An increasing numbers of countries worldwide are enacting laws and prosecuting citizens for HIV transmission or exposure, according to a new report released by The International Planned Parenthood Association.(IPPA). While the laws seem well intended, IPPA notes that prosecution "undermines human rights and jeopardizes hard won gains in the global response to HIV". Furthermore the group asserts that criminalizing HIV exposure "only serves to intensify a climate of denial, secrecy and fear".
Since 2005 a wave of laws criminalizing HIV transmission has swept across Africa. In Sierra Leone, for example, this approach led to the approval of a law that explicitly criminalizes a mother living with HIV who exposes her fetus to the virus. In Egypt, merely living with HIV can lead to prosecution for crimes of ‘debauchery’. Source IPPA.
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