Govt scraps AIDS clause from visa forms

THE Ministry of Home Affairs has removed a controversial requirement on entry visa application forms to declare one’s HIV-AIDS status and other infectious diseases like tuberculosis.

‘Even though there is no example of the enforcement of this regulation in Namibia, its existence created the wrong impression of Namibia as a democracy and its national and international commitments to a human rights-based approach to responding to HIV-AIDS and fostered stigma and discrimination towards people living with it,’ Home Affairs Minister Rosalia Nghidinwa told Parliament on Wednesday.
‘It was an oversight that the regulation was placed on the visa application forms,’ she added.
The Immigration Control Regulation promulgated in terms of the Immigration Control Act in Government Notice No 134 of 1994, listed several diseases in terms of the visa application forms including tuberculosis or any other lung disease; trachoma or any other contagious eye diseases; framboesia, yaws, scabies or any other contagious bacterial or other skin disease; syphilis or any other venereal disease, leprosy and HIV-AIDS.
The wording in the regulation on the visa application forms has now been changed to ‘contagious infection or viruses or diseases, any contagious infection or virus or disease (airborne or transmitted through casual contact) that exist or may develop from time to time that is declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) and which warrants restriction of international travel and mobility as per the International Health Regulation adopted by the Fifty-Eight World Health Assembly (2005).’
Namibia is party to the WHO.
The Ministry of Home Affairs will delete the old text from the Namibia visa application form on its website and will communicate the scrapped list of diseases to all its immigration offices, points of entry, border posts, airports and Namibian diplomatic missions.