Verdict on a Virus: Public Health, Human Rights and Criminal Law

This document is intended for anyone who wants to know more about the criminalization of HIV transmission or exposure and the related health, human rights, and legal implications. It can help you to become more familiar with the latest laws, legal support, and other services relating to HIV in your country or region. The 10 key questions in this guide provide a snapshot of case studies and opinions from around the world; they ask and answer the key questions about the criminalization of HIV transmission and exposure – what it is and why it is an increasingly important issue now; and what are the human dimensions in terms of health, stigma, human rights, the law, and the experiences of people living with HIV. This guide provides resources and information to:

Support legal advocacy and social mobilization in countries that criminalize HIV transmission or exposure in order to repeal or reform these laws;
Consolidate arguments and document why the criminalization of HIV transmission or exposure is not an effective approach for promoting public health;
Catalyse national and international activism to prevent future laws on criminalization being enacted or applied; and
Support people living with HIV to become more familiar with legal issues and their rights.

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Rapid Assessment Tool for Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV Linkages

This generic rapid assessment tool, published in 2009 by multiple NGOs and civil society groups, covers a broad range of linkages issues, such as policy, systems, and services. By design, it aims to provide a guide for assessing linkages that can be adapted as needed to regional or national contexts based on a number of factors. Countries are encouraged to review the questions and the scope of the assessment and modify it according to the local situation.This tool can be used as a “standalone” activity or can be integrated into a larger review of the national response. It focuses on questions which can be answered in desk reviews and individual or group interviews (Policy and Systems sections), and individual interviews of various service providers and clients (Service delivery section).

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Guide de bonne practique: La participation des personnes vivant avec le VIH

This guide was produced by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP +) . It is part of a series of good practice guides produced by the Alliance. This series combines the experience of global HIV programming at the community level in order to define and guide good practice in a variety of technical areas. The Good Practice Guide on GIPA (Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV and AIDS) contains information , strategies, and resources to support program managers to enable meaningful participation of PLHIV in new and existing programs of HIV.

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Preventing HIV and Unintended Pregnancies: Strategic Framework 2011 – 2015

This strategic framework supports the ‘Global Plan Towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive’. It offers guidance for preventing HIV infections and unintended pregnancies – both essential strategies for improving maternal and child health, and eliminating new paediatric HIV infections. The framework should be used in conjunction with other related guidance that together address all four prongs of eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV. This document focuses on strengthening rights-based polices and programming within health services and the community.

GIYPA Guidebook: Supporting Organisations and Networks to Scale Up the Meaningful Involvement of Young People Living with HIV

GNP+ published this document with the aim of encouraging more meaningful involvement of young people living with HIV within the HIV response. Supported by funding from the HIV Young Leaders Fund, GNP+ conducted research among 350 young people living with HIV, and among more than 175 youth-led organisations and networks living with HIV, to identify the key barriers faced by YPLHIV to engaging more meaningfully in the HIV response. The findings from this research led to the development of this tool. Each chapter in this guidebook outlines one of the five steps to scaling up and sustaining the involvement of YPLHIV in organisations:

Understanding what is meant by ‘meaningful involvement’
Finding good reasons to involve youth living with HIV
Linking youth and organisations together
Sustaining and growing youth involvement
Seeing positive health, dignity, and prevention in action

The guidebook provides practical information, tips and tools that can be used by experienced practitioners as well as those who are new to this area to strengthen their capacity to facilitate the meaningful involvement and leadership of YPLHIV.

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GIYPA Roadmap: Supporting Young People Living withe HIV to Be Meaningfully Involved in the HIV Response

Young people living with HIV (YPLHIV) around the world are making a difference in the HIV response. This roadmap, developed by GNP +, makes some suggestions on how you can become more involved with different HIV efforts in your community, country, or globally. Each chapter in this roadmap outlines one of the five steps towards GIYPA:

Understanding what is meant by ‘the HIV response’
Finding good reasons to become involved
Linking you and organisations together
Sustaining and growing your involvement
Seeing Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention in action

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Understanding the perspectives and/ or experiences of women living with HIV regarding Option B+ in Uganda and Malawi

Understanding the perspectives and/ or experiences of women living with HIV regarding Option B+ in Uganda and Malawi is a report was produced by Rebekah Webb Consulting in partnership with ICW and GNP+. The consultants were Rebekah Webb and Marta Monteso Cullel. This report was coordinated by Amy Hsieh, with support from Adam Garner, Georgina Caswell and Sonia Haerizadeh. We would like to thank those who participated in the focus group discussions for their contribution to this study. Our sincere gratitude humbly goes out to ICWEA in Uganda and COWLHA in Malawi and for their partnership and role in recruiting participants for the focus groups. We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to Sonia Haerizadeh and Moono Nyambe for facilitating the focus group discussions and their contribution to the editing of this report. All Project Partners are immensely grateful to the World Health Organization who made this study possible. Some participants in this study reported having lost children due to HIV acquired vertically. This report is dedicated to the memory of those children and many others for whom advancements in preventing vertical transmission came too late.

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Advancing HIV Justice: A progress report of achievements and challenges in global advocacy against HIV criminalisation

Many laws criminalising HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission were put in place due to ignorance about how HIV is transmitted and what sort of harm it causes. Fear of HIV and discrimination against people living with HIV are almost palpable in many of these laws and in the sentences that result from prosecution. This document scans the current situation, the good developments and the bad; details the many initiatives by independent experts, governments, the United Nations and civil society; describes the latest research and its findings in terms of prosecutions and convictions and the social impact of these on the HIV response and people’s behaviour. Most importantly, it powerfully demonstrates that civil society advocacy on this issue is not only alive – it goes from strength to strength.

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