UNITED NATIONS TO ELABORATE GUIDELINES ON HIV/AIDS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Press Release
HR/4301
UNITED NATIONS TO ELABORATE GUIDELINES ON HIV/AIDS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
19960920 GENEVA, 20 September (UN Information Service) -- The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Centre for Human Rights are holding an international conference next week aimed at providing guidelines to ensure the human rights of people affected by HIV/AIDS.The meeting, the second of its kind, will bring together experts from governments, non-governmental organizations, academic and research organizations, agencies involved in the UNAIDS programme and representatives from networks of people living with HIV/AIDS. The main objective will be to finalize and adopt guidelines for the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of the AIDS epidemic, with particular reference to international human rights standards. Measures will be proposed in the areas of law, and administrative policy and practice.
The principal users of the guidelines are intended to be States and their officials -- legislators and government policy-makers, including officials in national AIDS programmes and in relevant governmental departments and ministries. These would often include health, education, police, justice and interior ministries or their equivalents.
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities have already adopted a number of resolutions recognizing that the increasing challenges presented by AIDS require renewed efforts to ensure universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.
By a resolution on 29 August 1996, the Subcommission called upon States to ensure that their legislation, policies and practices, including those in the context of HIV/AIDS, respect international human rights standards and prohibit AIDS-related discrimination. They should not have the effect of inhibiting AIDS prevention and care programmes, in particular with respect to women, children, indigenous peoples, minorities, refugees, migrants, sex workers, men who are homosexual, intravenous drug users and prisoners.
With more than 21 million people now HIV-infected, and 8,500 being infected each day, this second meeting is intended to elaborate further the vital need for human rights protection in the context of HIV/AIDS. Its results will be discussed by the Commission on Human Rights at its next meeting in the spring of 1997.
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