services to enable people living with HIV

Guideline 7 urges that States (and the private sector) encourage and support specialist and generalist legal services to enable people living with HIV and affected communities to enforce their human and legal rights through the use of such services। Information and research resources on legal and human rights issues should also be made available. Such services should also address the issue of reducing the vulnerability to infection within and the impact of HIV on vulnerable groups. The location and format of the information (e.g. plain and understandable language) provided via such services should render it accessible to members of these groups. Models exist in many countriesStates should support the development of adequate, accessible and effective HIV-related prevention and care education, information and services by and for vulnerable communities and should actively involve such communities in the design and implementation of these programmes.
States should support the establishment of national and local forums to examine the impact of the HIV epidemic on women. They should be multisectoral to include Government, professional, religious and community representation and leadership and examine issues such as:
(i) The role of women at home and in public life;
(ii) The sexual and reproductive rights of women and men, including women’s ability to negotiate safer sex and make reproductive choices;
(iii) Strategies for increasing educational and economic opportunities for women;
(iv) Sensitizing service deliverers and improving health care and social support services for women; and
(v) The impact of religious and cultural traditions on women।
States should support women’s organizations to incorporate HIV and human rights issues into their programming.
(f) States should ensure that all women and girls of child-bearing age have access to accurate and comprehensive information and counselling on the prevention of HIV transmission and the risk of vertical transmission of HIV, as well as access to the available resources to minimize that risk, or to proceed with childbirth, if they so choose.
(g) States should ensure the access of children and adolescents to adequate health information and education, including information related to HIV prevention and care, inside and outside school, which is tailored appropriately to age level and capacity and enables them to deal positively and responsibly with their sexuality. Such information should take into account the rights of the child to access to information, privacy, confidentiality, respect and informed consent and means of prevention, as well as the responsibilities, rights and duties of parents. Efforts to educate children about their rights should include the rights of persons, including children, living with HIV.
(h) States should ensure that children and adolescents have adequate access to confidential sexual and reproductive health services, including HIV information, counselling,testing and prevention measures such as condoms, and to social support services if affected by HIV. The provision of these services to children/adolescents should reflect the appropriate balance between the rights of the child/adolescent to be involved in decision-making according to his or her evolving capabilities and the rights and duties of parents/guardians for the health and well-being of the child.
(i) States should ensure that persons employed to child care agencies, including adoption and foster-care homes, receive training in the area of HIV-related children’s issues in order to deal effectively with the special needs of HIV-affected children including protection from mandatory testing, discrimination and abandonment.
(j) States should support the implementation of specially designed and targeted HIV prevention and care programmes for those who have less access to mainstream programmes due to language, poverty, social or legal or physical marginalization, e.g. minorities, migrants, indigenous peoples, refugees and internally displaced persons, people with disabilities, prisoners, sex workers, men having sex with men and injecting drug users.