The last bastion of stigma: Criminalizing HIV transmission

EU Confidential

POLITICO

Politics, News Commentary, News

4.4 • 175 Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Activists have worked for years to eliminate HIV-associated stigma. But within multiple European countries, people are still prosecuted for transmitting HIV. Despite clear guidance from HIV organizations emphasizing the harms associated with criminal prosecutions of these cases, countries continue to make offenders out of people who have transmitted HIV. POLITICO's Ashleigh Furlong speaks to James, a man who's experienced the impact of HIV criminalization first-hand. We also hear from Edwin Bernard, Executive Director of the HIV Justice Network, who's been mapping HIV criminalization for years and advocating for the end of such prosecutions. And finally, we head to Bethnal Green to speak with Kat Smithson from the National AIDS Trust. She’s worked with people affected by HIV criminalization, as well as the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to try and influence legal and policy developments. This is the second of several bonus episodes of EU Confidential coming to you over the next month. Your regular EU Confidential episodes will still appear in your feed every Thursday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Suzanne Lynch, and you're listening to a special bonus episode of EU Confidential, brought
0:05.5	to you by our health team. I'll be back with our regular episode on Thursday. See you then.
0:11.7	Today's episode is presented by Gilead. Gilead is committed to delivering innovative therapies
0:17.7	that have the potential to address unmet needs in HIV treatment and prevention
0:21.8	and are actively pursuing research that could one day lead to a cure. Together we can end the
0:28.7	epidemic for everyone, everywhere. The call came when James was at work.
0:44.8	His partner had been phoned by a relative, who'd seen the article, and couldn't quite believe it.
0:49.0	Perhaps it was a different man with the same name.
0:50.9	But it wasn't.
0:57.2	James' name, photo, address and place of work were on a news website,
1:03.1	plastered beneath the accusation that he was being charged with infecting his former partner with HIV.
1:09.7	His life would never be the same again
1:12.4	now his family his friends his colleagues his neighbours
1:17.5	would all know that he was HIV positive
1:21.2	and accused of a crime
1:23.2	I just left everything that I was doing and went straight back home.
1:29.8	I think from that time, everything just kind of deteriorated.
1:36.7	And you think about anything and everything, you know, you think, okay, fine.
1:41.5	If they just want me to admit that that's what I did and I just go to jail
1:46.3	and get it done or whatever it means to me to get out of all this, then, you know, because
1:53.0	it's one thing after another, well, there's this police case, there's this newspaper thing
1:56.7	coming and you just don't know. It's just like rocks falling on your head.
	...

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