The start of the New Year brought the news that the United States and South Korea had ended their travel bans against visitors living with HIV/AIDS. So surely we are celebrating the progress in these two countries, right? Not entirely.

The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) and Human Rights Watch submit these comments in response to the notice of proposed rulemaking, 74 Fed. Reg. 61096, implementing the “anti-prostitution pledge” policy requirement, 22 USC § 7631(f), contained in the United States Leadership Act Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003 (the “Leadership Act”).

The Kenyan government should ensure that strong human rights protections are included in plans for expanded home-based HIV counseling and testing. Earlier in 2009, Kenya started testing people for HIV in their own homes, and aims to test more than four million Kenyans - adults and children - in 2010, according to the new Kenya National HIV/AIDS Strategic Plan.

Human Rights Watch writes to Minister of Public Health and Sanitation Beth Mugo urging for the inclusion of a strong human rights component into the government’s strategy on home-based testing and counselling.

Governments worldwide should take urgent action to reform punitive drug laws, disproportionate penalties, and harsh and discriminatory law enforcement practices as part of their efforts to address HIV among people who use drugs. Current policies also cause needless suffering among people living with HIV/AIDS.

In many countries around the world, drug control efforts result in serious human rights abuses: torture and ill treatment by police, mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, denial of essential medicines and basic health services. These abuses are cause for considerable concern in themselves, but they are also impeding an effective response to the AIDS epidemic by denying people who use drugs access to proven, effective HIV prevention, care, and treatment services and by contributing to at least one million people living with HIV/AIDS going without adequate treatment to address moderate to severe pain.

On the eve of World AIDS Day 2009, HIV prevention efforts – and the promise of antiretroviral therapy (ART) as prevention – are being undermined by punitive laws targeting those infected with and at risk of HIV.

Worldwide, far more people migrate within than across borders, and although internal migrants do not risk a loss of citizenship, they frequently confront significant social, financial and health consequences, as well as a loss of rights. The recent global financial crisis has exacerbated the vulnerability internal migrants face in realizing their rights to health care generally and to antiretroviral therapy in particular.