CRIN - Child Rights Information Network
The HIV and AIDS pandemic is not just a public health issue, HIV and AIDS presents an obstacle to all human rights, for example, the right to education, the right to work and the right to safety and protection from abuse and violence.
Protecting human rights is therefore crucial to responding effectively to HIV and AIDS. A rights-based approach does this by integrating international human rights principles in health policy, planning and legislation.
Adopting a rights-based approach means providing people with the power, skills, knowledge and resources to protect them from contracting HIV and AIDS. Rights-based approaches to prevention do not just provide information, they seek behavioural change for example by ensuring that all people have the power and resources to refuse sex and access safe medical practices. Prevention programmes should identify the needs of those particularly vulnerable to HIV and AIDS infection, such as sex workers, drug users and mobile populations.
A rights-based approach aims to guarantee access to treatment and care to those affected by HIV and AIDS. At the policy level, this means ensuring that States are held accountable for the consequences of exclusionary health policies. At the programme level, rights-based approaches seek to provide psycho-social support, medical treatment and nutritional support.
Tackling discrimination is fundamental to rights-based approaches to HIV and AIDS. The stigma attached to HIV and AIDS stifles education and knowledge. This causes the virus, and panic, to spread faster. Rights-based approaches address discrimination by working with parents, teachers the media and religious organisations, to address attitudes about sex and sexuality.
Large numbers of deaths caused by HIV and AIDS have heavily reduced labour, skills and knowledge. Rights-based approaches can help to mitigate this by encouraging a multi-sectoral response and fostering strong political and community support. This can help to assess and monitor the impact of AIDS on industry and macro-economic stability.
Example: Rights-based approaches to HIV/ AIDS in Vietnam
Studies have found that major transmission of HIV occurs along transport routes. This is because mobile populations, such as truck-drivers, away from their families for long periods of time, are more likely to have multiple sexual partners at different truck stops along the highway. In response, World Vision and the Australian Government’s overseas aid program set up The National Highway One Project in Vietnam to prevent the spread of infection by increasing awareness of HIV and prevention among truck drivers and communities.
Community members in frequent contact with the drivers, were trained to distribute condoms and information, including leaflets, and audio-cassettes containing songs interspersed with conversations between truck drivers. Young men and women in roadside locations took part in education sessions and produced colourful murals and billboards which reinforced the message that HIV and AIDS threatens everyone, not just 'high-risk groups' By educating the wider community, the project aimed to encourage behavioural change.
Source: Global Education (World Vision)
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