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- Provide effective and appropriate sanctions for
discrimination against people living with HIV in relation to access to and
enjoyment of services or goods. Sanctions should be enforceable against
all civil servants and medical, social, and educational personnel who
breach confidentiality.
- End mandatory HIV testing as a condition of employment and
ensure that persons living with HIV are not unnecessarily prevented from
working or attending vocational school.
- Ensure that people living with HIV have adequate access to
necessary routine and emergency medical care, including mental health care
and palliative or hospice care for persons with terminal stage AIDS, and
to medications needed to treat HIV and common opportunistic infections.
- Protect children and youth living with HIV from abuse and
neglect, and ensure that HIV-positive children and youth with mental and
physical disabilities enjoy the right to special care suitable to their
condition.
- Ensure that children and youth living with HIV are fully
informed on how their rights and benefits will change after turning
eighteen, and that children and youth in foster, extended family, and
residential care are adequately prepared for independent living. Provide
appropriate continuing services to young adults who many require them.
- Ensure that children and youth living with HIV have access
to education that is appropriate to their needs, including access to
accurate information on reproductive health and HIV and AIDS.
- Repeal article 384 of the Criminal Code, which
criminalizes the knowing transmission of HIV.
- Reform the working methods and membership of the National
Committee for HIV/AIDS Surveillance, Control and Prevention to ensure that
it is able to fulfill its mandate, as provided under Law 584/2002.
- Insist that the Romanian government take steps to enforce
the prohibition on discrimination on the basis of HIV status and to provide
an appropriate remedy to victims of such discrimination.
- Ensure that adequate implementation of
anti-discrimination legislation with regard to HIV status forms an
integral part of broader EU efforts to promote equality and
non-discrimination in Romania.
- Encourage the Romanian government to adopt all necessary
legal and policy measures set out in the recommendations above as soon as
possible, making clear that accession to the EU will not mean an end to
active EU pressure in this regard. In cooperation with the Romanian
government, formulate concrete benchmarks for the reform steps that are
required to meet the recommendations above, with specific timelines for
their fulfillment.
- Prioritize funding for the labor and social integration of
adolescents aging out of Romania’s child protection system, with an
emphasis on the needs of adolescents living with HIV. Such funding should
be conditioned on a clear set of benchmarks and on legal and policy
change.
- Urge the government of Romania to act quickly to fulfill
its commitment to take over Phare and Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis,
and Malaria projects on HIV currently being implemented by NGOs. Consider
giving bridge funding to NGOs providing crucial services to persons living
with HIV, to ensure that their beneficiaries are not left without these
services during the transition.
- International financial institutions such as the World
Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development should incorporate
language reflecting the concerns expressed in this report in their next
country strategies for Romania, and encourage the Romanian authorities to
pursue reforms to address them.
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