The HIV Legal Network is grateful for the opportunity to complete this questionnaire and inform the Special Rapporteur on the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health’s forthcoming report to the General Assembly on the theme of racism and the right to health. This questionnaire focuses on the issue of HIV criminalization in these … Read more
The HIV Legal Network and the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation (CDPE) are grateful for the opportunity to complete this questionnaire and inform the Special Rapporteur on the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health’s forthcoming report to the General Assembly on the theme of racism and the right to health. This questionnaire focuses … Read more
In April 2022, the HIV Legal Network and the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation made this submission to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, focusing on systemic racism and human rights violations by law enforcement officers against Africans and people of African descent, in the context of Canada’s drug laws and policies. … Read more
In April 2022, Sandra Ka Hon Chu, on behalf of the HIV Legal Network and the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation, deputed at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights about Bill C-5, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The remarks focused on the section … Read more
In 2012, the Legal Network was fortunate to team up with filmmaker Alison Duke and four amazing women living with HIV in Canada on a project exploring the profound effects of criminalization on their lives. The result of this collaboration was Positive Women: Exposing Injustice (2012), a documentary film shown in Canada — and around the … Read more
The HIV Legal Network, in collaboration with the Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation, made a submission on drugs and drug policy to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, as it reviewed Canada’s compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the … Read more
On March 22, 2022, the HIV Legal Network hosted its 10th Symposium on HIV, Law, and Human Rights. This international event explores the relationship between HIV and human rights, how criminal laws can be reformed to uphold the rights of people living with HIV, and how those working in the sector can use their work … Read more
In Canada, a person living with HIV can go to prison and be registered as a sex offender for life for not disclosing their HIV-positive status to a sexual partner in some circumstances. People are usually charged with (aggravated) sexual assault, due to the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that HIV non-disclosure can sometimes amount … Read more
In February 2022, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights undertook a review of The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act. The HIV Legal Network appeared before the Committee to describe how human rights violations against sex workers have escalated with the passage of the law, which has fueled stigma, … Read more
A growing body of research confirms that the criminalization of any aspect of sex work, including the criminalization of clients, sex workers, and third parties in sex work, violates sex workers’ human rights and is in itself a social determinant of health by creating barriers to accessing health care services and building relationships with health … Read more