Take Action as an Individual – Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCRHC)

When the world’s eyes are on Canada this summer for the International AIDS Conference in Montreal (July 29 – August 2), they will see a country that continues to be a global leader in HIV criminalization. It’s time to uphold human rights and end the criminalization of HIV in Canada.

The government of Canada needs to hear the following demands from you:

Remove non-disclosure, exposure, or transmission of HIV or other STBBIs from the reach of sexual assault laws, including the current mandatory designation as a sex offender.
Enact reforms to ensure that any other provisions in the Criminal Code are not used to further stigmatize and discriminate against people living with HIV and STBBIs.
End the deportation of non-citizens following conviction.
Review past convictions so that people living with HIV previously criminalized under these harmful and stigmatizing laws no longer have to live with the label of a sex offender and criminal.

With your help we can make this happen!

Send a letter to government officials demanding the end of discriminatory and unscientific laws that criminalize people living with HIV.

A Canada where HIV is not a crime

Subject

Message *

Minister for Women and Gender Equality: The Honourable Marci Ien marci.ien@parl.gc.ca  
Minister of Justice: The Honourable David Lametti david.lametti@parl.gc.ca 
Minister of Health: The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos jean-yves.duclos@parl.gc.ca
Prime Minister: The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca

Dear recipients,

I am writing to you as a person concerned with Canada’s discriminatory non-disclosure laws targeting people living with HIV. I urge the Government of Canada to limit HIV criminalization in accordance with international recommendations and informed by the best available scientific evidence. It’s time for Canada to become a positive leader on HIV non-disclosure law reform.

As the law currently stands, people living with HIV in Canada can be charged for not telling their sexual partners their HIV status in certain circumstances. With more than 220 prosecutions for alleged HIV non-disclosure since 1989 [1], Canada has the shameful distinction of being a world leader in HIV criminalization. Worse yet, Canada’s approach to criminalizing HIV non-disclosure is unscientific, disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous Peoples [2],  undermines public health efforts to stop the spread of HIV, contributes to HIV stigma, and imposes significant harms on people living with HIV.

People accused of HIV non-disclosure are most often charged with aggravated sexual assault — one of the most serious crimes in the Criminal Code — even when they did not intend to transmit HIV, the risk of HIV transmission was low, they did not actually transmit HIV, and they engaged in otherwise consensual sex. The compounding stigma of HIV and a sex offender label means that many criminalized for HIV non-disclosure experience barriers to housing and employment, social exclusion, increased risks of violence and abuse, and psychological harms, including post-traumatic stress. [3]

I welcome the Government of Canada’s announcement about community consultations and recognize this as a step in the right direction to reforming the law on HIV non-disclosure. However, the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCRHC), in consultation with the larger HIV community, has already outlined necessary changes to HIV non-disclosure laws in its latest Community Consensus Statement. I ask you to seriously consider the important work that has already been done in community, by community.

I urge the Government of Canada to consider proposals made by the (CCRHC). In its recent Community Consensus Statement, the CCRHC, after broad national consultations with people living with HIV, service providers, allies, researchers, and legal experts, concluded that the criminal law must be used only as a measure of last resort and only in cases where there was actual and intentional transmission of HIV or another sexually transmitted or bloodborne infection (STBBI). The law should never be used when someone engaged in activities that, according to the best scientific evidence, posed no significant possibility of transmission.

I therefore call on the federal government to amend the Criminal Code to:

1. Remove non-disclosure, exposure, or transmission of HIV or other STBBIs from the reach of sexual assault laws, including the current mandatory designation as a sex offender. 
2. Prohibit prosecutions for sexual assault where HIV non-disclosure takes place in the context of sex among otherwise consenting adults.
3. Enact reforms to ensure that any other provisions in the Criminal Code are not used to further stigmatize and discriminate against people living with HIV and STBBIs.
4. End the deportation of non-citizens following conviction.
5. Review past convictions so that people living with HIV previously criminalized under these harmful and stigmatizing laws no longer have to live with the label of a sex offender and criminal.

I hope to see concrete steps taken by this government to change the laws on HIV non-disclosure. I am ready to see Canada as a global leader in HIV non-disclosure law reform and HIV-related stigma reduction.

Sincerely,

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