Experiences of stigma

Experiences of stigma features

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  Getting tough on criminalisation

  “Nothing short of barbaric.” This was the comment of a BBC presenter, confronted with the number and sheer arbitrary injustice of criminal convictions of people accused of transmitting...

  From:HIV treatment update

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  Will a long life be a good one?

  People with HIV are now living into old age – an old age many regard with fear, as Lisa Power from the Terrence Higgins Trust finds...

  From:HIV treatment update

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  Punching fog – how people with HIV are tackling stigma worldwide

  The UK theme of this World AIDS Day is ‘HIV: Reality’, building on last year’s theme of ‘Respect and Protect’. The reality is that HIV status continues...

  From:HIV treatment update

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  Stigma begins at home

  The stigma attached to having HIV is one of the most all-pervasive aspects of living with the virus. HTU plans a series of articles addressing this complex subject....

  From:HIV treatment update

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  The consequences of fear

  How the myth of ‘health tourism’ is harming people with HIV, by Edwin J Bernard ...

  From:HIV treatment update

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  HIV stigma, treatment and prevention

  Review of the impact of stigma on HIV treatment, prevention and care in resource-limited settings....

  From:HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

Experiences of stigma in your own words

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  It takes two to tango - my family and diagnosis

  Let me tell you about telling some family members that I have HIV. I called my brother the night I was diagnosed. I wanted to tell him...

  From:In your own words

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  The sex police

  I met Amy through a friend – a friend who knew my HIV status. We got on really well and she asked if I wanted...

  From:In your own words

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  My hero!

  Sex. It’s messy, fraught with all sorts of psychological problems and yes, it’s obviously what got me into this whole predicament in the first place....

  From:In your own words

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  Having a baby

  I want my experiences to give hope to other people – things do not have to end when you find out that you have HIV. In...

  From:In your own words

Experiences of stigma news from aidsmap

• People with TB and HIV in South Africa face a double stigma

  People who have both tuberculosis (TB) and HIV experience “a unique and overlapping double stigma”, according to research published in the May issue of Social Science and Medicine. Having TB sends a signal that the person also has ...

  27 April 2012 | Roger Pebody

• HIV stigma divides and fragments gay communities

  A review of research studies has identified a growing division within gay communities, in which HIV-negative gay men associate mainly with other HIV-negative men, and HIV-positive men mostly mix with other HIV-positive men. Moreover stigma has negative impacts ...

  14 December 2011 | Roger Pebody

• Serodiscordant relationships for Africans in the UK often marked by uncertainty and disempowerment

  African people in the UK who are involved in a serodiscordant relationship (where one person has HIV and the other does not) have a wide range of experiences, according to a new study from Sigma Research. Nonetheless, two recurrent ...

  25 November 2011 | Roger Pebody

• MSM living in hostile social environments more likely to have negative feelings about sexuality, less likely to test for HIV

  The largest ever international study of the sexual health of men who have sex with men (MSM), which recruited men from across the European continent, has found clear links between the social environment men live in ...

  16 November 2011 | Roger Pebody

• The spirit is willing, but... sex in the HIV-positive over-50s

  Although the average age of the HIV-positive population is increasing, in both richer and poorer countries, and though sex between older people has often been cited as a possible risk factor for HIV, there has been surprisingly little investigation ...

  16 September 2011 | Gus Cairns

• Canadian study finds criminalisation confusion "chills" open and honest discussion of HIV risk-taking

  The lack of clarity over when a person with HIV has a legal obligation to disclose their HIV-positive status to a sexual partner is resulting in "anxiety, confusion and contradictory HIV counselling advice," according to a new study on ...

  23 August 2011 | Edwin J. Bernard

• High levels of mental distress, unprotected sex, needle sharing, unmet prevention needs found among HIV-infected patients in St Petersburg

  Risky sex and drug use are common among HIV-positive people in Russia, investigators report in AIDS and Behavior. Discrimination was a common experience, and there was a high prevalence of depression and anxiety. “Policies and public health programs ...

