The UK’s National AIDS Trust, working with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AIDS, today launched a national campaign against prejudice and discrimination linked to HIV status, funded in part by the Department of Health. Adverts, designed with help from the agency Saatchi & Saatchi, will run in the national press, on commercial radio, MTV and online, challenging prejudice against people with HIV. This builds on pilot advertising which ran last year in London and Manchester, and aims to take it to a wider audience.
The campaign calls for changes to strengthen and extend British anti-discrimination laws, which currently address discrimination on grounds of race, sex and disability, but in conflicting ways and to differing extents. This part of the campaign will be pursued in partnership with the Trades Union Congress and the law-reform organisation Justice (the UK branch of the International Organisation of Jurists) who are due to co-sponsor a conference on equality law reform.
Other partners include the Levis Strauss Foundation, which has funded the development of resource materials which can be used by individuals and groups working to change attitudes. Background briefings describe how HIV-related stigma and discrimination affects gay men, racial and ethnic minorities, sex workers, injecting drug users and prisoners.
The London launch will be followed by three regional launches over the next three days, each co-hosted by one of NAT's principal partners. The Brighton event (18 March) will be co-hosted by Terrence Higgins Trust South, the Leeds event (19 March) by Yorkshire Mesmac, and the Birmingham event (20 March) by Terrence Higgins Trust Midlands.
For details, including downloadable resource materials, and an option to sign up for campaign updates by email, visit the campaign website here.