PETITION TO MACEDONIAN GOVERNMENT REGARDING THE DETENTION, INVOLUNTARY TESTING AND TEST RESULTS PUBLICATION AGAINST SEX WORKERS IN NOVEMBER 2008
December 17, 2008
Dear Mrs. Gordana Jankuloska, Minister of Interior,
Dear Mrs. Aneta Stancevska, Vice Minister of Interior and Chief of Sector for Internal Control,
Dear Mr. Idzet Memeti, Ombudsman,
Dear Mr. Bujar Osmani, Minister of Health.
PETITION TO MACEDONIAN GOVERNMENT REGARDING THE DETENTION, INVOLUNTARY TESTING AND TEST RESULTS PUBLICATION AGAINST SEX WORKERS IN NOVEMBER 2008
December 17, 2008
Dear Mrs. Gordana Jankuloska, Minister of Interior,
Dear Mrs. Aneta Stancevska, Vice Minister of Interior and Chief of Sector for Internal Control,
Dear Mr. Idzet Memeti, Ombudsman,
Dear Mr. Bujar Osmani, Minister of Health.
We are strongly condemning the police raids, involuntary STI testing of sex workers and test results publicizing in Skopje, Macedonia in November 2008.
Mandatory testing on sexually transmitted infections is a human rights abuse. It violates privacy and bodily integrity.
Publicizing results is a human rights abuse. It violates people’s right to health because included in the right to health is “right to medical confidentiality”.
World Health Organization and UNAIDS in their Guidance on HIV testing and counseling in health facilities, issued in 2007, recommend that:
- All HIV testing must be voluntary, confidential, and undertaken with the patient’s consent
- Patients have the right to decline the test. They should not be tested for HIV against their will, without their knowledge, without adequate information or without receiving their test results
- Pre-test information and post-test counseling remain integral components of the HIV testing process
- Patients should receive support to avoid potential negative consequences of knowing and disclosing their HIV status, such as discrimination or violence
Sex workers are people and should be treated in human ways.
Yesterday Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and people with mental disabilities, today sex workers, LGBT community and Roma, tomorrow each of us could be a victim of unlawful detention, violence, degradation, involuntary STI testing and name calling in the media, unless we create a society in which the laws are applied equally to all and all are equal in front of the law.
(followed by signatures)
Background information
On November 20, 2008, police executed a large-scale raid targeting a sex work zone in Skopje, arresting more than 30 people, the majority of them alleged to be sex workers, and detaining them overnight on grounds such as suspicion of “involvement of prostitution”. The following day, those detainees accused of being sex workers were subjected to compulsory testing by police for HIV and hepatitis B and C. Media outlets subsequently published and broadcast photos of the women as well as information that they had been arrested for “involvement in prostitution”. The Ministry of the Interior also published on its website pictures of the detained women that had been taken at the police station. On December 3, the Ministry of the Interior issued a press release stating that 7 of the detained women tested positive for hepatitis C virus and are now facing criminal charges for allegedly “transmitting an infectious disease”. To date, police and prosecutors have not disclosed evidence that would support the allegation of any transmission, as is required by Macedonian law.