Zimbabwe – Harare – 26 January 2010 (The Standard) - ZIMBABWEANS living with HIV and Aids want the new constitution to guarantee their right to treatment and are demanding adequate representation during the outreach programme. The calls came as the country gears for a consultation process that will culminate in a new supreme law for the country in less than a year.
Tabona Shoko, the director of the Zimbabwe National Network of People Living with HIV and Aids (ZNNP+), said it was crucial for their members to be "actively and meaningfully" engaged throughout the process.
He said this will ensure that the rights of people living with the disease such as the right to treatment were enshrined in the constitution.
Only 180 000 out of 1.7 million Zimbabweans living with HIV have access to the life prolonging anti-retroviral drugs.
Shoko said this was partly because the current constitution does not recognise access to treatment as an enforceable right.
"This is our only chance as people living with HIV to ensure that our rights are clearly stated in the constitution so that we are able to hold those in government accountable," he said.
"People living with HIV and Aids should therefore be represented and meaningfully engaged at every level of the consultation process."
He was speaking at a consultative meeting organised by the Southern Africa Aids Information Dissemination Service (SafAids) to map out how people living with Aids can effectively participate in the constitution-making process.
Among the many issues that the ZNNP+ wants in the new constitution are clauses that make access to treatment an "enforceable right".
The network wants the right to health to be broadly defined "as encompassing the provision of adequate and quality care, free anti-retroviral drugs and transparency in the administration of health resources".
ZNNP+ is also pushing for prisoners with HIV to have access to prevention services, care and treatment.
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