South Africa: Aids Response Must Be Guided By Human Rights and Justice

In South Africa and across Africa, HIV continues to prey on women, sex workers and men who have sex with men. It is clear that to end the HIV epidemic, we must protect and support these groups.By Festus Mogae and Stephen Lewis

Yet, our country and others enforce bad laws and customs that disempower these groups and make them more likely to be infected with HIV. We cannot hope for an HIV-free generation when we have laws that marginalize and punish those most vulnerable to the disease. A global commission of legal, human rights and HIV leaders recently released a report that shows punitive laws are standing in the way of effective AIDS responses.

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