Review laws governing HIV-positive individuals: Advocacy groups

SINGAPORE — A number of advocacy groups here have called for legislation governing individuals with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to be reviewed, saying the laws contribute to the discrimination and stigmatisation of HIV-positive individuals.

These laws include a section in the Immigration Act that forbids HIV-positive foreigners from working or living long-term in Singapore, as well as certain provisions of the Infectious Diseases Act.

The call for change comes as the Ministry of Health (MOH) revealed on Monday (Jan 28) that confidential data of more than 14,000 HIV-positive Singaporeans and foreigners, as well as 2,400 of their contacts, had been leaked online. The records spanned almost three decades from 1985 up to January 2013. 

In an update on Thursday, the MOH said that as of 1pm, it had successfully contacted 2,310 of the 3,500 affected HIV-positive Singaporeans who are still alive.

In the wake of the announcement, advocacy groups and HIV-positive individuals expressed shock, fear and anger over the situation.

Sex workers’ rights group Project X called for the Government to “repeal all legislation that are discriminatory towards people living with HIV” and enact anti-discrimination laws to protect them from being fired from their jobs.

Ms Vanessa Ho, the group’s project director, said: “The current laws are overly broad and do not take into consideration advancements in medical science and international standards of care for persons with HIV.

“We should be focusing on fighting stigma rather than throwing people behind bars. HIV is a public health issue, it is not a crime.”

In a Facebook statement, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rally Pink Dot called on the authorities “to take concrete action to enact anti-discrimination legislation to support persons living with HIV”. This is to “reduce harm done to those whose names have been exposed”.

Mr Leow Yangfa, executive director of Oogachaga, a non-governmental organisation that works with the LGBT community, told TODAY that it “does not support any form of legislation that treats people unequally”.

“The easy and reactionary thing to do right now is impose further restrictions and penalties on persons living with HIV,” he added. “This current crisis presents to us an opportunity — for the Singapore Government to take the lead in erasing these inequalities and ensuring greater, just protection for all, including gay men and all persons living with HIV.”

TODAY contacted the MOH on Tuesday for comments on why these laws are in place and whether it will consider reviewing them in light of the calls from advocacy groups. The ministry was unable to respond by press time.

WHAT ARE THESE LAWS?

1. Section 8(3)(ba) of the Immigration Act

• Foreigners who have HIV or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (Aids) are barred from working or living here long-term.

• They were previously not allowed to enter Singapore at all until the ban on those entering on short-term visit passes was lifted in April 2015.

• The previous policy was recommended in the late 1980s when HIV was new and fatal, with no effective treatment available, an MOH spokesperson said in an article by The Straits Times in 2015.

• This lifting of short-term travel restrictions poses very low additional risk of HIV transmission to the population here, as compared to the public health risk posed by long-stayers, the MOH spokesperson said at the time.

Ms Ho argued that the ban is “discriminatory” because HIV-positive individuals “can work just like anyone else”.

Pink Dot said that the classification of such foreigners as prohibited immigrants under the Act “denies otherwise skilled and talented individuals an opportunity to contribute to the local economy”.

“Deportation of these persons with HIV upends careers and relationships and is unnecessarily cruel,” it added.

Assistant Professor Benjamin Joshua Ong from the School of Law at the Singapore Management University (SMU) said that the ban “arguably goes beyond what is necessary to achieve aims such as public safety”.

HIV-positive foreigners would still be subject to the Infectious Diseases Act if they were allowed to reside long-term in Singapore, he noted.

“One may question whether there is a rational link between the duration of time a person who has HIV or Aids spends in Singapore and the effect on public health,” Asst Prof Ong said.

“It remains to be seen whether anybody will go to court to challenge legislation, such as on the grounds that it allegedly contravenes Article 12 of the Constitution, which demands that everybody is equal before the law and that persons may only be treated differently when there is a rational basis for this.”

Criminal lawyer Amolat Singh said that while the law may seem discriminatory, every country has the right to protect themselves against “external influences” and “impose conditions and terms” when granting work passes.

“These laws and measures have been put in place to protect the general public’s interests at large, versus the interests of HIV-positive people,” Mr Singh added.

2. Sections 22 to 25A of the Infectious Diseases Act

• HIV-positive individuals may be required to undergo counselling and are not allowed to donate blood.

• They must also inform their partners of the risk of contracting HIV and the latter have to voluntarily agree to accept the risks involved.

• In the most recent known prosecution, a 29-year-old HIV-positive Singaporean man was sentenced to two years’ jail in August for failing to inform his male sex partner that he had the virus. 

• Anyone who knows a HIV-positive person cannot identify them without their consent. Certain exceptions to the provision, such as a court order, will apply. They should also disclose the information to healthcare workers treating the HIV-positive individual, or for the purposes of the Immigration Act.

SMU’s Asst Prof Ong noted that while this provision requires people to make their HIV status known to healthcare workers, the workers are subject to a “strict duty of confidentiality on pain of criminal punishment”.

In 2014, lawyer Thomas Ng — who sits on the executive committee of advocacy group Action for Aids — wrote in the group’s The Act magazine that the law was enacted in 1992 to “deter irresponsible and dangerous behaviour by persons with HIV”.

He then referred to a report by the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, which recognised that such laws do not take into account the success of antiretroviral treatment in reducing the risk of transmission.

Mr Ng also argued that criminalising HIV risk behaviour “hinders testing and treatment by undermining current scientific knowledge about the disease”.

Antiretroviral therapy suppresses the replication of the virus, delaying the spread of HIV in the body and the onset of opportunistic infections. There is no cure or vaccine for HIV and Aids.

Asst Prof Ong said that some people would justify restrictive laws on the grounds that these would “curtail the rights of persons who engage in a risky promiscuous lifestyle”.

“First, it does not follow from one engaging in such a lifestyle that one ought to automatically lose one’s legal rights,” he added.

Any law that applies to persons with HIV or Aids would also apply to those with the conditions for “reasons other than such a lifestyle”, such as those who were born with HIV or Aids or who “contracted this disease because of rape or sexual assault”, Asst Prof Ong said.

Mr Leow added that the Act carries “insufficient provisions… which protect confidentiality but do not protect the rights of persons living with HIV”.