HIV/AIDS, Stigma, Discrimination and Human Rights
Despite the vast federal regulations, as well as the federal entities of the country and the different institutions;Stigma and discrimination remains a practice that is carried out within the health sector through a wide variety of attitudes, omissions and actions to different people or vulnerable groups, as in the case of people living with HIV/AIDS (PVVS), thus violating their human rights.
Introduction to Human Rights
To put in context the development of this issue, it is necessary to review human rights with emphasis towards people living with HIV/AIDS.
“Human rights are the set of prerogatives inherent to the nature of the person, whose effective realization is essential for the integral development of the individual who lives in a legally organized society."
These rights, established in the Constitution and in the laws, must be recognized and guaranteed by the State.
Characteristic:
- They are universal, because they belong to all people.
- They are unconditional, they are subject to the guidelines and procedures that determine the limits of their own rights.
- They are inalienable, because they cannot be lost or transferred by their own will.
- They are interdependent and indivisible, it cannot be said that some are respected in impairment of the others.
- Progressive and dynamic character, new aspects of human rights are discovered
Human rights can be considered three generations:
- The first generation are the so -called "classical freedoms", inspired by the claims of the French Revolution and were reflected in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, formulated in the National Assembly from August 20 to 26, 1789, in Versailles, they have been called Freedom Rights against the power of the State. Among the most important we have the right to equality: fundamental freedoms without distinction of race, color, language;social or economic position;Right to life, to freedom and legal certainty;Equality between men and women, to the prohibition of slavery and easements;to the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading penalties, a consequence of the right to physical and psychic integrity;to freedom of conscience, thought, cult and religion and to freedom of opinion and expression of ideas, among the most relevant.
- The second generation is the economic, social and cultural rights, also called equal rights, because they promote equity. The emblematic document of this generation is the International Pact of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, signed in New York, United States, on December 16, 1966. They come from social constitutionalism, which recognizes collective rights such as health, social security, work, etc. It is called the welfare state, because it assumes that the State launches a series of actions, programs and strategies, so that these rights are a reality for people and groups and stand out: Right to Social Security;Worked;Training of unions;Adequate living standard of living;Feeding;Dress;Living place;Medical assistance;Social services necessary for his individual and family;Health, physical and mental protection;Special care and assistance during motherhood and childhood and the right to education in its various modalities, being compulsory and secondary and free secondary.
- The third generation corresponds to the rights that promote fraternity. This group of rights, which began to be promoted in the seventies, seeks the universal progress of all the peoples of the Earth, through solidarity and respect between the different nations of the international community. These rights cannot have if there is no collaboration of all. For example, the right to healthy environment cannot be possible if all countries do not contribute to the decrease in pollutants that generate global environmental problems. These rights refer to: the self-determination of peoples;respect for economic and political independence;the right of peoples to their own national and cultural identity;the right to peace and peaceful coexistence;the use of advances in science and technology;the solution of food, demographic, educational and ecological problems;the common heritage of humanity;And the development that allows a dignified life.
Vulnerability
The vulnerability of people with HIV/AIDS (PVVS) places them within those who suffer the risk of violations of their human rights promoting a disadvantage. The State has the responsibility to provide special and specific protection, since they are not in equal conditions. "People as vulnerability often do not know their rights, therefore do not exercise them …" (Hernández F R, 2006).
Social prejudices directly affect PVVs for reasons of the association that exists from the disease to the belonging of certain groups with "other" sexual preferences to those determined by society, among other reasons, which are an obstacle to guaranteeing respect,Dignity and human rights.
Stigma
The stigma, sociologically, is a condition, attribute, feature or behavior that makes who holds it be included in a social category towards whose members a negative response is generated and seen as culturally unacceptable or lower.
Stigma is a social process, more than individual. The classifications that society has invented as good/bad, moral/immoral;They are the ones that organize and legitimize the stigmas.
Discrimination
In addition to the above we have discrimination, as a daily practice that implies giving a different, unfavorable or unrelated treatment against a person or population group and also occurs in the health sector. Ethnic or national origin, sex, disability, social status, religion, sexual preferences, among others can be a reason for discrimination. Giving a differentiated treatment has to do with the loss of rights and inequality to access them, which can have serious effects such as isolation, violence, and even death in extreme cases. (Hernández F R, 2006)
In Mexico, in 2001 the first constitutional article was reformed where the prohibition of all forms of discrimination expressed, however, despite institutional and normative advances, Mexico continues to face the enormous challenge of incorporating into “non -discrimination” asA transverse criterion in all the strategies and objectives of public action.
According to the “National Survey on Discrimination 2017”, (INEGI, 2018) one in five people over 18 years old, claims to have been discriminated in the last year, highlights that people with disabilities are those who suffer greater discrimination, reveals thatMedical services, street or public transport and family, are the main social fields where indigenous people and those who have some disability were discriminated against.
The survey indicates that religious diversity, older people, young people, and women are discriminated mainly on the street, in public transport, at school, work and family.
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