DR Nesha Haniff, senior programme advisor at Jamaica Aids Support for Life (JASL), has urged the media to stop portraying persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) as victims and instead focus on some of the more complex issues such as human rights violations affecting persons infected with the deadly disease.

Haniff said that, with the introduction of antiretroviral treatment (ARVs), persons have been living longer and more productive lives. However, there has been a conflicting message that while they have been living longer, they must give up certain rights.

“Do you stop the desire to be touched in an intimate way when you are HIV- infected, and if you are 18 and HIV positive do you tell that young person they cannot have a child?” Haniff questioned.

At the same time, Haniff said Jamaicans should be aware that with antiretroviral therapy to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, adults could have children without fear of passing on the disease.

“If this is so should that person who is not infected and know their partner is but wants to take a risk with that person be allowed to have a child? Dr Haniff quizzed.

Haniff, who was addressing last week’s launch of the “Friends Network” – a group comprising of PLHIV and journalists – said these were ethical and moral issues the media needed to tackle if PLHIV should have rights to life, procreation and reproduction.

“They are complex issues, but to avoid the sort of headlines presentations of HIV and the personal sufferings we must take on these issues and this is how you get away from victimisation,” Haniff said.

She also challenged the media to begin highlighting the issues of science and HIV.

In addition, she said, the media should begin investigating why the science being used to develop instrument for women’s body was still a male science and does not put the women’s body at the centre of the design.

“Many of the women who became HIV infected became infected because they could not negotiate condom, and the reason they could not is because it is not a method in their hands but in the men,” she said.

As for the female condom, she said it does not help greatly as the highest acceptability on female condom is with sex workers. She said this is so because it does not put women at the centre of the design.

The ‘Friends Network’ is aimed at establishing a partnership between journalists and PLHIVs to address stigma and discrimination and to highlight the real non-sensational issues surrounding the disease.

Indi Mclymont-Lafayette, programmes officer at Panos Caribbean, one of the supporting NGO’s for the group, said it had become important to establish such a body based on the issues highlighted by both PLHIVs and journalists.

“PLHIVs did not like the way they were being portrayed in the media as victims most of the time, while journalists felt they did not have access to persons living with the disease so it was critical to open dialogue between both groups,” she said.

The network is also supported by the JASL and the Latin America and the Caribbean Council of AIDS Service Organisations.