AEGiS-13IAC: An overview HIV/AIDS management policies in South African prisons: the imperative to turn policy into practice.

13th International AIDS Conference


Durban, South Africa - July 9-July 14, 2000

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An overview HIV/AIDS management policies in South African prisons: the imperative to turn policy into practice.

Int Conf AIDS 2000 Jul 9-14; 13:(abstract no. MoPpD1039)

Kekana T
T. Kekana, AIDS Law Project, Dj Dupplessis Building, West Campus, Wits University, 2050, South Africa, Tel.: +27 11 403 6918, Fax: +27 11 403 2341, E-mail: 125te3ke@solon.law.wits.ac.za

ISSUES: The growing recognition of prisoners as human beings, as dictated by the international Declaration of Human Rights, has a direct bearing to governments re-looking at their prison policies. The emergence and spread of HIV/AIDS has added another dimension.

DESCRIPTION: This paper will examine the past and present establishment of policies for the management of HIV and AIDS in South African prisons. It reviews bad policies which were based on prejudices and ignorance for people with HIV/AIDS, and the current progressive policies influenced by the paradigm shift of the recognition of human rights. In particular, the SA Correctional Services Act, which now embraces chapter 2, Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act No 108 of 1996 as a fundamental basis to formulate policy. It examines the treatment of prisoners during their incarceration and problematic application of Public Health policy in the fight against the epidemic of AIDS within correctional settings. The paper also analyses the implications of the desegregation and condom distribution policies in prisons since 1996.

CONCLUSION: The paper gives solutions and available options to some of the structural problems. It shares some experience in the implementation and monitoring processes of policies for the management of HIV/AIDS in prisons. It puts faces to the implementation processes which were left to non-existent faceless people before. It also brings in the community expertise and consciously diminishes boundaries of people living with HIV which exist between civil society and prisons, marginalised ordinary people within their own societies.

Keywords: AEGIS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, Prisons, HIV Infections, Public Policy, HIV Seropositivity, Prisoners, Human Rights, Learning, Prejudice, African Continental Ancestry Group, Memory, South Africa, Human, organization & administrationKWDaegis,acquiredimmunodeficiencysyndrome,prisons,hivinfections,publicpolicy,hivseropositivity,prisoners,humanrights,learning,prejudice,africancontinentalancestrygroup,memory,southafrica,human,organization&administration
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MoPpD1039

Copyright © 2000 - International AIDS Society (IAS). Reproduction of this abstract (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the IAS.