Ten reasons why legal services must be central to a rights-based response to HIV

1. Because informing people of their rights, while failing to provide ways to realize them, can be disempowering and increase the burden on affected communities.

Human rights education alone is insufficient. We also need to offering concrete, practical and affordable ways to address the human rights abuses faced by people living with HIV and other key affected populations.

2. Because law reform is a long-term goal, while legal services can improve peoples’ lives right now.

Even in a hostile legal environment, lawyers can get better results for clients than if they are left to deal with employers, landlords, health authorities, and the justice sector on their own. Lawyers can intervene with police and other public authorities to achieve changes in the ways laws are implemented, such as guidelines on the discretion to prosecute.

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