iClinic - April 26, 2000
Marjolein Harvey
"At present neither public health law nor criminal procedure makes provision for compulsory tests of perpetrators of rape that will disclose their HIV status to victims of rape," Annemarie Havenga of the SALC AIDS Unit told iClinic on Wednesday.
Her panel studying the issue came to the "preliminary conclusion" that there was a need for compulsory testing because of "women's undoubted vulnerability to widespread sexual violence amidst the increasing prevalence of a nation-wide epidemic of HIV".
The SALC feels it is justified to curtail a rape suspect's right to privacy and bodily integrity to a limited extent, so that victims would be able to make "life-decisions and choices for themselves and people around them".
In addition, it would help rape victims psychologically to know to some degree whether they have been exposed to HIV, a life-threatening disease for which there is not yet a cure.
Havenga says that the SALC acknowledges that the rights of suspects would be infringed and recommends the following safeguards to be built into the process:
* information on the compulsory HIV test should be clearly limited and it should not be admissible as evidence in a criminal trial only a victim of rape should be able to call for compulsory testing of a suspect
* the actual HIV testing of a suspect would take place only on authorisation by a court
* test results should only be provided to the victim and the arrested person
In order to guard against abuse of the procedure, the SALC recommends that a deliberately false complaint should amount to perjury and that an unfair use of the testing procedure should be "actionable".
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