Prominent black website takes on HIV disclosure laws

The Root, a prominent daily online news outlet covering issues impacting the black community, has published an article reviewing the issues of HIV-specific criminal laws.

The piece explores how African Americans are more likely to face criminal sanctions because of HIV in part because that community represents an exploding demographic for new infections.

With African Americans accounting for more than half of new HIV infections in the country, and Latinos representing 22 percent, it’s no surprise that the issue hits communities of color hardest.

Pushing back against what they see as a cycle of stigma, shame and incarceration, a growing coalition of organizations, including the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the Center for HIV Law and Policy, are framing the criminalization of HIV as a civil rights struggle. “This is a targeting of people, based on a stigma against groups that are associated with HIV,” Catherine Hanssens, director of the Center for HIV Law and Policy, told The Root. “And that’s gay people and people of color.”

Lisa Fager Bediako, a consultant for the CBCF, says she regularly runs into opposition to challenging the laws.

“When I talk to people, their awareness on the issue is usually based on the sensationalized stories we get through the media,” she says. “I find that, with a little more information, people begin to see it differently. People always say that they weren’t really aware of what’s going on around the country.”

Rather than a malicious intent to spread disease, activists say that there are many reasons some people keep quiet about their HIV status. The misinformed belief that HIV-positive people are highly toxic, for example, fuels not only social exclusion and familial rejection but has also led to discrimination in employment, housing and child-custody battles. In the military, where it’s illegal for HIV-positive people to have sex, dismissal can mean the loss of benefits.

While the issue has been one with growing awareness, studies have shown that large swaths of impacted communities still support those laws. But groups like the the Center for HIV Law and Policy have launched educational programs to address these issues. CHLP launched the Positive Justice Project last year, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation will hold a telephonic briefing on the issue on Wednesday.