Raise your voice against stigma and homophobia

Speaking out against prejudice is a vital step towards changing community attitudes that stigmatise people with HIV and people who are at greater risk of contracting HIV.

When people raise their voices against stigma, it makes it easier for people who have HIV, who are gay, who use drugs, or are sex workers, to access the information, prevention tools, and treatments and care that they need to stay safe and well. Faith leaders play a critical role in the response to HIV through model compassion and supporting evidence-based approaches to HIV prevention and care.

Joint launch highlights HIV issues for migrant and mobile populations

Speakers at the launch.

Mobile and migrant populations are an increasingly prominent proportion of Australia’s HIV epidemic in 2014. 

Surveillance data indicates that people born overseas in 2013 have HIV at double the rate of those who are Australian born. The data also shows an increase of HIV diagnoses acquired overseas among Australian born people over the past decade.

Against this background, two documents were launched in Melbourne on 2 December that make important contributions to the response to HIV for people who travel to or from high prevalence countries: The HIV and Mobility in Australia: Road Map forAction, developed by the Western Australian Centre for Health Promotion Research (WACHPR), the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) and the Sexual Health and Blood-borne Virus Applied Research and Evaluation Network (SiREN); and AFAO’s HIV and Stigma: A Guide for Religious Leaders.  

Invoking faith to fight HIV stigma

Looking back, it’s easy to see that Stepping Up in Faith: the AIDS 2014 Interfaith Pre-Conference (held on 18–19 July) previewed many of the significant topics discussed at AIDS 2014, in particular, stigma, criminalisation, and the need for inclusion and celebration of sexual orientation and gender diversity in faith-based responses to HIV.

For me, the stand out presenters at the pre-conference were those who stressed that faith communities must not only be inclusive and supportive of diversity, but should be advocates for the rights of all vulnerable populations – including  gay men, transgender people and sex workers.

What's faith got to do with it?

Lina Ayoubi, from the Islamic Council of Victoria, was one of the
speakers at a recent Melbourne forum for religious leaders.
Photo: Dan Walls, courtesy of the Multicultural Health
and Support Service (MHSS).  

For people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities, quite a lot.

Hand in Hand, a forum on HIV for religious leaders in Melbourne on 11 March heard that for many people with HIV from CALD communities, spiritual faith is central to their lives, but the stigma associated with HIV, and silence from church, mosque and temple, can lead to isolation and distress.  

Speakers representing several peak religious bodies in Victoria expressed concern about this isolation and stigmatisation, and discussed how the core principles of their faiths could – and should – inform both care and support for people with HIV, and community-based HIV prevention and awareness programs.

Over forty people attended the forum, which addressed the role of spiritual and community leaders in preventing HIV transmission in migrant and refugee communities. Hand in Hand was organised by the Multicultural Health and Support Service (MHSS), a program of the Centre for Culture, Ethnicity and Health in Victoria. It was the third in a series of cross-sectoral Multicultural Sexual Health Network (MHSN) forums on BBV/STI prevention issues for CALD communities.