Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Rhon ReynoldsHead of Policy and Acting CEO, African HIV Policy
Network
AIDS 2008 - Mexico City 3-8 August 2008 - XVII International AIDS Conference
5 August 2008
www.ahpn.org
Race and Immigration:the Criminalization of HIV transmission
Within a predominantly white culture (as the UK) the black body is different and thus framed within the dominant discourses as Other. The qualities and character of its Otherness, ones which overlap depending on the discursive or ideological purpose to which the black body is being put, are, variously sexual potency, desirability and promiscuity, laziness, economic unproductiveness, stupidity, and (especially young black males ) criminality. These qualities when combined with fears about HIV and about the impact of immigration and asylum from Africa on the UK’s economy, culture and mores, serve to create a heady and dangerous climate of fear and mistrust and to increase already present racist hostility. Nowhere have these elisions found extreme expression in England and Wales than in the cases involving reckless transmission of HIV.
Intimacy and Responsibility: the Criminalisation of HIV Transmission, Matthew Weait
HIV and black African Communities in the UK
HIV-infected persons accessing care by prevention group, UK: 2006
Children infected vertically
MSM -white39%
MSM - non-white4.4%
Het – black African
Het - white10%
36%
Heterosexuals - all other ethnic groups5.0%
IDU2.8%
Blood product recipients1.0%
2.3%
Epidemiology of HIV among black Africans in the UK impact of migration & a highlight of gender inequalities Dr Valerie Delpech, Health Protection Agency, March 2008. http://www.nahip.org.uk/downloads/352.ppt
HIV and black African Communities in the UK
Black African are rendered significantly less powerful than other groups by a range of factors including:Social and institutional racism
anti-asylum discourses and practices
the capacity to spread disease and to drain state resources. www.ahpn.org
Immigration policy and legal responses towards African people with HIV
Dispersal, Deportation, Detention, Destitution
Charging for HIV treatment
Government review of “imported infections”
www.ahpn.org
Criminalization of HIV transmission in England and Wales
www.ahpn.org
Are the people prosecuted for HIV transmission in the criminal courts representative of the UK epidemic? NAT, April 2007 http://www.nat.org.uk/document/331
Response from the Press
www.ahpn.org
Response from the Press
www.ahpn.org
Response from the Press
Coverage primarily negative about migrants/ immigration Migrants rarely personified or quoted.
Coverage generally “faceless” unless subject is prosecution: references to “cases”, “victims”, “sufferers”.
Immigration: migrants as fraudsters/cheats; HIV status presented as further evidence of “degeneracy”.
Prosecution: people who have transmitted HIV are presented as criminals; immigration status presented as further evidence of “degeneracy”.
Poor understanding of terminology: interchangeable use of “HIV”, “AIDS”, “migrant”, “illegal immigrant”, “asylum seeker”.
HIV and Migration in the British Press, Victoria Field Terrence Higgins Trust NAHIP Conference, May 2006
Start the Press, How African communities in the UK can work with the media to confront HIV stigma, AHPN and Panos London, 2007
www.ahpn.org
Impact on African communities
….media coverage concerning criminalisation makes the stigma associated with having HIV far worse. African people living with HIV in particular are concerned about the impact of these prosecutions on their own lives, especially those who see gender and racial bias in the criminal prosecution system and the media (Dodds et al. 2004a).
Grevious Harm, Sigma Research, October 2005
www.ahpn.org
October 2004 NAT/THT wrote to Crown Prosecution Service and to the Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality
CPS –Working Group on the Transmission of Serious Disease Involved CPS, HIV sector, senior clinicians, Department of Health,
metropolitan police Subgroups
Public Health Legal Equality and Diversity
Equality and Diversity Impact Assessment Report (2007) http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/docs/equality_eia_sti.pdf
Guidance published March 2008
CPS says in its Policy Statement We will be mindful of any indications that there is a disproportionate
impact on any particular group of individuals that we may prosecute.
Informing policy and guidance for prosecutors
www.ahpn.org
Moving forward?
www.ahpn.org
www.ahpn.org
Moving forward?
