Aziza Ahmed

HIV and Women: Incongruent Policies, Criminal Consequences

Aziza Ahmed — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:58:18 PST

The new agency UN WOMEN must play an active role in the standardization of laws and policies at the global and national level where their incongruence has negative and often criminal consequences for the health and lives of women and girls. This article focuses in on three such examples: opt-out testing for HIV, criminalization of vertical transmission, and the new World Health Organization guidelines on breastfeeding.

Feminism, Power, and Sex Work in the Context of HIV/AIDS: Consequences for Women’s Health

Aziza Ahmed — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 06:58:16 PST

This paper examines the involvement of feminists in approaches to sex work in the context of HIV/AIDS. The paper focuses on two moments where feminist disagreement produced results in favor of an "anti-trafficking" approach to addressing the vulnerability of sex workers in the context of HIV. The first is the UNAIDS Guidance Note on Sex Work and the second is the "anti-prostitution pledge" found in the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. This article also examines the anti-sex work position articulated by abolitionist feminists and demonstrates the unintended consequences of the abolitionist position on women's health. By examining the actual impact of abolitionist positions, in favor of the anti-prostitution pledge and the criminalization of clients, we see that there are negative consequences for women despite the desire by abolitionists to improve women's health.

Criminalising consensual sexual behaviour in the context of HIV: Consequences, evidence, and leadership (peer-reviewed)

Aziza Ahmed et al. — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:23:40 PDT

This paper provides an overview of the use of the criminal law to regulate sexual behaviour in three areas of critical importance: (1) HIV exposure in otherwise consensual sex, (2) sex work and (3) sexual activity largely affecting sexual minorities. It analyses criminal law pertaining to these three distinct areas together, allowing for a more comprehensive and cohesive understanding of criminalisation and its effects. The paper highlights current evidence of how criminalisation undermines HIV prevention and treatment. It focuses on three specific negative effects of criminalisation: (1) enhancing stigma and discrimination, (2) undermining public health intervention through legal marginalisation and (3) placing people in state custody. The paper also highlights gaps in evidence and the need for strong institutional leadership from UN agencies in ending the criminalisation of consensual sexual activity. This paper serves two goals: (1) highlighting the current state of research and emphasising where key institutions have or have not provided appropriate leadership on these issues and (2) establishing a forward-looking agenda that includes a concerted response to the inappropriate use of the criminal law with respect to sexuality as part of the global response to HIV.

Rights and Desires: A Facilitator's Guide to Healthy Sexuality

Aziza Ahmed et al. — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 09:27:31 PDT

Curriculum on sexuality (India)

Sex and HIV Disclosure

Aziza Ahmed et al. — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:22:49 PDT

Namibian High Court to Hear Cases of Forced Sterilization

Aziza Ahmed — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:45:05 PDT

Criminalizing HIV Transmission: Undermining Prevention, and Justice

Aziza Ahmed — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:44:05 PDT

Growing trend to criminalize HIV transmission

Aziza Ahmed — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 08:47:27 PDT

Statutes undermine the progress made: The criminalisation of positive women

Aziza Ahmed et al. — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 08:42:47 PDT

Criminalisation laws have a specific and nuanced impact on women living with HIV. An understanding of the consequences of such laws will help positive women and other advocates to combat negative uses of such laws, and to frame and advocate for effective alternatives for HIV prevention. This article helps tease out some of the ways that criminalisation can negatively impact the lives of positive women in particular: the explicit sex discrimination in the laws, the gender bias in courtrooms, the impact on marginalised women, and the increase in stigma and discrimination through criminalisation laws.

Abortion and HIV at the AIDS Conference

Aziza Ahmed — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 08:37:03 PDT

The International AIDS Conference in 2010 held one of the first plenary sessions dedicated to abortion and HIV. The plenary focused on the needs of HIV positive women to obtain a full range of reproductive health services, including abortion, as central to a human rights based response to the HIV epidemic.

Criminalization of HIV Positive Women

Aziza Ahmed et al. — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:15:44 PDT

Increase in Punitive Public Health and Safety Laws Harm HIV-Positive Women and Communities in the United States: Current Trends in the U.S. and a global perspective on Best Practices.

Aziza Ahmed et al. — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:10:54 PDT

Using Human Rights to Improve Legal and Regulatory Frameworks for HIV/AIDS.

Aziza Ahmed et al. — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:08:43 PDT

Fostering an Enabling Legal and Policy Environment for the Effective Prevention, Care and Treatment of Sexually-Transmitted HIV.

Aziza Ahmed et al. — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:04:43 PDT

The Value of Critique and Distributive Analysis to Addressing the Needs of Sex Workers in the Context of HIV: A Response to Libby Adler’s “Gay Rights and Lefts”

Aziza Ahmed — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 19:56:22 PDT

Alternatives to Criminalization of HIV Transmission and Exposure

Aziza Ahmed — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 19:48:47 PST

Answering the Millennium Call for Maternal Health

Margaux Hall et al. — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:45:42 PST

Complications during childbirth and pregnancy are a main source of death and disability among women of reproductive age. Approximately 536,000 women die from pregnancy-related complications each year. Developing countries suffer most profoundly, accounting for 99% of deaths. The world's nations, by endorsing U.N. Millennium Development Goals, recognized that most deaths are preventable; they have pledged to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015. This Article assesses the barriers presented by user fees — formal charges for health services still charged by many countries — to the attainment of MDGs. It shows that user fees hamper healthcare access, particularly in emergency care settings, and fail in meeting their intended purposes of generating funds and improving equity, quality and decentralization of health care. The Article analyzes fees' adverse impact through a human rights lens that privileges each woman with an assessment of her health, unlike the MDGs which assess aggregate improvements and benchmarks. Finally, the Article explores alternatives to user fees, including universal health insurance schemes, tax schemes, and debt forgiveness programs and policies. It offers a guiding framework for assessing health financing systems — a framework that is centered on the needs of the poorest and most marginalized community members and that emphasizes accountability.

Dual Subordination: Muslim Sexuality in Secular and Religious Legal Discourse in India (peer-reviewed)

Aziza Ahmed — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:59:57 PDT

Muslim women and Muslim members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community face a specific form of dual subordination in relation to their gender and sexuality. A Muslim woman might seek solace from India's patriarchal religious judicial structures only to find that the secular system's patriarchal structures likewise aid in their subordination and create a space for new forms of such subordination. Similarly, a marginalized LGBT Muslim might attempt to reject an oppressive religious formulation only to come to find that the secular Indian state might criminalize a particular form of sexuality. This analysis explores how Indian laws "give meaning" to sexuality through the legal structures manifested by state and religious regulatory bodies and argues that both religious and state legal institutions need to be reformed to create a legal environment that furthers rather than inhibits a full realization of sexual rights.