Is the Commonwealth ready for an AIDS-free generation?

indiaaidsalliance 24 September, 2012

J.V.R. Prasada Rao blogs in New Statesman (London) about the importance of law reform in successfully addressing HIV/AIDS and how the Commonwealth can lead by example and take decisive actions to address the legal and structural barriers currently impeding the global HIV response:

Last week the European Parliament agreed on a new law to provide specific assistance and protection to people who suffer crime because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or, in a first for EU law, gender expression.

Can we expect the Commonwealth to adopt such a progressive approach on HIV and human rights issues? The annual meeting of the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers, coming up soon in New York, normally attracts attention for its economic and political agenda. But among the HIV/AIDS community, populations vulnerable to the infection and human rights activists, concern is centered on the fate of certain recommendations relating to the Commonwealth’s legal reform process….

To read the complete article, please click here.

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Prasada Rao is in the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on AIDS in the Asia Pacific region. He is former Director General of India’s National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and former Regional Director of UNAIDS in Asia and the Pacific. He served as a member of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law and is a trustee of both the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and India HIV/AIDS Alliance.