Background
“The most important public health lesson emerging from the HIV epidemic is that respecting and protecting the rights of those already exposed to HIV and those most at risk is the most effective way to curb the rapid spread of the epidemic.”
Justice Michael Kirby, Australia
The above quote aptly captures India’s experience of a concentrated HIV epidemic in the last 25 years wherein sex workers, people who use drugs, and men having sex with men remain most at risk of HIV infection. The Report of the Commission on AIDS in Asia (2008) too, found that the Asian epidemic including India’s, has primarily affected these groups, which are criminalized and marginalized in most societies. At the same time, evidence from rights-based HIV interventions with sex workers in Sonagachi, India attests that protection of rights is critical to reducing HIV transmission.
Over the last few years, Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit has broadened its work from core HIV law and attendant concerns to challenging punitive laws and protecting rights of sex workers, people who use drugs and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) persons. The identification of these three groups for pursuing reforms is on account of the acute injustice, irrationality and prejudice that is writ large in laws on commercial sex, narcotic drugs and alternate sexuality. For instance, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA), 1956, outlaws soliciting by sex workers, thus interfering with their ability to work and earn. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), 1985, penalizes use and possession of drugs, thus turning drug dependent persons into criminals. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, (IPC), 1860 criminalised adult consensual sex between men, thereby excluding homosexuals from equal protection of the law. As long as criminalization persists and the rights of sex workers, drug users and LGBT persons are not recognized, the Unit’s aim of crafting a just, rational and non-discriminatory response to HIV would remain unfulfilled.
Towards this end, the Unit’s interventions on Drug Control, Sex Work, and LGBT Rights include legal aid, strategic litigation, capacity building, training and advocacy and policy research.
The Team
Tripti Tandon (Delhi)
Vijay Hiremath (Mumbai))
Kunal Endait (Mumbai)
Amritananda Chakravorty (Delhi)
Shefali Malhotra (Delhi)
Prianka Rao (Bangalore)
