Australia: Law Harming HIV Prevention

The criminal prosecution of persons who have transmitted HIV is hurting AIDS prevention efforts, according to a new monograph from the National Association of People Living with AIDS (NAPWA).

Since 1993, 22 criminal cases have been brought on grounds of HIV/AIDS exposure. Almost half of these have occurred in the past three years. Such prosecutions militate against HIV prevention and should only be viewed as a last resort, said Robert Mitchell, NAPWA's president.

"A major problem in Australia is we're dealing with different jurisdictions, and criminal prosecution is totally removed from any sort of public health discourse," Mitchell said. "We believe in the first instance these people should be supported and counseled to try and help them change their behaviors -- criminal sanctions will not change people's behaviors."

"The main concern for us is the stigma of discrimination that this engenders for HIV-positive people, in [making] them feel they're being seen as perpetrators and guilty," Mitchell said. "It impacts at a personal level: people get fearful [of] knowing their status because they fear it may be used against them in future prosecution. They'd rather not know their status, and that's a very bad outcome because it means people do not know their HIV status and are not being tested for HIV, which drives down testing rates."

The monograph -- "Criminalization of HIV Transmission in Australia: Legality, Morality and Reality" -- was introduced in Parliament House, Canberra, by Parliamentary Liaison Group for HIV/AIDS Chair Sen. Louise Pratt. The report's foreword was penned by former High Court Justice Michael Kirby.

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