• fear of possible impact on immigration status (if they do not already have permanent residency)
• stigma from family, friends and community
• potential impact on employment, housing and financial security
• fear of abuse and/or loss of confidentiality

For more information about HIV disclosure see: 

• WHAI’s Disclosure Toolkit for Service Providers
• WHIWH’s Negotiating Disclosure Toolkit

• fear of stigma, abuse or violence from partners
• for women, gender inequity, which can result in a woman being abandoned by a partner on whom she is financially or socially dependent
• distrust of the healthcare system and an unwillingness to provide information that will allow public health authorities or physicians to notify past sexual partners
• problems contacting partners (some may live outside Canada, in countries where public health systems are weak and there is no system in place to find and notify partners)
• lack of time and resources to conduct effective and sensitive partner notification
• fear of loss of privacy
• fear of criminal charges

The criminalization of HIV non-disclosure is having disproportionate and negative impacts on ACB people living with HIV in Canada.¹ ACCHO. Our Voices: HIV, Race and the Criminal Law, An ACCHO Special Report [Internet]. Available from: ² ACCHO. Criminals and Victims?: The Impact of Criminalization of HIV Non-Disclosure on African, Caribbean and Black Communities in Ontario [Internet]. Available from: https://accho.ca/accho_criminals_and_victims_nov2010_lores/³ Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. HIV Criminalization in Canada: Key Trends and Patterns [Internet]. 2017 [cited 2018 Mar 15]. Available from: http://www.aidslaw.ca/site/hiv-criminalization-in-canada-key-trends-and-patterns/?lang=en The fact that a high number of ACB men living with HIV are being charged, and the media coverage of these charges, is particularly troubling. Canadian mainstream newspapers are a source of profoundly stigmatizing representations of ACB men living with HIV. For example, Black immigrant men living with HIV are dramatically overemphasized in Canadian mainstream newspaper stories about such cases. While these men account for only 15% of defendants charged, they are the focus of 61% of newspaper coverage. Through these types of editorial choices, media outlets reinforce exaggerated connections between criminality, race, sex and otherness within the public’s understanding of HIV and related issues. The result is that ACB men living with HIV are repeatedly represented as dangerous, hypersexual foreigners who pose a threat to the health and safety of individuals (white women) and, more broadly, the imagined Canadian nation.⁴ Mykhalovskiy E, Hastings C, Sanders DC, Hayman M, Bisaillon L. “Callous, Cold and Deliberately Duplicitous”: Racialization, Immigration and the Representation of HIV Criminalization in Canadian Mainstream Newspapers [Internet]. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network; 2016 Nov [cited 2017 May 14]. Report No.: ID 2874409. Available from: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2874409

The criminal law in relation to HIV non-disclosure is extremely complex and rapidly evolving. A conviction for an HIV-related criminal offence can have serious consequences, such as inclusion on sex offender registries and deportation for people who are not Canadian citizens. People living with HIV should speak to a lawyer if they have questions about the criminalization of HIV. Staff at the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO) provide legal services for people living with HIV in Ontario.

People can contact HALCO about legal issues, including issues related to the criminalization of HIV. Information about the criminal law and HIV can also be found on HALCO’s website as well as on the website of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

For more information on these issues, take a look at ACCHO’s paper ‘Criminals and Victims? The Impact of the Criminalization of HIV Non-Disclosure on African, Caribbean and Black Communities in Ontario’.