Rights At Risk: HIV and Human Rights in Mississippi

This presentation will focus on Human Rights Watch's intensive investigation of HIV and human rights in the state of Mississippi. Part of a larger project examining human rights abuses in southern states that are fueling the HIV crisis in the South, the findings from the Mississippi investigation are based on extensive research and interviews with people living with HIV and AIDS, their advocates, public health officials, legislators, judges, and medical providers.In one of the poorest states in the nation, where access to medical coverage and health care is extremely low, numerous state laws and policies are blocking effective HIV interventions and contributing to the crisis that is devastating minority communities.These include the state's failure to invest in public health, Medicaid and HIV programs; opposition to health care reform that would expand access to health care for many people living with HIV; the state-wide abstinence campaign that has a particularly devestating impact on LGBT youth and African-American women; the criminalization of HIV exposure and transmission; and state-sponsored homophobia through laws, policies and constitutional amendments that keep men having sex with men underground and away from essential HIV services.The importance of both federal and state leadership to address these policies that undermine both health and human rights will be discussed. We will identify ways that public health professionals in the state and in the region are currently working to change these approaches and how develop strategies for supporting these efforts.