Stigma and discrimination towards people living with HIV: Sociocultural aspects, experiences, and ethical and legal responses in Colombia

Abstract

Stigma and discrimination towards individuals infected with HIV or AIDS have been recognized as worldwide issues, but they show specific characteristics among different socioeconomic and cultural contexts. It is a complex and dynamic process whose genesis, manifestations, and consequences are influenced by different elements that interact from biological to social dimensions, affected by prejudice and social inequalities. The approaches for the explanation and understanding of these processes have been diverse: theoretical reflections through historical, psychological, social, or mixed focuses and empirical tests through quantitative and qualitative research. In this chapter, we discuss issues related with HIV infection in the world and Colombia, based on a review of empirical research and different conceptual approaches to theories of stigma and discrimination in health, reported in local and international literature. We reviewed the medical, political, social, and cultural aspects that underlie stigma and discrimination associated to HIV infection, as well as the ethical and legal regulatory responses, and explored their relationship with the perceptions of those who suffer experiences related to stigma and discrimination worldwide and in Colombia. Our review and hermeneutical analysis of the rulings of the Colombian Constitutional Court in response to the writ for the protection of fundamental rights filed by people living with HIV, illustrates with examples the rifts and gaps found between ethical and legal theories based on fundamental rights and the right to health in Colombia.