Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization
Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCRHC)
Coalition canadienne pour réformer la criminalisation du VIH (CCRCV)

About the Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization

The Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCRHC) is a national coalition of people living with HIV, community organizations, lawyers, researchers, and others formed in October 2016. It includes a steering committee on which a majority of members are people living with HIV.

Vision

A Canada where HIV is not a crime.

Mission

Working to progressively reform, repeal, limit the scope and harms of, and/or abolish, discriminatory criminal and public health laws and practices that punitively regulate HIV-related exposure, transmission, and non-disclosure in Canada.

Objectives

We aim to achieve our vision and mission by:

  • Strengthening linkages and knowledge exchange between local, provincial, national, and international initiatives.
  • Building the advocacy capacity of a range of organizations and communities, including, people living with HIV who have been criminally charged or prosecuted or been subjected to coercive actions under public health law.
  • Developing common strategies and coordinating advocacy efforts, including working at a federal level to ensure a unified and cohesive response to progressively limit the scope of laws criminalizing HIV-related exposure, transmission, and non-disclosure.
  • Raising awareness and developing a broad community-based network throughout Canada to promote rights-based alternatives to punitive approaches.

Context

The CCRHC understands that the Canadian criminal justice system is a product of ongoing settler colonization. The criminalization of HIV-related exposure, transmission, and non-disclosure is a result of a legal system founded on colonial values which addresses complex social problems through forms of individual punishment. In the context of colonization, HIV-related criminalization has disproportionately caused harm to Indigenous people, Black people, LGBTQ2S people, poor people, and other people made to be oppressed and marginalized.

Membership

The Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCRHC) is a group of individuals and organizations.

Members of the CCRHC come from a diversity of backgrounds with a broad spectrum of perspectives, including those who wish to see the full decriminalization of HIV exposure, transmission, and non-disclosure, as well as those who see a potential limited role for the application of criminal laws in rare instances. We collectively collaborate to increase our impact and ensure our efficacy in mitigating the harms of criminalization.

Organizational Members

  • Afro-Canadian Positive Network of BC (ACPNet)
  • Coalition des organismes communautaires québécois de lutte contre le sida (COCQ-SIDA)
  • HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic of Ontario (HALCO)
  • HIV Legal Network
  • PASAN

History

The CCRHC was in 2016 formed out of a group of Canadian individuals and organizational representatives who met at HIV Is Not A Crime: 2 Training Academy (HINAC) held in Alabama, USA. The meeting included representatives from the Canadian Positive People’s Network (CPPN), Afro-Canadian Positive Network of BC (ACPNet), Positive Living BC, HIV Legal Network (formerly Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network), Coalition des Organismes Communautaires Québécois (COCQ SIDA), HIV/AIDS Legal Clinic of Ontario (HALCO), Canadian Treatment Action Council (CTAC), International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW), Women’s Health in Women’s Hands (WHIWH), as well as a range of lawyers, people living with HIV and academics who were compelled to develop a broad national coalition to counter the increasing prosecutions of people living with HIV related to exposure, transmission, and/or non-disclosure.

The Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization (CCRHC) is a national coalition of people living with HIV, community organizations, lawyers, researchers and others formed in October 2016 to progressively reform discriminatory and unjust criminal and public health laws and practices that criminalize and regulate people living with HIV in relation to HIV exposure, transmission and non-disclosure in Canada. The Coalition includes individuals with lived experience of HIV criminalization, advocates and organizations from across the country. It includes a steering committee on which a majority of members are people living with HIV.

After years of advocacy by community organizations, both the federal and Ontario governments have finally recognized the need to limit the “overcriminalization of HIV” in Canada. They have each taken a first step toward that end—specifically, by recognizing that a person living with HIV who has a suppressed viral load should not be criminally prosecuted, because this is at odds with the science. Read a joint statement from the CCRHC and other organizations regarding this development.