Stigma and Non-discrimination Against People Living with HIV

1Why this matters

Medicine can now control HIV. What it cannot control is how people treat each other. When people living with HIV are gossiped about, avoided or treated unfairly, many stop going for tests or hide their medicines, and some stop taking them. Stigma therefore harms not only the person it targets but the whole community's fight against HIV. Ending it is something every student can help with.

2Stigma and discrimination: two different things

• Stigma is a negative attitude or belief about a group of people: shame, blame or fear attached to them. For example, thinking that a person with HIV "must have behaved badly".
• Discrimination is an unfair action that results from stigma: treating someone worse because of who they are or their health status. For example, refusing to sit next to them, or refusing them a job.
• Self-stigma is when a person living with HIV comes to believe the negative ideas about themselves, and feels worthless or ashamed.

3Where stigma comes from

• Myths about transmission, such as the belief that HIV passes through sharing food, hugging or mosquitoes.
• Moral judgement: blaming people for their infection, when HIV can be passed on in many ways, including from mother to baby at birth.
• Fear of illness and death, left over from the years before ART.
• Silence: when a subject is never discussed, myths are never corrected.

4Why stigma makes the epidemic worse

1. People fear being seen at a testing centre, so they do not learn their status.
2. People who test positive hide it, and may skip clinic visits or doses of ART.
3. Without treatment, their viral load rises, their health declines, and they can pass HIV on without anyone knowing.
4. So stigma leads to more infections, more illness and more deaths.

5How you can help end stigma

• Learn and share the facts about how HIV is and is not transmitted.
• Use respectful words. Say "a person living with HIV", not "an AIDS victim" or "an infected person". The person comes first; the virus is only one fact about them.
• Keep confidences. Never gossip about anyone's status.
• Include. Share desks, meals and games as you would with anyone.
• Speak up when you hear jokes or myths, and tell a teacher about bullying.
• Get tested yourself when you are older or at risk, which shows that testing is normal, responsible behaviour.

Worked example: supportive or discriminatory?

Decide whether each action is supportive or discriminatory, and give a reason.

Practice