The UN General Assembly proclaimed March 1 Day without discrimination. This year’s motto:Decriminalization saves lives”, and refers to the struggle for decriminalization and publicity HIV AIDS World.

Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), stated that “the decriminalization of key populations and people living with HIV saves lives and contributes to ending the AIDS pandemic.”

There are criminal laws around the world that punish people living with HIV, thereby violating their human rights. They also strengthen stigma around the disease and create barriers to access to healthcare to treat your illness.

According to UNAIDS, “Global law reform was undertaken in 2021 to remove criminal laws that weaken the HIV response and leave key populations behind.”

In Mexico, under an initiative signed in November 2021 to reform and repeal provisions of the federal penal code to eradicate crime Danger of infection“Sentences handed down for risk of infection are based on ‘risk of harm’ rather than on the harm itself, placing an undue burden of responsibility on people with STIs or some kind of immunodeficiency condition, which greatly affects the rights access to justice and non-discrimination“.

Laws that criminalize same-sex sexual activity undermine the basic rights of LGBTIQ+ people and increase their vulnerability to HIV.

Decriminalization saves lives

👉https://t.co/kbc4XvgcqI #Zero Discrimination pic.twitter.com/BbtaQzOfpF

— UNAIDS Latina (@OnusidaLatina) March 1, 2023

In addition, currently in Mexico, 30 criminal codes, along with the Federal Criminal Code, contain the figure “Crime of Contagion” or “Danger of Contagion”. There are cases in Mexico where people have been prosecuted just for having HIV, not even for being infected.

The initiative was looking for humiliate Article 159 of the Mexico City Penal Code, which states that “anyone who, knowing that he is suffering from a serious disease during the infectious period, endangers the health of another person by sexual intercourse or other contagious means” will be punished. However, the offense has not been cancelled.

According to UNAIDS, “today 134 countries that directly punish or otherwise prosecute the exposure, concealment or transmission of HIV; 20 who punish or persecute transgender people; 153 criminalizing at least one aspect of sex work; and 67, which currently criminalize same-sex sexual activity.”

UNAIDS highlights that “criminalization leads to discrimination and structural inequality. This deprives people of hope for a healthy and fulfilling life. And it delays the end of AIDS. We must end criminalization in order to save lives.”