Reproductive Health Matters' November issue focuses on criminalisation

Elsevier announced today the publication of the November issue of Reproductive Health Matters. Articles in the issue look at criminalisation in relation to a range of global issues: rape and sexual violence; female genital mutilation; selling and buying sex; provision and use of modern contraception and induced abortion; homosexuality, and HIV transmission.

Recent years have seen the creation, particularly in a growing number of African countries, of laws that both protect the rights of HIV-positive people and criminalize HIV transmission and exposure. At the same time, such laws, which have been in place for up to a decade in Europe and North America, are increasingly being used to prosecute people for transmitting HIV or exposing others to HIV infection. In Africa, especially in conflict and crisis settings, criminalization of HIV transmission and exposure has found support from women's groups who argue that it might protect women and girls from being infected through sexual violence and by unfaithful partners and/or by partners who do not reveal their HIV status to them. However, because many more women in Africa are tested for HIV than men, it is possible that women are also more likely to be subject to prosecution than men.

Editor-in-Chief, Marge Berer commented, "Some of the laws concerned serve as a statement of moral condemnation in response to a behaviour that is considered wrong or a violation of human rights. Others aim to protect health and prevent harm."

All articles on criminalisation of HIV published in this issue examine these legislative responses and contain a wealth of counter-arguments. The editor concludes that the question of how to effectively implement laws, particularly in relation to the criminalization of the kinds of behaviours covered in these papers, must be answered quite differently in relation to each practice.