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CCNTV6
  • 1 year ago
A call for legislative reform, as it relates to laws which criminalise HIV. The call was made at the 6th Caribbean Judges' Forum on HIV and Human rights, where one speaker stressed that Undetectable equals Untransmissible, and in this regard, the burden of disclosure should not fall solely on HIV-positive persons. Rynessa Cutting reports.

Transcript
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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