Support Don’t Punish Day of Action

There was resounding agreement that the 'War on Drugs' has failed at the AIVL/NUAA day of action celebrating the global movement Support Don’t Punish. 

L to R: Leah McLeod - NUAA, Peter Baume AC, Nicholas Stewart - Dowson Turco, Jude Byrne - AIVL, Will Tregoning - Unharm

Held at NSW Parliament on 26 June, the impressive range of speakers included ex federal Senator Peter Baume – renowned for the key role he played in fostering a constructive political response to HIV in the late 1980s, Jude Byrne from the Australian Injecting and Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL), Nicholas Stewart, a private legal practitioner and volunteer lawyer at Sydney’s Inner-City Legal Centre, and Will Tregoning from Unharm – a drug law reform advocacy organisation.

Doing Debby in Darlinghurst

A print in Difficult Debby's
Whore Love series.

In early June, a collective of sex worker artists who call themselves Debby Doesn't Do It For Free hosted an exhibition of new and old artworks in Darlinghurst, Sydney. 

Difficult Debby explained what it was all about in her post on this blog in the lead-up to the exhibition.

Once the exhibition opened, AFAO Project Officer Jill Sergeant went along. In this photo-essay she shares her experience at a special viewing session for allies to sex workers.

Rights, resilience, and solidarity: Transgender Day of Remembrance

The International Transgender Day of Remembrance on 20 November offers all a chance to reflect on those who have been discriminated against, those who have had violence perpetrated against them, and the need for solidarity to stand up against violence in our region, particularly violence perpetrated against transgender people.

Due to stigma, transgender women especially are particularly vulnerable to HIV, so AFAO has over the years tried to ensure that transgender issues are addressed in our programs, policy work and resources.

To celebrate TDoR, this post shares pictures and links to articles, mainly from past editions of HIV Australia, which analyse the issues and showcase the work AFAO and our partners have been doing in Australia and the Asia Pacific region to support the health and human rights of transgender people.

Blog Action Day: Inequality and HIV

Indraveer Chatterjee

The global HIV epidemic is characterised by inequality. To name just two dimensions of this: gender inequality fuels the spread of HIV; and unequal access to treatment results in unnecessarily high rates of illness and death in many countries. 

To mark the Blog Action Day theme of inequality this year, we invited Indraveer Chatterjee, Principal Solicitor at the HIV/AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) to write about how inequality within the epidemic is entrenched by a lack of support for human rights.

This article is based on a presentation Indraveer gave at an AIDS 2014 feedback session at ACON in September.

The right to health crucial to HIV advocacy

Michael Kirby and Anand Grover.

On the final day of the 11th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, the importance of human rights in the HIV response was highlighted in a session hosted by the Asia Pacific Council on AIDS Service Organisations (APCASO).

The Honorable Michael Kirby opened the session arguing the need for improved human rights protections for all vulnerable groups, including prisoners, migrants and refugees, which he drew from the 2012 Global Commission on HIV and the Law Report.

UNAIDS leadership forum at ICAAP – achieving zero new infections, zero AIDS deaths and zero discrimination in Asia and the Pacific

Panel at the UNAIDS Leadership Forum.

In the lead up to the 11th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP11) -  the largest HIV conference in the region - The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS are hosting a two-day Leadership Forum entitled "Asia Pacific Getting to Three Zeros"  to discuss achieving zero new infections, zero AIDS deaths, and zero discrimination in the region.

The two day forum, held 18-19 November in Bangkok, is one of many events happening during the ICAAP conference that is putting the international spotlight on responses to HIV in Asia and the Pacific. Around one hundred senior government officials, policy makers and civil society leaders were in attendance on the first day of the forum.

Blog Action Day: Human rights, HIV, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Blog Action Day is an annual day of action for bloggers around the world to post stories about an important social or environmental issue. This year the topic is human rights; an issue that is inextricably linked to HIV.

AFAO decided to participate in Blog Action Day for the first time by interviewing James Ward, an Indigenous health researcher with more than 15 years’ experience in sexual health and HIV. He is a descendent of the Pitjantjatjara and Nurrunga clans of central and South Australia.

The Office of theUnited Nations High Commissioner for human rights states that:

"Human rights are inextricably linked with the spread and impact of HIV/AIDS on individuals and communities around the world. A lack of respect for human rights fuels the spread and exacerbates the impact of the disease, while at the same time HIV/AIDS undermines progress in the realisation of human rights."

How would you say that this connection plays out for Indigenous people generally, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in particular?

It’s an important point linking human rights to HIV vulnerability and it’s often off the agenda.

Many Indigenous people struggle with basic human rights, including the lack of recognition in their own countries. Others have problems with recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights – basic human rights, including the right to be taught traditional language and practice customs and culture.

Leading gay advocate talks Human Rights and HIV

Australia has been very fortunate to have visit our shores one of the world’s leading human rights advocates, South African Justice Edwin Cameron. Edwin Cameron is of course well-known to many in the HIV sector, due to his coming-out publicly as HIV-positive. He is the only public official across the continent of Africa to have disclosed his positive status (more on his interesting reflections on that later in this post).

Call for reform of anti-homosexuality laws across the Commonwealth

There has been renewed debate recently about the need to reform laws that criminalise homosexuality across the Commonwealth, driven by the signing by the Queen of the Commonwealth Charter in London last week.

In the UK's House of Lords on 13 March, there was an extensive discussion about the barriers that these laws present to responding to HIV, not to mention the denial of human rights generally as a result of these laws.

Addressing human rights for orphans affected by HIV in Nepal

Children at the Punarbul Plus school.

Volunteer Rachel Tyne brings you this update on Punarbal Plus, a School in Nepal that provides educational opportunities and a supportive environment for HIV-positive and affected children, who are unable to access mainstream schooling due to stigma and discrimination. AFAO's small grants program funding supported core operational costs for the program from May 2008 until 2012.