The International Community of Women Living with HIV Eastern Africa (ICWEA) in collaboration with ICW- Kenya are today November 11, launching a campaign calling for an end to HIV criminalization and Sexual Reproductive Health Rights violations. The campaign also calls for widening of contraception choices for women.
“The campaign will last one year and will run in five East African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania), where ICWEA operates. This campaign is an opportunity and a call to beat the drum against these injustices to women loud enough for them to come to an end,” says Lillian Mworeko the Executive Director, ICWEA.
Sexual Reproductive Health Rights including access to Family planning services and freedom to choose is a right for every woman living with HIV. This resonates with the Sustainable Development Goals; Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all the ages; Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls and Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries.
Currently, women living with HIV experience Sexual Reproductive Health Rights violations including; Forced and/or coerced sterilization, forced abortion, limited access to comprehensive sexual reproductive health and rights programmes, limited family planning methods, choices and options, limited access to information, as well as stigma and discrimination.
The Kenyan High Court on March 18 issued a landmark judgment declaring section 24 of the HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Act of 2006, which criminalized HIV transmission unconstitutional. That is a major win for people living with HIV. But the battle is far from over, we note that most of the countries in the East African region either have HIV laws or bills that criminalize people living with HIV, these must be contested and amended.
Clauses in the HIV Laws infringe on the rights of women living with HIV and discourage people from seeking diagnosis and treatment out of concern for their privacy or negative social repercussions. We cannot let them uproot decades’ work.
The launch will include a dialogue with panelists to discuss the campaigns’ core issues and agree on a way forward cialis spanien rezeptfrei. Some of the follow up activities that will be done to make the campaign successful across East Africa will include frequent dialogues with policy makers, sensitization of women living with HIV among other things.
