Inter Press Service - May 13, 1999
Wesley Gibbings

"That woman, she knew she had AIDS, she should be quarantined. She destroyed the life of a good composer," Ruthlyn Dickson-Boxill, says in a newspaper interview.

But legal draftspersons here say they have engaged the debate about whether such an act should be made punishable under the law and have decided against it. They have basically agreed that more education, not more laws, would have to do the trick.

"Creating a criminal offence may send out the wrong message," says legal research officer in the country's Law Commission, Charlene Basso. The "wrong message", says Basso, is that "the law can protect people from contracting HIV".

"Individuals," she says, "need to be responsible and protect themselves." In any event, Basso argues that "in countries in which such offences have been created, they have rarely been used and have often been harshly criticised." She adds: "Legislation of this type, especially when enacted in reaction to a public demand for action, can be counter-productive because it diverts attention from underlying problems by creating the impression that decisive action is being taken, while hindering the implementation of constructive solutions." Basso also argues that "proof and enforcement of this type of law can be difficult (since) the offender may have died or be very ill by the time of prosecution and proof that it is he or she who caused the infection may be almost impossible."

What legislators here are, however, expected to contemplate soon is legislation to coerce rapists and sex offenders into HIV testing. A government Green Paper on the issue also recommends monetary compensation for victims whose attackers are found to have the deadly virus.

A Bill containing such provisions is currently before the Legislation Review Committee of the Ministry of the Attorney General.

Similar legislation is already in place in The Bahamas and Bermuda whose HIV/AIDS rates top the regional average.

Attorney, Lynette Seebaran-Suite, argues that Trinidad and Tobago should follow the recent examples of Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia and Belize in making HIV/AIDS a notifiable disease.

She however warns that whatever legislation is finally adopted there should be safeguards regarding the confidentiality of HIV/AIDS tests. "Even a person with HIV/AIDS has rights," she says.

She says she is concerned about the current practice of insurance companies requiring HIV/AIDS tests before approving life insurance polices and that confidentiality under such circumstances remains a major issue.

"Once a person's HIV status is known in Trinidad and Tobago, their access to services decline immediately," she says.

Seebaran-Suite adds that despite aggressive public information campaigns and the widespread dissemination of information on the disease, the society had not yet come to terms with it.

Muriel Douglas, Coordinator of the National AIDS Programme (NAP) cites a 1994 study conducted among young people between the ages of 12 and 20 in Tobago. It was found that up to a third of those polled felt that AIDS was spread by kissing, 15 percent felt that mosquito bites and unsanitary toilet seats cause transmission while another 20 percent felt that AIDS could be transmitted by tears and saliva.

"The survey highlights gross misinformation, poor knowledge base, lack of concise and accurate information, a lack of educational resources and that AIDS education was not entrenched in the schools in Tobago," Douglas says.

For reasons such as these, the Green Paper on HIV/AIDS prepared by legal analysts suggests "the formal introduction of a comprehensive HIV/AIDS education programme to the curriculum of the nation's secondary schools in particular." The educational approach, says the Green Paper, is preferred over legislative reform.

"Because of the human rights issues involved such as compulsory testing and detention and also considerations regarding actual enforcement," Basso says, "amending or introducing legislation to deal specifically with HIV/AIDS was not put forward as a matter which need to be treated as a priority."

"It was suggested, however, that the more enlightened strategy at this time would be winning the support of HIV infected persons and attempting to modify their behaviour by intensified efforts at education, voluntary testing and counselling," she says.

Local researchers are finding an increasing HIV/AIDS trend among women and children as the male:female ratio initially recorded when statistics were first put together in 1983 has begun reversing.

As a consequence, AIDS/HIV researcher, Dr Robert Lee, has recommended the targeting of young people between the ages of 15 and 19 and has argued that the prevention of mother to child transmission is "an achievable goal."

After 14 years of monitoring the disease, between 1983 and 1997, 1,681 persons have died from AIDS in Trinidad and Tobago. The current incidence rate for AIDS here is estimated at 210 per 100,000 persons. (END/IPS/wg/cb/99)

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