Mission to Ukraine
In November 2001, Rights and Humanity’s President undertook a mission on behalf of UNDP to advise the Government of the Ukraine on how to integrate a human rights perspective into its ongoing and prospective HIV/AIDS-related activities. Our President also advised on legal reforms necessary for the implementation of the International Guidelines on Human Rights and HIV/AIDS.
She met with the Minister of Health, the Parliamentary Legal Committee, UN Agencies, NGOs, and networks of people living with HIV/AIDS. She also visited prison health services, a remand centre, AIDS clinics and a needle exchange programme,
Background
There was a good law in the Ukraine on HIV/AIDS, which guaranteed protection of human rights. But there was a lack of implementation. The human rights concerns, albeit anecdotal, were relatively well known to those working with HIV/AIDS.
It was recognised that there was a high level of social stigma and discrimination. Two surveys had considered social stigma, but there had been no overall study of HIV/AIDS related human rights abuses across the board. Ukraine had an advanced prison HIV programme, but this needed to be maintained. Intravenous drug users and commercial sex workers were particularly vulnerable to both a lack of services and abuse. The economic conditions meant that there was little access to anti-retroviral drugs.
The Ukraine still bore the impact of Soviet-style governance under which stakeholders were used to receiving regulations or clear instructions on what to do.
Recommendations
Rights and Humanity recommended that a series of "protocols" for dealing with particular situations would be helpful. This would help ensure effective implementation of the AIDS law. We proposed that multi-stakeholder working groups of governmental policy makers, local authorities, health workers/social workers, NGOs and people living with HIV/AIDS consider a series of case studies and jointly develop the protocols, identifying strategies for action.
We recommended that the focus of the AIDS-related human rights work should be on preventing violations. Higher priority should be given to education and public awareness of rights and responsibilities and the promotion of respect for vulnerable groups and people living with HIV/AIDS.
Rights and Humanity also called for the participation of people living with HIV/AIDS and for the gender dimensions of HIV/AIDS to be addressed. We recommended strategies to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS suffered no discrimination and received the highest possible standard of care.
Advising UNDP
During 2001, Rights and Humanity had provided strategic advice to UNDP on mainstreaming human rights throughout its AIDS Programme. In July 2001, our President participated in an in-house UNDP brainstorming workshop at UNDP’s headquarters in New York. The aim of the workshop was to provide advice on strategic programming on UNDP’s HIV/AIDS programme.