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Meeting on HIV and law begins
By HARLYNE JOKU
COMMUNITY Development Minister Dame Carol Kidu will be presenting a
paper on legal issues relating to HIV/ AIDS and sex work at a three-day
high-level regional consultation meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, which
begins today.
Leaders from 15 Pacific island countries involved in the review of
HIV-related laws in their countries will be at the meeting.
Dame Carol said the meeting was highly relevant to PNG as it would
strengthen the work already started in legislative review.
Dame Carol has spearheaded several meetings over the past year with
stakeholders in PNG to examine issues related to HIV and law and human
rights from a public health perspective.
She said the groundwork was now in place for a legislative strategy.
The proposed drafting instructions provide countries with a blueprint
for legislative initiatives for the prevention, management and care of
HIV.
Laws devised will ensure that people living with HIV are respected,
their rights are fully protected and that they are able to live their
lives with dignity.
HIV advocacy, the law, human rights and gender, issues of privacy and
confidentiality, testing and counselling, access to medication and
information care and support issues will be discussed.
According to statistics from UNAIDS communications coordinator Hannah
Harborow, HIV infection was growing in the Pacific region and was
increasingly becoming an important concern for governments.
UNAIDS, in its 2006 Report on the Global AIDS epidemic, identified an
estimated 78,000 people in the Pacific including Australia and New
Zealand were living with HIV in 2005, representing an increase of 12,000
from 2003.
The UNAIDS report stated that PNG had the highest incidence of HIV in
the Pacific.
Organisers of the consultation, the United Nations Pacific Centre,
Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team and UNAIDS will present human
rights-based drafting instructions for legislative reform that can be
adapted in the Pacific Island country context.
Dame Carol will be accompanied by Justice Minister Bire Kimisopa and Dr
Banare Bun.
 
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