The right to equality

The right to equality in the eyes of the law

Criminal prosecution relating to HIV seems to favour the rights of people who are not living with HIV over the rights of people who are.

The law frequently expects a standard of behaviour from people living with HIV that it does not from everyone else. For example many sexually active people struggle to ensure 100% condom use in their relationships and keep some information private from their partners. Yet for people living with HIV this is enough in some contexts for them to prosecuted for a criminal offence. It is an unjust application of the criminal law to a proportionally small number of people.

In all consensual sexual relationships, each partner has equal responsibility to protect their own sexual and reproductive health, yet the criminalization of HIV transmission or exposure shifts the balance of responsibility solely onto a person living with HIV.