criminal laws. Given the lack of counseling and accurate information on the modes of transmission of HIV in our country, it is critical to scrutinise whether criminal sanctions are warranted and specify the extremely limited cases in which they may be imposed. Internationally, criminal sanctions relating to the transmission of HIV are either directly covered under criminal laws, by public health laws or through specific statutes”Read more
Discrimination
Stigma and discrimination associated with HIV and AIDS are acknowledged as the most significant human rights violations for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs) and the greatest barriers in preventing further infection, providing adequate care, support and treatment and alleviating the impact of the epidemic. PLHAs are stigmatised because of the association of HIV infection with already stigmatised and socially/morally 'disapproved' behaviours and practices in society, such as sex between men, injecting drug use, sex work or even premarital/extramarital sex.Read more
Children
The impact of the HIV epidemic on children has been complex and diverse. The stigma and discrimination faced by persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHAs) is compounded in the case of children. Children and youth are physiologically more vulnerable to contracting HIV than adults, particularly when they are subject to sexual abuse, and a child's chances of losing both parents relatively quickly are far higher where the parents are PLHAs.Read more
Blood
HIV poses a significant challenge to the system of transfusion medicine, and access to a safe ad sufficient blood supply has become a vital medical need Blood when not properly screened may transmit serious diseases like malaria, syphilis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. By 2001, the transmission of HIV through blood and blood products in India was estimated at 4%. HIV thus poses a significant challenge to the system of transfusion medicine, and access to a safe and sufficient blood supply has become a vital medical need.Read more
Women
“ The National AIDS Control Organisation's (NACO) epidemiological data (1997-98) revealed that one in every four cases reported in India is a woman, with heterosexual transmission being the single most common mode of transmission. In the Indian context, gender relations and gender inequalities are at the heart of the reasons that make women vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Within a patriarchal system, men dominate women and exercise control over their lives including their sexuality and reproductive choices” Read more