• The disabled often are denied information about sex and HIV
    Dec 1, 2012
    Over a billion people — 15 percent of the world’s population — live with a disability. These numbers should confer power and authority in decision making about all aspects of their lives, including to HIV and AIDS. Yet people with disabilities have been largely ignored in the global response to HIV.
  • Invisible Prisoners
    Sep 3, 2012
    JURIST Guest Columnist Katherine Todrys of the Health and Human Rights Division of Human Rights Watch recounts her experiences researching disease transmission and living standards in African prisons. She calls for sweeping criminal justice reforms to address the systemic problems of overcrowding, human rights abuses and wrongful imprisonment.
  • China in Zambia: Trouble Down in the Mines
    Nov 21, 2011
    “If someone dies, he can be replaced tomorrow, and if you report the problem, you’ll lose your job.” This, in the words of a Zambian copper miner, describes the downside of the growing investment of Chinese companies in Africa over the last decade.
  • World AIDS Day: prevention, treatment for prisoners
    Dec 1, 2010
    On World AIDS Day 2010, Zambia is ahead of much of the world on the universal access, but its track record in respecting human rights in the response to AIDS is more uncertain.
  • The HIV and TB Prison Crisis in Southern Africa
    Jul 23, 2010
    HIV prevalence in Southern African prisons has been estimated to be between 2 and 50 times that outside of prisons. In Zambia, it was last measured at 27 percent, almost double the prevalence of adults in Zambia overall. The combination of high HIV and TB prevalence in prisons can be deadly: Worldwide, TB is responsible for nearly one in four deaths from AIDS.
  • HIV Behind Bars
    Jul 14, 2010
    Since 2005, the government of Zambia has made an impressive commitment to providing HIV treatment free to all who need it. But five years later and decades into the HIV crisis, prisoners — a vulnerable group in the spread of HIV — remain neglected in HIV testing and treatment efforts.
  • Good Prisoner Health is Good Public Health
    Apr 29, 2010
    Zambia’s policy of free universal HIV treatment and wide availability of tuberculosis drugs show an impressive commitment to public health. But an important group has been left out in Zambia’s fight against these diseases—prisoners.Prisoner health is public health. And right now, conditions inside Zambia’s prisons are a threat to all Zambians.
  • Zambia's TB-ridden prisons
    Apr 27, 2010
    In many African countries, prison conditions are awful, and have been for years. The prisons are overcrowded. Prisoners often get little food. HIV and TB are widespread, and healthcare is inadequate. Large numbers of pre-trial detainees, often held for long periods awaiting trial, mix with the general prison population, and frequently have inadequate legal counsel.
  • AU Should Stand with Victims, Not Abusers
    Aug 18, 2009
    What is surprising is the recent assault on the ICC from within the African Union, despite, as outlined in a recent communiqué of its Peace and Security Council, its "unflinching commitment to combating impunity." Several of the AU's North African members - who are not, incidentally, parties to the ICC - are trying to undercut its support on the continent.
  • Women's land rights can help battle hunger in Africa
    Mar 19, 2009
    While the West grapples with wasted food, the developing world faces the spectre of increasing hunger. There is a human rights dimension to this calamity that is frequently missed or ignored - women and their children are most likely to lack food and go hungry. Passing laws that protect women's land rights will cost governments very little, but will go a long way to reducing starvation and improving the lives of African women and children.