"Travel bans are bad public policy because they only make people hide who they are," noted Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV Legal Network. "And they also keep people who are key to the HIV response from actually being able to come to a conference like this one and be a part of the fight against AIDS globally."
Michelle Tobin, from Australia, applauds the U.S. for lifting the travel ban. Tobin declared her status to U.S. immigration in 2006 while in transit through Los Angeles to Canada and was pulled aside for questioning.
"To justify the reasons for me being in that particular country, it wasn't a nice feeling," recalled Tobin. "It was like you are being treated like a criminal."
But two questions on U.S. visa applications have come under scrutiny. One asks if the applicant has ever been a drug user or addict. The other asks: have you engaged in prostitution in the past 10 years? Advocates say drug users and sex workers are an important part of the fight against HIV and should be allowed in the country.
Quincy McEwan, a transgender sex worker advocate from Guyana, says the questions discouraged many of her friends from attending the conference.
"They already knew that there is a system in place that if they were going to get the visa, if they were going to put sex worker on it, they would not have gotten the visa," McEwan said.
Advocates argue today's treatments allow HIV-positive people to live normal lives. In many cases, new drug regimens make the virus undetectable in a patients' blood, making transmission unlikely.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25