On October 18, 2019, on Friday, at 13:00 in the premises of IA “Glavkom” (8/20 Shchelkovichna str.) UHHRU press-conference: “Why Ukraine must to decriminalize HIV status” will take place.

For the period from 1987 – till September 2017, 310,680 cases of HIV infection were officially registered among Ukrainian citizens, including 99,694 cases of AIDS and 43,958 of deaths caused by AIDS.

Unfortunately, people living with HIV/AIDS (PL HIV), as before, are discriminated and stigmatized by relevant characteristic including when exercising their social and economic rights, in particular rights to medical assistance, right to labor. 8% of respondents, living with HIV/AIDS suffered from discrimination and stigma in healthcare. At that, significant share – 89% – were refused in provision of medical services in non-specialized for PL HIV institutions, 11% in AIDS Prevention and Control Centers.

On top of all there is criminalization of PL HIV status – article 130 of CC of Ukraine, which in fact treats all Ukrainian citizens with HIV+ status as potential criminals.

The speakers at the press-conference will be talking about the need to amend article 130 of the CC of Ukraine, and consequences for Ukraine, as a whole, in case of further criminalization of HIV status.
 

Speakers:

Oleksandr Pavlichenko, UHHRU Executive Director;

Svitlana Moroz, Chairman of the Board of Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS;

Olena Stryzhak, Chairman of the Board of Charitable Organization “Positive Women”;

Valeriya Rachynska, Director of the Department for Work with the Regions, “All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS”

Additional information

You can find the rationale of Charitable Organization “Positive Women” for immediate decriminalization of HIV status at the link.

In case of questions please call us at +38(095) 483-48-45; +38 (068) 138-0775.

Contact person – Maksym Petrov.

Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union implements the project the project “Development of the legal network for protection of the people living with HIV/AIDS, representatives of key PLHIV communities and persons ill with TB” with the financial support of the Charitable organization “All-Ukrainian Network of the People Living with HIV/AIDS” in the framework of implementation of the project “Releasing the Burden of TB and HIV infection through creation of the open access to timely and quality diagnostics and treatment of the TB and its resistant forms, expanding evidence based prevention, diagnostic and treatment of HIV infection, and creation of stable and sustainable health protection systems”, which is implemented with the financial support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.