About Positive Destinations

Positive Destinations is all about helping people living with HIV plan their travel or relocation with reliable, up-to-date information on regulations that restrict entry, stay, and residency based on HIV-positive status, as well as access to HIV treatment for non-nationals.

Whether you’re facing questions about your HIV status on visa forms, navigating compulsory health screenings, dealing with border officials who enforce rules arbitrarily, or worried about continuing to access your HIV treatment whilst abroad, our site provides the information and resources to understand and prepare for these situations.

Why this website is necessary

The ability to travel, migrate, or relocate is an important part of life for many. For people living with HIV, however, this can come with added complexity. Some countries still impose restrictions on entry, stay, and residency based solely on HIV status, creating hurdles that can make travel difficult, stressful, or even impossible. Others limit access to HIV treatment for non-nationals creating additional barriers to travel, study, or relocate with HIV. Positive Destinations is here to help people living with HIV navigate these barriers with confidence and clarity.

Anachronistic, ineffective and unnecessary restrictions

Internationally, governments have typically cited two reasons for laws and policies that restrict entry, stay or residence of people living with HIV:

• believing this will protect public health by limiting transmission; and
• wanting to avoid the potential burden of costs of care, treatment and support that might be associated with the stay of a person living with HIV.

However, experts including UNAIDS and the Global Commission on HIV and the Law have stated that HIV-specific restrictions on migration based on HIV-positive status are not only discriminatory, they do not protect public health as intended. Although these restrictions are often created to avoid potential healthcare costs, in the context of modern antiretroviral therapy where treatment is also prevention, these restrictions are anachronistic, ineffective and unnecessary, that only increases HIV stigma.

Yet, outdated laws and policies in certain countries continue to restrict the movement of people living with HIV. Some countries allow short-term stays for tourism but bar people living with HIV from longer stays for work, study, or residency. Others impose complete bans, and in some cases, even deport individuals found to be living with HIV. Advocacy as well as information

Despite these challenges, there have been – and continue to be – positive shifts in some countries, most often due to advocacy and activism by civil society and people living with HIV networks. The lifting of restrictions in places like the U.S. and China demonstrates that change is possible. For more examples, see Recent developments, below.

However, entry and residence restrictions are still affecting many people living with HIV. In particular, the countries of the Middle East, along with the Russian Federation and Singapore stand out as having particularly problematic practices. Other countries include the Philippines (notably recruitment agencies), Australia, Canada and Spain (notably impacting students).

Positive Destinations is the place to find the resources for the advocacy that remains to be done to achieve truly equal mobility rights for people living with HIV across the globe.

1998-2008: Swiss / German beginnings

Positive Destinations began as a database that was first created and published on the internet in 1998 by Aids Info Docu Switzerland, the former Swiss AIDS Documentation Centre. The Centre published information collected by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, listing restrictions in a number of countries.

In 1999, an additional survey was carried out by German HIV organisation, Deutsche AIDS Hilfe (DAH), among German embassies abroad and foreign embassies in Germany, with the intention of documenting the official legal regulations concerning entry and residence for people living with HIV, and also to find out about their implementation in practice.

The results were published in a resource book for counselling services by local German AIDS service organisations. The Swiss and the German data were subsequently merged, and published by Aids Info Docu on its website. When Aids Info Docu ceased its operations in 2003, the database was kept accessible on their site. In 2007, the database was moved to the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) for an interim period.

A second survey was conducted by Peter Wiessner for DAH in 2008 and sent to diplomatic representatives, and gathered updated data on 192 countries.

2009-2023: IAS / hivtravel.org

In 2009, the database moved to the International AIDS Society (IAS) and the URL hivtravel.org was created. During this time, the database was kept up to date by its co-authors, David Haerry and Peter Wiessner, who continually reviewed and updated the data with feedback and information from all over the world.

For instance, data collected via the surveys was supplemented with information from the U.S. Department of State, Global Affairs Canada, UNAIDS, and European AIDS Treatment Group. This was further supported by information shared by database users via a feedback form.

Over its lifetime, the database has had a significant impact, both in terms of the number of users of the website and the value provided to individuals seeking to travel or migrate to other countries, as well as its influence on wider advocacy and policy. For instance, the database informed the International Task Team on HIV-related Travel Restrictions, convened by UNAIDS in 2008.

However, with the UNAIDS-convened Task Team no longer active, culminating in the removal of HIV-related restrictions in the United States in 2010, global and national advocacy to remove the remaining restrictions and barriers has been somewhat lacking.

2023: ACT NOW!

The importance of the database and the absence of co-ordinated global advocacy around HIV migration and mobility restrictions became evident at the community pre-conference forum “ACT NOW on Global HIV Migration, Mobility and Health Equity” held prior to the IAS2023 conference in Brisbane, Australia in July 2023.

