June 10, 2008 |
Contacts:
Noel Alicea, 212-367-1216
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ENTRY DENIED: What You Need to Know about HIV Related Travel Restrictions
Click here for more information regarding the event (PDF).
New York, NY — Thousands have gathered in New York City to participate in the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS being held from June 10-11, but U.S. restrictions on travel mean the people most affected by the issue at hand were required to file for special waivers to enter the country.
On Tuesday, June 10 at 1:15 pm in Conference Room 4, international experts in law, public health and human rights along with those affected by these restrictions will present ENTRY DENIED, a panel discussion on HIV-related travel and immigration restrictions co-sponsored by the International AIDS Society, Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), UNAIDS, and the members of the Civil Society Task Force. (Please see below for complete speaker agenda.)
At the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, when AIDS was still a little-understood disease, governments often took actions that were not beneficial to either the health crisis in general or the people affected by it. Among these initiatives - travel restrictions were put into place to slow or altogether stop people living with HIV from traveling into countries with the restrictions. Despite a broad consensus from the public health community about their ineffectiveness and discriminatory nature, 74 countries still have some form of HIV specific travel restrictions, and 12 countries ban HIV positive people from entering the country for any reason or length of time.
For more than 20 years, the United States government has barred HIV-positive people from immigrating to the United States and those already in the U.S. from attaining legal immigration status with few exceptions. The government has even banned HIV-positive visitors from traveling to or transiting through the country. As a result, the international community has not held an International AIDS Conference in the U.S. for more than a decade, although the UN meetings are still held, unavoidably, at headquarters in New York. This year, people living with HIV/AIDS should have been able to travel freely to participate in this important meeting on the road to universal access to treatment, care and support.
Tuesday's forum will present the current state of this issue including public health and human rights analysis, first hand experiences, as well as comparative analysis of national and international efforts to alter or reverse restrictive policies, and bring together HIV/AIDS, immigrant, human rights and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) service, advocacy and activist organizations along with immigrants and people living with HIV and AIDS who are strategizing and advocating for lifting such restrictions.
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About Gay Men's Health Crisis
Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) is a not-for-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based organization committed to national leadership in the fight against AIDS. We provide services and programs to over 15,000 men, women and families that are living with or affected by HIV/AIDS in New York City, and outreach and education to hundreds of thousands throughout the world. For more information, please visit www.gmhc.org .
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© 2008 Gay Men's Health Crisis
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