Nuevo web del Grupo de Referencia de ONUSIDA sobre el VIH y los Derechos Humanos

En este sitio web se reúne la opinión de expertos sobre el VIH e información sobre obligaciones en materia de financiación y protección de los derechos de los defensores de los derechos humanos y las poblaciones vulnerables.

Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

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On 4 November, the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights Reference Group launched its new website, containing all the Reference Group's statements, papers, and recommendations since its first meeting in 2002. The Reference Group is an independent, advisory group that advises the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on all matters relating to human rights, law and HIV. The Reference Group is comprised of human rights and HIV experts, including people living with HIV, jurists and HIV service providers and funders.

The website brings together expert opinion on a range of HIV-related human rights issues such as HIV testing and treatment, international and domestic funding obligations, protecting human rights defenders, and the rights of vulnerable, marginalized, and criminalized populations.

"Publicizing these documents in one dedicated place is part of our effort to be transparent in our advice to UNAIDS on human rights. We want to be held accountable for what we do and how we do it," said Reference Group co-chair Jonathan Cohen.

Among many other documents, the website contains the report of the Reference Group's most recent, 14th meeting, with many recommendations aimed at strengthening the response to HIV. Discussions at the meeting focused on three issues, each of which has critical human rights dimensions: shared responsibility and global solidarity for the HIV response; the investment approach to HIV; and scaling up HIV treatment.

"The Reference Group agrees that low and middle-income countries with HIV epidemics have a responsibility to progressively realize the right to health of their people, and that it is a major achievement to increase domestic spending for HIV." Said Reference Group co-chair Michaela Clayton. "But the Reference Group advises UNAIDS to continue to advocate strongly for wealthier development partners to fulfil their own responsibilities in ensuring universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support, including by providing funding in middle-income countries for key populations at risk". Beyond that, the Reference Group recommended that UNAIDS contribute to developing and promulgating clear standards on shared responsibility as a matter of human rights and ethical responsibility.

With regard to the new strategic investment approach to the HIV epidemic, the Reference Group highlighted that "faster, better and smarter" results in the global response are impossible without strong financial and political support for the "critical enablers" that support human rights, such as removal of punitive laws and law enforcement that impede HIV responses, access to justice, anti-discrimination laws and their enforcement, stigma reduction, gender equality measures and others.

With regard to scaling up HIV treatment, the Reference Group emphasized that treatment expansion is the human rights imperative of the epidemic and that it is right and critical for the UNAIDS Secretariat and Co-sponsors to make treatment expansion a priority.

"UNAIDS can and should be bold, direct, and challenging about the serious human rights and funding challenges that stand in the way of HIV treatment scale-up, said Cohen. "We urge UNAIDS to provide such leadership by expressly affirming the human rights to life, health, and non-discrimination as vital, not only in their own right, but also as essential strategies to facilitate the work necessary for an effective HIV response."

Specifically, the Reference Group urged UNAIDS to take on intellectual property issues; stock outs; inequitable and inadequate delivery; state-level denial and discrimination against people living with HIV and other key populations and marginalized groups; stigma and discrimination in health care systems; and punitive laws and law enforcement that impact treatment and/or promote low self-esteem, stigma, discrimination, retaliation, and risks of violence and imprisonment suffered by people living with HIV who are marginalized and criminalized.

For the full summary of the Reference Group's discussions and recommendations, please click here.

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