“Ano passado eu morri, mas este ano eu não morro”: A atuação da Assessoria Jurídica Popular em Saúde na defesa dos Direitos Humanos das pessoas que vivem com HIV/aids

Abstract

The Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) appeared in Brazil in the 1980s, initially associated with homosexuality, prostitution and promiscuity, intensifying the processes of stigma and discrimination in some socially vulnerable groups, whose socio-political repercussions still persist in nowadays. The frequent association of HIV / AIDS with death scenes at the beginning of the epidemic triggered, at the same time, a feeling of panic in the population, as well as a false sense of security for people who were not included in what was called a “risk group”, as LGBT people, sex workers, drug addicts and homeless people. The false sense of security for those people who were not inserted within the aforementioned concept contributed to the registration of a high rate of transmission among heterosexual people, especially in women who had a single sexual partner, a process that was called the feminization of the epidemic. Popular legal advice - AJP, also known as an innovative alternative law, appears shortly before the first registration of AIDS, contrary to the legal positivism and the respective legal and social implications that were consistent with the maintenance of the power of the Brazilian elite and the exclusion of certain social groups. In health field, more specifically HIV/AIDS, the popular legal advisors performed activities not only of assistance and legal guidance, but of fighting for the realization of the right of access to justice, as well as of education for human rights, aiming, especially, the awareness and emancipation of these people, based on basic principles such as popular education and people’s autonomy of will. In the context of Paraiba, the AJP in health of the Center for Guidance and Development of Fight for Life - Cordel Vida has been working for 11 years in the fight and defense of the guarantee of the human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS - PLWHA in the state of Paraiba. The present investigation shows that Cordel Vida's popular legal advice on health has ensured and guaranteed the human rights of the PLHA in Paraiba, based not only on guidance and legal assistance from the main state bodies guaranteeing and defending rights, but also through educational actions of awareness and training in human rights, paying attention to the specificities of each work group, as well as through prevention and treatment adherence activities when identifying sexually transmitted infections, especially when contextualized to discussions that reflect feminization, interiorization and the impoverishment of the epidemic.