Awards for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights

The Awards for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights were established in 2002 by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Human Rights Watch.

The Awards highlight outstanding contributions that decrease vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and protect the rights and dignity of those infected and affected.

Recognizing excellence and long-term commitment to work having a direct impact on HIV/AIDS and human rights issues — in particular work that is of direct relevance to marginalized individuals and communities — an award is presented annually to one Canadian and one international recipient.

2009 International Recipient: Michaela Clayton

A human rights lawyer working on HIV/AIDS and human rights issues in Namibia, regionally and internationally since 1989, Michaela Clayton is founder and Director of the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), a regional partnership of civil society organisations working together to promote a human rights based response to HIV/AIDS and TB in Southern Africa.

One of the founding lawyers at the Legal Assistance Centre in Namibia, where she established the AIDS Law Unit to provide a legal service to people living with HIV and AIDS, Michaela assisted in the drafting of the majority of Namibian sectoral HIV policies and the Namibian National HIV/AIDS Policy.  She was also counsel in successful impact litigation on HIV, including the case brought against the Namibian Defence Force for their exclusion of HIV+ recruits.

Internationally, Michaela has consulted closely with United Nations agencies in the drafting of regulatory guidelines, including the 2002 revision of the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights.

2009 Canadian Recipient: Viviane Namaste

Viviane Namaste is Concordia University Research Chair in HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health and an Associate Professor at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montréal.

She has conducted extensive research in Quebec and Ontario on the HIV prevention and service needs of transsexuals, a community often ignored in HIV/AIDS services, prevention campaigns and policy initiatives.  In Montréal, her research has been instrumental in securing funding for community-based health services for transsexuals.

Presently, Viviane is conducting research on the HIV prevention needs of bisexual men and women (see www.polyvalence.ca).  Like her work on transsexuals, this project seeks to examine gaps in HIV prevention and research, with an aim to developing innovative solutions that connect knowledge and action.

Viviane has also published several academic books on transsexuals and health, with a particular focus on questions of HIV, including Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People, which won the 2001 Outstanding Book Award of the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights.

Learn more:

• Call for nominations
• Past recipients

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