  12 May 2011 | Michael Carter

• Ugandan study shows why human rights are central to HIV prevention with African men who have sex with men

  In Kampala, Uganda, men who have sex with men who have suffered homophobic violence or abuse are five times more likely to be HIV-positive than other men, Joseph Barker told the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference on Tuesday. Just under ...

  22 July 2010 | Roger Pebody

• Parliamentarians, UNAIDS, call for removal of HIV travel bans

  Parliamentarians have joined with UNAIDS to call for the removal of travel restrictions for people with HIV. Governments were urged to action by parliamentarians from around the world, meeting at the 122nd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary ...

  29 March 2010 | Michael Carter

• Certain manifestations of stigma especially hurtful for people with HIV

  Specific manifestations of HIV-related stigma best predict psychological distress in HIV-positive individuals, Dutch investigators report in the November edition of AIDS. These include difficulties with health care workers and lack of frankness within the family, but ...

  05 November 2009 | Michael Carter

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Experiences of stigma news selected from other sources

• Kenya: Doctors who played God

  More than 35 HIV positive women are considering taking action against hospitals and their husbands or family members who participated in their sterilisation. They insist that they were sterilised through coercion, and sometimes without their knowledge, because they were HIV positive.

  21 May 2012 | Daily Nation

• No more TB suspects: time to change the way we talk about tuberculosis

  The words ‘defaulter’, ‘suspect’ and ‘control’ have been part of the language of tuberculosis (TB) services for many decades, and they continue to be used in international guidelines and published literature. The detrimental effect of such negative language is detailed by TB experts from around the world in an article.

  17 May 2012 | Stop TB Partnership

• School rejects HIV boy's siblings

  A primary school asked the parents of a four-year-old Whangarei boy with HIV to keep his two older siblings at home for their own safety after other parents came forward with concerns.

  15 May 2012 | New Zealand Herald

• HIV: Zimbabwean Senator wants women to dress shabbily, bath less

  WOMEN must bath occasionally, shave-off their hair, dress shabbily and get circumcised to make them less attractive to men, a Senator has proposed during a conference on HIV. Morgan Femai, the MDC-T senator for Chikomo, said his bizarre prescription was necessary to help curb the spread of HIV/AIDS because men were finding it difficult to resist attractive and well-dressed women.

  13 May 2012 | New Zimbabwe

• New Zealand: Parents deny discriminating over HIV boy

  Angry parents are sticking up for the Northland childhood centre which kicked out a four-year-old boy for being HIV-positive. The Aids Foundation has labelled the Mokopuna Early Childhood Education centre close-minded, irresponsible and guilty of wilful ignorance.

  10 May 2012 | TVNZ

• New Zealand: Boy with HIV expelled from childcare

  A young boy has been expelled from a Whangarei childcare centre because he has HIV, the New Zealand Aids Foundation says. The move by the childcare centre has created hysteria in the community, the New Zealand Aids Foundation says.

  09 May 2012 | Stuff.co.nz

• Matthew Weait on the Greek brothel arrests

  HIV criminalization has compounded, and added a new and frightening dimension to, the longstanding idea that female sex workers are a source of pollution threatening the cleanliness of men.

  03 May 2012 | The Times That Belong To Us

• Winnipeg man guilty in death of HIV-positive boyfriend

  A jury has found a Winnipeg man guilty of manslaughter in the death of his boyfriend, which the Crown argued took place after the victim revealed he was HIV-positive. 

  13 April 2012 | Ottawa Citizen

• Nigeria: Suitor Sues Father-in-Law Over HIV Status of Fiancee

  [Vanguard] A Farmer, Muhammad Baban Iro of Rigasa Area in Kaduna on Thursday appeared before a Kaduna Sharia Court for refusing to refund N32,000 being the bride price and other expenses allegedly paid on his daughter. The demand was made by the suitor following the discovery that she had tested positive to HIV.

  06 April 2012 | AllAfrica

• Uganda: LGBT people risk arrest to attend secret HIV testing session

  A leading LGBT health coordinator, who asked their organization not to be named and preferred to be known by the pseudo name of Valentino, told www.keycorrespondents.org that his organization carries out VCT for LGBT every two months because mainstream health facilities are ‘hostile’ to LGBT.

  28 March 2012 | Key Correspondents

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