por Tyler Lei hace 3 años
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Learned in class
"World AIDS Day: 30 years on, HIV no longer a death sentence but stigma remains" https://www.cbc.ca/radio/outintheopen/world-aids-day-30-years-on-hiv-no-longer-a-death-sentence-but-stigma-remains-1.4916417
"Justice Department issues new guidelines on prosecution for non-disclosure of HIV status" https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/canada-prosecutions-hiv-non-closures-cases-1.4929292
SSenyonga and Cuerrior case built onto the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS leading to many cases of people being abused and discriminated against because of their HIV positive status
Because of modernization of medicine HIV is no longer a "Death Sentence" the stigma around HIV may never die down, as people still have wrongful ideas as to how HIV is contracted, such as people believing someone with HIV touching them or using their cutlery can lead to getting HIV
Another example is a person named Lynn who was beat on the street because people found out that they were HIV positive
Many Women with HIV stay in abusive relationships because of threats that if they leave or tell someone, they will be taken to court for non-disclosure
"Positive Women" documentary sheds light onto how bad the situation is with many different stories of people who are living their lives dealing with the stigma and discrimination around HIV/AIDS
Another case was in Montreal where a person named Diane was in an abusive relationship. She had HIV positive status and stayed in the relationship and kept quiet about the abuse because of the threat of legal action.
When Diane brought of the abuse case against her ex he opened a case about her failure to disclose and by doing so, had his case closed free of charge.
This stigmatization leads to people who are too scared to get tested for HIV/AIDS in fear that their significant other will stop wanting to be with them, or even worse, to take legal action.
An example of this is the R.v.Bear case in which Bear was ridiculed because of his HIV posotive status, the police officers said things like "He's going to spit in your face, you're going to get AIDS". Bear was charged with Aggrevated Assault because of the "Risk of Transmission" which should not have been the case, because HIV cannot be transmitted via saliva. Because of the fact that HIV cannot be transmitted from saliva his charges were lowered to common assault
Following the Ssenyonga case, Cuerrior had sexual relations with 2 women without disclosing his HIV posotive status even though he had been told by his doctor to always have safe protected sex.
Court decided that because there was a significant risk of transmission, that the consent obtained was obtained by fraud as both women agreed that they would not have had sexual relations had they known about Cuerrior's HIV positive status
Mabior Case
Mabior challenged the need for a significant risk of transmission and it was changed to require "Realistic Possibility of transmission" and people with low viral loads and use of a condom have a low almost zero possibility of transmission
People should not be criminally prosecuted if they :
1. The person has not maintained a suppressed viral load, but used condoms or engaged only in oral sex or was taking treatment as prescribed, unless other risk factors are present
2. Non-sexual criminal offences would be more appropriate than sexual offences as this would better align with the individual's situation, such as cases where the individual's conduct was less blameworthy.
3. If a person living with HIV has sought or received services from public health authorities, that must be taken into account when in determining whether it is in the public interest to pursue criminal charges.
The charges assigned to HIV Non-Disclosure are Aggravated Sexual Assault because consent obtained is vitiated as it was obtained by fraud
All cases of HIV Non Disclosure are charged with Aggravated Sexual Assault and are put on the sex offender registry