Two of the key recommendations that came out of this pre-conference were:

• Update the HIVtravel.org database and website, being the only current global repository of migration and residency restrictions in the world.
• Develop a network of local and international advocates to promote changes to migration policies restricting migration of people living with HIV.

2024 – future: Positive Destinations

In 2024, the HIV Justice Network (HJN) secured funding to take over the hosting of the database from the IAS and to undertake a design and content refresh. As part of this redevelopment, HJN’s researchers worked with its co-authors to update the database. We also rebranded from hivtravel.org to Positive Destinations (positivedestinations.info) reflecting our intent to focus on advocacy as well as information that provides information to help navigate HIV-related travel, relocation and migration.

The HIV Justice Network (HJN) is the leading community-based NGO building a co-ordinated, effective global response to punitive laws and policies that impact people living with HIV in all our diversities.

In 2024, HJN took over the running of the hivtravel.org website, rebranding it as Positive Destinations.

Go to hivjustice.net to find out more about us, to see the latest news, sign up for our newsletter, use our Global HIV Criminalisation Database, and explore the many resources we produce to end HIV criminalisation, including the HIV Justice Academy.

We strive for best practice in all we do, and raise funds in accordance with our vision, mission, our organisational guiding principles and the following:

• We are independent of any individual funder’s agendas – whether that be governmental, corporate, or organisational – and our fundraising and advocacy activities will always respect and protect that independence.
• We will ensure that projects for which we raise funds reflect our mission, organisational principles, and strategic priorities, so that neither the funding opportunities we pursue nor the requirements of funders, will deflect us from our strategic objectives.
• We recognise that although our funders may share some of our values, they may not agree with everything we say or do. We will not allow any funding relationship with a government, corporation, organisation or individual to constrain us from criticising them or from exposing any human rights violations for which they may be responsible.
• We understand that accepting funding from any source comes with potential risks. Before considering whether to accept funding we will undertake a risk assessment analysis on a case-by-case basis led by the Executive Director in close consultation with the Supervisory Board to ensure minimal risk and maximum benefit.
• We will behave with integrity in all our fundraising activities, ensuring we undertake all due diligence to comply with our organisational and fundraising principles, and that these activities also comply with regulations and legislation in the Netherlands and other applicable jurisdictions.
• We are accountable to our members, partners, and the wider HIV Justice movement, and will fundraise with transparency. If we get things wrong, we will be open about our mistakes and take swift action to fix them.

This project has been made possible with the provision of a financial grant from Gilead Sciences Europe Ltd. 

We acknowledge previous funders and contributors to The Global Database on HIV-specific Travel and Residence Restrictions (hivtravel.org)

including Deutsche Aidshilfe, European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), the International AIDS Society (IAS), Positive Council (Switzerland).

We would especially like to thank the original authors David Haerry and Peter Wiessner.

Thanks also for their past contributions:

• The Global Network of People living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+), for dissemination and advocacy support
• The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and Stephen Barris for dissemination and advocacy support
• UNAIDS and the International Task Team on HIV-related Travel Restrictions
• Gilead Sciences, for funding received in 2018

Disclaimer

Please note that the HIV Justice Network is only responsible for information and activity hosted on positivedestinations.info, hivjustice.net, hivjusticeworldwide.org and academy.hivjustice.net. We cannot be responsible for the information on other websites, even if we provide links to them.

Links to other sites: we provide links to resources – documents, videos, websites – outside of the positivedestinations.info, HIV Justice Network, and HIV JUSTICE WORLDWIDE websites.

While we have carefully selected sources and materials from other organisations, we have no control over their privacy policies or in the processing of any data you provide, nor in the accuracy of the information on these sites.

The information on this website is not legal or medical advice and should not be relied upon as such. If you need legal advice, please contact a lawyer or legal aid clinic familiar with the law applicable in your jurisdiction. If you need medical advice, please ask your healthcare provider. While we try to ensure that all the information we provide is correct and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee accuracy. Please also note that some of the information on this site is general and global. You may have to adapt it to your circumstances.

Also note this site focuses on information about HIV-related travel and migration. Please also consult your own Foreign Ministry website, or the local consulate of the country you are visiting or relocating to, to see what restrictions there are specifically for you as a citizen of your country, regardless of your HIV status.

Data privacy / Privacy statement

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Please note that the HIV Justice Network is only responsible for information and activity hosted on positivedestinations.info, hivjustice.net and academy.hivjustice.net. If you follow a link to another website (for instance, to content or courses hosted by other people) then their privacy policies will apply.

If you have entered any information via the positivedestinations.info site prior to HIV Justice Network taking over the site, then any data you shared then or subsequently is not the responsibility of the HIV Justice Network. The HIV Justice Network does not have access to that data. Any questions about this data should be addressed to the former hosts, the International AIDS Society (https://www.iasociety.org/).