Zimbabwe: Outdated, Punitive Laws Are Encouraging HIV Stigma

analysis

In 2001 Zimbabwe introduced the Sexual Offences Act, which criminalised wilful transmission of HIV. Three years later the law was updated to include those who suspected they could be HIV positive but didn't inform their sexual partners.

The law allowed people to be criminally charged for deliberately infecting other people with HIV. It came about as a result of activism by women's rights groups; they sought to empower women who were being recklessly exposed to HIV by rapists and, in some cases, by their partners.

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