HIV-RELATED

STIGMA AND
DISCRIMINATION
 WHAT IS
HIV/AIDS ?
• HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a
virus that attacks cells that help the body
fight infection. There’s no cure, but it is
treatable with medicine.
• AIDS (Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome)
is a chronic, potentially life-threatening
condition caused by the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
 STIGMA AND
DISCRIMINATION
• HIV is one of the greatest human rights challenges
of our time.
• People living with HIV are burdened not only with
the disease but also with stigma and
discrimination.
• Stigma and discrimination remain major barriers
to preventing HIV transmission and providing
treatment, care and support to people who are
HIV-infected and their families.
STIGMA

• Stigma: refers to unfavourable attitudes

and beliefs directed towards someone or
something.
• HIV-related stigma: refers to
unfavourable attitudes and beliefs
directed towards people living with HIV,
their family and friends, social groups,
and communities.
EXAMPLES OF STIGMA AND
STIGMATIZING ATTITUDES ARE
NUMEROUS
•  Believing HIV is divine punishment for moral misconduct.
•  Thinking women are responsible for transmitting HIV and other
sexually transmitted infections in the community.
•  Feeling “dirtied” by contact with a PLHIV (People living with HIV).
•  Stigma in language:
- “that disease”
- “walking corpses” or “those expected to die”.
 CHARLIE SHEEN
The Golden Globe-winning
actor Charlie Sheen has been
living with HIV for more than
four years and has paid
"countless millions" to
"unsavory" women to keep
them from exposing his
condition to the world.
CHARLIE SHEEN
"Locked in a vacuum of fear, I chose to allow their threats and
skullduggery to vastly deplete future assets from my children, while
my 'secret' sat entombed in their hives of folly (or so I thought)"
“I am here to admit that I am in
fact HIV-positive and I have to put a
stop to this onslaught, this barrage
of attacks, of sub-truths – very
harmful … stories that are
threatening the health of so many
others”.

CHARLIE SHEEN DISCLOSES HIV POSITIVE DIAGNOSIS: 'IT'S A

HARD THREE LETTERS TO ABSORB'
"CHARLIE SHEEN
EFFECT"
When Sheen announced in November he had been hiding his HIV-
positive status for years, media coverage and public interest on the
star and the topic of HIV exploded.
Researchers found that media coverage of HIV on the day of
Sheen's disclosure ranked in the top 1% compared with the last
seven years.
CAUSES OF HIV-RELATED STIGMA

Lack of awareness of what stigma looks like and why it is damaging

Fear of casual contact stemming from incomplete knowledge about HIV transmission
(with high levels of fear of contagion among health workers) (fear of death)

Values linking people with HIV to improper or immoral behaviour.

 EXAMPLES OF
DISCRIMINATION
•  Health care worker denies services to person who is HIV-infected
•  Family or village rejects wife and children of man who died from
AIDS
•  Man loses job because people learn he is HIV-infected
•  Community rejects woman who decides not to breastfeed because
they assume she is HIV-infected
•  HIV-infected clients receive poor care at a clinic because of health
care
Even loving and workers’
supportive fearsmay
caregivers about caring
stigmatize for people
and discriminate infected
against with
people with HIVHIV
(e.g. blaming, scolding, saying “those people”) .
Stigma happens even among health care workers opposed to HIV-related stigma who are not aware of their attitudes.
REDUCING STIGMA.
THE WORDS WE USE MATTER.
KEEP IN MIND THAT:
• When talking about HIV, certain words and language may have a
negative meaning for people at high risk for HIV or those
who have HIV.
• We can do our part to stop HIV stigma by being intentional and
thoughtful when choosing our words, and choosing to use
supportive—rather than stigmatizing— language when talking
about HIV.
HOW THE PRINCESS OF WALES
HELPED TO RAISE AWARENESS
AND DISMANTLE STIGMA
AROUND THE DISEASE.

Diana publicly took on the HIV crisis as a cause in

the year 1987, when she opened the U.K.'s first
HIV/Aids unit, at London's Middlesex Hospital.
During her first visit to the newly opened unit, she
made a point of 
shaking hands with one of the patients, who was
terminally ill with AIDS.
This was hugely significant, because in the 1980s,
stigma around the disease was still running
rampant, and many people were afraid to touch
those suffering for fear that they could be infected
themselves.
IN APRIL OF 1991, DIANA GAVE
A SPEECH AT THE CHILDREN
AND AIDS CONFERENCE,
STATING IN WORDS WHAT
SHE'D ALREADY MADE CLEAR
THROUGH HER ACTIONS. 

https://youtu.be/vijH40aUuAo