Africa: UN Meet to Examine Tanzania's HIV Act. 20/7/10
People found guilty of spreading the virus with malicious intent can be jailed for between five and ten years.
By Neville Meena
20 July 2010
The HIV/Aids (Prevention and Control) Act enacted in 2008 is to be scrutinised during the 18th International Aids Conference, which opened here yesterday.
The law will be discussed in depth on Thursday, with the focus being on its suitability and applicability as a weapon in the war against HIV/Aids.
A group of experts have already gone through the law, under which people found guilty of spreading the virus with malicious intent can be jailed for between five and ten years.
Discriminating against people living with HIV is another punishable offence under the law, which also provides for penalties against people who deliberately mistreat others simply because they have the virus that causes Aids.
A statement made available to The Citizen said making HIV transmission a criminal offence made it difficult for people living with the virus to help in the implementation of the law.
It said there had been only a handful of reports on stigmatisation of people living with HIV/Aids despite the government's mobilisation and sensitisation of policymakers, MPs, legal experts, religious leaders and the media.
No conviction has been reported since the law came into force on April 4, 2008.
Health and Social Welfare minister David Mwakyusa in recently in Parliament that the Judiciary and society at large had a pivotal role to play in making the law effective.
The Vienna international has drawn about 20,000 participants, including scientists and health experts, from all over the world.
Tanzania Commission for Aids (Tacaids) executive chairman Fatma Mrisho is leading Tanzania's delegation, whose size could not be immediately established. However, several countries, including Uganda and South Africa, have sent much larger delegations.
According to the schedule of the seven-day conference, Tanzanian delegates will take part in various discussions.
Human rights activists have been invited to the conference for the first time, and the issues that are expected to be a major talking point is the recent discovery by US scientists of a protein said to be capable of offering protection against HIV. The scientists who made breakthrough in their search for a vaccine have been invited to brief delegates on their research.
The conference started on a cheerful note for Africa country when a UN report released head of the meeting indicated infections in the continent have gone down by 25 per cent.
South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe was among prominent delegates who were expected to address the conference's opening session last night.
While Tanzania's law on HIV/Aids is under scrutiny in Vienna, the East African Community is in the process of formulating a common law that would be applicable across the region.
Under the envisaged law, all HIV-positive east Africans could access free anti-retroviral treatment even as they move freely from country to country.
This follows the East African Community (EAC) initiative to develop a law to guide the region's response to HIV/Aids.
This comes as the regional block moves towards an integration process that would see more citizens cross the boarders in the five states of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda.
"With the signing of the protocol on customs union that will enable free movement of persons, you are actually going to see free movement of the virus because people will be interacting more easily as they transact business. The effect of that is that HIV must be seen regionally," said Catherine Mumma, a Kenyan Human Rights Lawyer, who works with consultancy group Africa Vision Integrated Strategies was quoted as saying last year.
She led a consultation in the EAC states before the drafting of the new proposed law.
Based upon the consultations, the proposed law aims to provide joint treatment policies for people in the region while they move freely across the borders.
The law will allow for a common stance on HIV/Aids, which aims to be non-discriminatory. Currently some countries in the region criminalise the treatment of HIV-positive sex workers and gay men.
It is expected that the proposed law will take on the good parts of the existing laws in the region but also tackle some of the silent issues and make better the areas that are controversial.
For example, Kenya and Tanzania have laws providing for the free treatment and counselling for HIV-positive people.
But one of the controversial areas is the criminalisation of the transmission of HIV/Aids which was included in a law in Uganda.
Another controversial area is that in the Penal Codes of Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania prostitutes and gay men, who are considered high risk in HIV/Aids transmission, are not allowed access to treatment.