Speaking Wall, World AIDS Conference, Durban 2016. Photo: Alice Welbourn.
Every international AIDS conference seems to have a theme or two that picks up energy as it goes. For me, at the World AIDS Conference 2016 underway in Durban, this was the growing discussion about disastrous impact of criminal law. Of course, this isn’t a new issue – not at an international AIDS conference, nor in advocacy more generally. The 2012 Global Commission on HIV and the Law explored this in depth. However, at this AIDS conference there was a renewed energy behind it. In addition, there were a number of conversations that added a new twist, linking criminalisation of same sex conduct, sex work and HIV criminalisation to criminalisation of abortion.
For someone who stands with one leg in the women’s movement and another in the HIV movement, this was a welcome and long overdue conversation. We know the ways in which abusive laws and practices put sex workers, gay and other men who have sex with men, transgender women (there is still a dearth of data on HIV and transmen or lesbians and other women who have sex with women) and other marginalised groups at increased risk of contracting HIV and create serious and unmanageable barriers to accessing services and justice. We also know the ways in which governments use criminal laws not just to contain and regulate the lives of individuals, but they also use it to circumscribe the work of civil society organisations working on these issues.
