Unaids
Defending the rights of people living with and affected by HIV Algeria People living with HIV are often susceptible to abuses of human rights as a result of stigma and discrimination, either at the community or political level. Rights can be abused by denying access to treatment and health services, employment, or guardianship or inheritance. The rights of migrants to health and education can also be denied. For these reasons, several organizations working on HIV awareness are increasingly targeting their activities to address the legal rights of people living with HIV. Some are partnering with human rights organizations to develop their capacities to effectively address legal injustices, and others are benefiting from the volunteer support of legal professionals who regularly collaborate with the organisation to put forward legal complaints against rights abuses. The Association de Protection Contre le sida (APCS) in Algeria, through its partnership with Le Fond de Droit Humain Mondial (FDHM), is working to legally challenge stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV. Through the support of FDHM, APCS is able to bring and follow up legal complaints to court. This partnership has allowed APCS to fight discrimination against men having sex with men, women affected by HIV and migrants living in Algeria. In May 2010, the city of Oran experienced a stock-out of antiretroviral therapy that lasted more than three months. This resulted in a formal legal complaint by people living with HIV and APCS to the Oran Tribunal, citing “non-assistance to vulnerable individuals”. The APCS director submitted the legal complaint on behalf of seven individuals living with HIV. This complaint was followed by advocating the local media of the treatment stock-out in the newspaper article “People living with HIV seek justice”. The article underscored the sentiments of people living with HIV, citing that “this rupture in treatment is not only scandalous but unacceptable and takes hostage of individuals who are fragile and vulnerable, who do not even have the right to fully express their anger”. The advocacy efforts and the article resulted in the public response by the Minister of Health to ameliorate the rupture in treatment. APCS has also been able to legally pursue cases in which people living with HIV have been evicted from their residence as soon as their HIV status was known, cases in which medical professionals have illegally disclosed a person living with HIV to an employer, and in which people living with HIV experienced stigma and discrimination by health workers. Furthermore, APCS has been working simultaneously to develop the advocacy capacities of people living with HIV to address these rights abuses themselves. For example, recently groups of people living with HIV who are involved in community support groups known as “Groupes des Paroles” have mobilized themselves to take their complaints on stigma and discrimination to the higher local authorities. Therefore, the benefit of the partnership with FDHM has not only been to support the legal rights of people living with HIV at the organizational level, but to also develop these capacities in individuals over time.
UNAIDS MENA Civil Society Strategy and Best Practices Collection, 2011
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