On Zero Discrimination Day, 1 March, we celebrate the right of every person to live a full, productive, and dignified life. This day is a powerful reminder that discrimination remains one of the greatest barriers to health, equality, and human rights.
This year, UNAIDS draws attention to the persistent discrimination faced by people living with and at risk of HIV — discrimination that undermines access to healthcare, violates fundamental rights, and threatens progress toward ending AIDS by 2030.
The evidence is undeniable. HIV-related stigma and discrimination continue to put lives at risk.
Numbers speak louder than words:
- Nearly 1 in 4 people living with HIV report experiencing discrimination when seeking non-HIV healthcare. Places meant to heal too often become sources of fear and rejection.
- 24% have faced discrimination within their communities — through verbal harassment, social exclusion, and isolation.
- 38% report feelings of shame linked to their HIV status.
- An alarming 85% experience some form of internalized stigma, leading many to hide their status, withdraw from support systems, or interrupt life-saving treatment.
For women and girls, discrimination is often intensified by gender inequalities. Reproductive coercion, mistreatment, and abuse remain widespread realities. Across countries participating in the Stigma Index 2.0, women living with HIV consistently report experiencing coercion within healthcare and social settings. HIV-related stigma, combined with restrictive gender norms, also places a disproportionate burden of unpaid and unrecognized care responsibilities on women and girls.
Discrimination continues to:
- Prevent people from testing for HIV
- Stop people from accessing prevention services
- Disrupt treatment and care
- Drive individuals away from healthcare systems
- Deny fundamental human rights
- Fuel the AIDS epidemic
As the world works toward ending AIDS as a public health threat, progress is impossible if discrimination stands in the way.
For 25 years, AFEW International has worked alongside communities and partners to confront these barriers across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Our work has always been grounded in one principle: people must come first.
Together with our partners, we have provided critical support to key populations, including migrants, refugees, young people, women, and other underserved communities, while advancing HIV prevention, testing, and treatment programmes. Through this collective effort, hundreds of thousands of individuals have gained access to essential healthcare, while healthcare professionals and community organizations have been empowered to sustain and expand this work.
Today, our commitment remains unwavering. AFEW International continues to advance a people-centered, integrated approach that places those facing the highest health risks at the heart of responses. We work to dismantle the interconnected forces of stigma, poverty, discrimination, and social exclusion that drive health inequalities. We champion community-led, country-specific solutions that build trust, protect rights, and improve lives.
On this Zero Discrimination Day, we reaffirm a simple but essential truth: Protecting health requires protecting people’s rights. Healthcare without dignity is not healthcare. People first! Prevention without inclusion is not prevention. Progress without equality is not progress. A world without discrimination is not an aspiration — it is a necessity.
