HIV/AIDS Legal Centre in Sydney, Australia

Kangaroos, Koalas, and Vegemite.

Any child learns to associate these strange things with the country of Australia from an early age. Australia owes both its diverse animal life and unique history to its isolation and geographic remoteness. This isolation has also had an impact on Australia’s history with HIV and the AIDS epidemic.

Australia’s first recorded death from AIDS occurred in 1983, 2 years after the Centers for Disease Control began to identify the disease. Australia reacted rapidly to the disease with dramatic public education ads such as this famous one from 1987.

Due to education and prevention, Australia has experienced a relatively low rate of HIV infection, even though it has been rising in recent years. The usefulness of education and prevention end once a person actually acquires the virus and a whole range of new problems arise.

One of these problems is HIV and its relation to Law. People living with HIV often find themselves in a difficult and often unclear legal problem, which is only compounded by their positive status. The HIV/AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) in Sydney, where I am volunteering this summer, aims to help HIV+ people navigate their legal rights and responsibilities.

Disclosure of one’s HIV status is one of the most important areas of law for people living with HIV. Who must I disclose to? Do I have to disclose my status at all? What if my employer asks if I’m HIV+? What if my insurance company does?

These are all difficult legal questions, too complex to get into in this blog post, but in general, under New South Wales law, if you are HIV+ you are legally required to disclose your HIV status to a person before you have sex with them, whether it is vaginal, anal, or oral sex. For more on disclosure of HIV, see HALC's guide on it here.

Parliament House in Canberra, the capital of Australia. The source of all Commonwealth (Federal) law in Australia.

Another difficult area is the right to privacy. Currently there are no laws protecting an HIV+ person’s right to privacy in Australia. If an ex-partner or neighbor knows your HIV status, they can spread that information to anyone they wish. Those with HIV are left with little recourse since libel and slander laws would not apply if the information is true.

Insurance is complicated and tricky to most people, but to those living with HIV, insurance becomes even more complicated. If one discloses their HIV status to an insurance company, more often than not, they will be denied coverage. If one does not disclose, if an accident happens, the insurance company may try to get out of paying because their disclosure policy was not followed, even if the injury is unrelated to the person’s HIV. While anti-discrimination legislation exists, proving that a decision was made purely because of a person’s HIV status is difficult to prove.

Most appalling of all though is New South Wales’ policy regarding autopsies of HIV+ bodies. If an autopsy, the body will not be reconstructed if it is HIV+. Instead, the body will be returned in a couple body bags, denying a grieving family the possibility of an open casket funeral and a final goodbye to their loved one. Upon inquiry of why their loved one will not be reconstructed, many families learn for the first time that a loved one was living with HIV. This disclosure by the Department of Health can cause a family addition stress and grief, not to mention possible rumors and ill treatment in their community.

In June, HALC launched a publication titled "Criminal Transmission of HIV: A Guide for Legal Practitioners in NSW." Criminal transmission of HIV is a murky area of the law as the guide illustrates by citing relevant caselaw in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK. The guide covers topics ranging from what type of offense is criminal transmission of HIV (is it grievous bodily harm or its own crime?) to defenses and their impact on questions of policy. The entire guide can be views in PDF format here. The launch was attended by many including Justice Bell, a Justice to Australia's High Court (their Federal Supreme Court).

While there are many similarities between HIV in Australia and the US, one of the first differences I noticed was the prevalence and availability of PEP. PEP, short for Post-Exposure Prophylaxis, is a regime of anti-retroviral drugs which can be taken if someone has engaged in a high risk activity (such as unsafe sex or sharing needles) and believes they may have been exposed to HIV. While the drugs do not guarantee that one will not contract HIV, there are encouraging signs that PEP does significantly reduce the risk of becoming HIV+. In the US, PEP is primarily used for health care workers who may accidentally stick themselves with a needle while working, while in Australia, PEP is widely known and available to the general public at low to no cost.

No blog post about Sydney would be complete without a view of beautiful Sydney Harbor and the Sydney Opera House. This is the daily view of the giraffes in Taronga Zoo on Sydney's North Shore. Not a bad view for a caged animal...

Overall, I have had a fantastic summer while volunteering at HALC. I have learned much about the legal problems that those living with HIV experience as well as the skills and knowledge to navigate another country’s system of law. I look forward to learning more about HIV legal problems in the US and comparing them to those I witnessed while in Australia.