00:00Should an HIV positive person be legally mandated to disclose his or her status, particularly
00:07in intimate relationships?
00:09While there are no such laws here in TNT, one HIV advocacy stakeholder believes the
00:14emphasis should be on personal responsibility across the board.
00:19People living with HIV bear the sole responsibility for disclosure in an intimate relationship.
00:27They face criminal penalties, even in circumstances where transmission is impossible.
00:34For example, U equals U. Undetectable equals untransmissible, which is a fact.
00:41And then they face the threat of prosecution, which creates a climate of fear and mistrust.
00:48The Caribbean Judges Forum on HIV and Human Rights seeks to create a space for analysis
00:53of how legislation and policies impact the human rights of persons living with HIV.
01:00Stakeholders lament that in many cases, the laws which are meant to protect have the opposite
01:05effect.
01:06The age of consent laws restrict independent access to HIV testing for youth.
01:15There are requirements for parental consent for medical treatment.
01:20There lacks clear legal protections for youth confidentiality.
01:26UNAIDS, director for the Caribbean, recently sounded an alarm that the prevalence rate
01:35and the statistics among youth, 15 to 24, they account for a significant portion of
01:43new HIV infections in our region.
01:47And many of those young people living with HIV often remain undiagnosed.
01:54HIV advocacy stakeholders are calling for legislative reform.
01:58This is a call to action.
02:00I propose legal reform.
02:03We need to review and reform HIV-specific criminal laws, but there are also policies
02:10that should be accompanied by legislation, and we fail at that in the Caribbean.
02:17Meantime, Power reports that there are roughly 340,000 people living with HIV in the Caribbean.
02:2490% of the new infections in the region were identified in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti,
02:31as well as Jamaica.
02:34Haiti alone accounts for almost 38% of the new infections.
02:40And people, key population, men who have sex with men, sex workers and their partners,
02:46they account for 47% of those new infections in 2022.
02:51But Power says the rate of new infections in the region has decreased by 22%.
02:58Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
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