Swedish laws impede HIV prevention methods
Many European countries have laws which criminalize HIV transmission and exposure but few countries enforce the law as mush as Sweden and other Scandinavian countries.
Based on available data relating to HIV prevalence and convictions, there is a marked difference between Scandinavian and Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden - and those further south.
The former, despite having significantly lower HIV prevalence than the European average, have a markedly higher rate of criminalization.
Sweden and Denmark, for example, have conviction rates of 6.12 and 4.66 per 1000, while the rates for France and Italy are 0.1 and 0.74 respectively.
Radio Sweden’s Gabriel Stein talks to Dr Matthew Weait. He's a Professor of Law and Policy in the School of Law and at Birkbeck College at the University of London in Sweden as part of a research project he's doing about HIV legislation in the Scandinavian countries.
