Article 7 of the Saudi AIDS Prevention Law

This article makes awareness a shared responsibility of three bodies:

• The health bodies, which under Article 1 means any public or private body that provides health care.
• The educational bodies.
• The media bodies.

Content of the awareness: awareness in this article has two aspects:

1. Spreading health awareness about AIDS in society.
2. Explaining the rights of persons living with it.

Note that the article does not stop at health awareness but adds an explanation of the rights of those living with the disease. The aim is not only to protect society from the disease but also to let people know that those living with it have rights that must be respected, which limits stigma and discrimination.

Procedures: the article does not specify the form of these measures, but provides that the Implementing Regulations set the procedures for them.

Relation to other articles:

• The article is connected to Article 8, which bars preventing a person living with the disease from their rights or from continuing their education, or dismissing them from work because of the disease, unless it is proven that they deliberately transmitted infection; these are among the rights that awareness serves.
• Article 6 protects a pregnant infected woman from being forced to abort or deprived of custody of her children, which is also among the rights that should be made known.

The article is addressed to the bodies named and does not create direct obligations on individuals.