An international rights group has called on the Kenyan government to ensure that human rights are protected during the country's national door-to-door voluntary HIV testing and counselling drive which began in February 2009.

“Our research on access to testing and treatment in Kenya has shown that HIV-positive mothers and HIV-positive children frequently suffer stigma and abuse when their status becomes known," the letter said. "HIV-positive mothers sometimes suffer violence, mistreatment, disinheritance, and discrimination from their husbands, families-in-law, or their own families."

The programme aims to have 80 percent of eligible Kenyans tested by the end of 2010. A recent mini-drive which started in November 2009 to boost the initiative saw more than 1.5 million people tested in three weeks.

According to HRW large-scale home-based testing would likely result in better access to testing and treatment and give a chance to those who could not afford the transport costs to health facilities or lacked information or the willingness to seek a test. But testing also reached into the family, where many abuses occurred, posing challenges for human rights protection, it said.

Evelyn Amunga, a community health worker who has been involved in home-based counselling and testing programmes in Nairobi, said many women agree to be tested at home in the presence of their husbands for fear of being accused of infidelity. "As much as we ensure confidentiality, it is a dilemma because the next day a woman you counselled with the husband calls to tell you she has been thrown out together with the children."

However, Nicholas Muraguri, the director of the National AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infection Control Programme, says the government has put measures in place to ensure that those tested receive adequate medical and psychosocial support.

"Confidentiality and consent are the pillars of our counselling and testing programmes," he said. "Violence, discrimination and neglect are issues the government has been addressing together with partners and stakeholders but we can't say they do not happen."

source: IRIN