Law Commons^™

Criminal Laws On Sex Work And Hiv Transmission: Mapping The Laws, Considering The Consequence, Aziza Ahmed, Sienna Baskin, Anna Forbes

Faculty Scholarship

Lawmakers historically justify the mobilization of criminal laws on prostitution and HIV as a means of controlling the spread of disease. Over time, however, public health research has conclusively demonstrated that criminal laws on prostitution and HIV significantly impede the ability of sex workers to access services and to live without the stigma and blame associated with being a transmitter of HIV. In turn, mainstream public health approaches to sex work and HIV emphasize decriminalization as a way to improve the lives of sex workers in need of care, treatment, and services. Our current legal system, which criminalizes both prostitution …

Trafficked? Aids, Criminal Law And The Politics Of Measurement, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

Since early in the HIV epidemic, epidemiologists identified individuals who transact sex as a high-risk group for contracting HIV. Where the issue of transacting sex has been framed as sex work, harm-reduction advocates and scholars call for decriminalization as a primary legal solution to address HIV. Where the issue is defined as trafficking, advocates known as abolitionists argue instead for the criminalization of the purchase of sex.

Global health governance institutions are porous to these competing ideas and ideologies. This article first historicizes the contestation between harm-reduction and abolition in global governance on health. The paper then turns to a …

“Rugged Vaginas” And “Vulnerable Rectums”: The Sexual Identity, Epidemiology, And Law Of The Global Hiv Epidemic, Aziza Ahmed

Faculty Scholarship

AIDS remains amongst the leading causes of death globally. Identity is the primary mode of understanding HIV and organizing in response to the HIV epidemic. In this Article, I examine how epidemiology and human rights activism co-produce ideas of identity and risk. I call this the "identity/risk narrative ": the commonsense understanding about an identity group's HIV risk. For example, epidemiology offers the biological narrative of risk: anal sex and the weak rectal lining make men who have sex with men more vulnerable to HIV; while the fragility of a woman's vaginal wall provides a biological foundation for women's vulnerability. …

The Human Right To Health And Hiv/Aids: South Africa And South-South Cooperation To Reframe Global Intellectual Property Principles And Promote Access To Essential Medicines, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has had a devastating and disproportionate impact in countries of the Global South. The experience of an individual infected with HIV in Africa is very different than that of an individual infected with HIV in America. Life expectancy varies sharply. The ability or inability to access medicines essential for treatment accounts for much of the variance. This article examines how the rhetoric of human rights used in the context of South Africa's AIDS crisis resonated across the Global South, resulted in a powerful social movement for access to medicines, and contributed to important changes in international intellectual …

Virginity Testing And South Africa's Hiv/Aids Crisis: Beyond Rights Universalism And Cultural Relativism Toward Health Capabilities, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I explore the tension between the politics of culture and the rights of women and girls to equality, privacy, and sexual autonomy in the context of epidemic disease. Specifically, this Article examines the political debate surrounding the resurgence of virginity testing, its widespread popular support in certain communities, and the South African government's recent efforts to prohibit the practice. This Article argues that the current debate over virginity testing, which focuses on abolition or accommodation of the practice, is misguided and polarizing. It argues that these perspectives on the debate increase the likelihood that the problem causing …