Check out new legal education resources for Indigenous Communities

 
From the HIV Legal Network

In 2022, The HIV Legal Network released our latest strategic plan — Rights Within Reach — which outlines our goals and priorities for the next five years. One of the key priorities that emerged for us was the need to centre the lived experience and needs of Indigenous people, who are disproportionately affected by HIV, punitive laws and policies, and criminalization in all its forms. Now we want to share with you public legal education resources we developed in collaboration with Indigenous communities to enable people to exercise their human rights.

We have long heard that accessible and culturally relevant legal resources were needed for Indigenous people who risk criminalization because of their HIV status or because they, or someone they know, uses drugs. And so we teamed up with CAAN Communities, Alliances & Networks and the HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO) to produce new resources for Indigenous people related to HIV criminalization and drug laws.

These resources were developed in consultation with Indigenous people living with HIV, and with lived experience of drug use, and sections of each resource were translated into Plains Cree, Inuktitut, Miꞌkmawiꞌsimk, and Anishinaabe.

Working with CAAN, we created posters and wallet cards to ensure that people know about their rights under Canada’s Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act, which is designed to protect people from prosecution for the offence of simple possession of a controlled substance when they call 911 to report an overdose, as well as to anyone who is on the scene when emergency services arrive. We also created a list of regional contact information for referrals to legal help.

We also launched short- and long-form pamphlets to share information with Indigenous communities about the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure in Canada. Created in partnership with CAAN and HALCO, these documents provide an overview of the current state of the law in Canada and information on when disclosure is required.

These resources all feature beautiful artwork from Indigenous artists living across this land. We are so grateful to Brian Kowikchuk, Clayton Gauthier, Jasmine Caffyn, Brian Dwayne Sarazin, and Loretta Gould for their incredible artistry.

 

View the downloadable resources.