The HIV/AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) is the only specialist community legal centre for people with HIV- or hepatitis-related legal matters in Australia. Danielle Munro, solicitor at HALC, spoke with us this month about her role at the Centre and her involvement in the Health+Law Partnership as research solicitor. Danielle also described the services HALC offers, some of the biggest challenges facing its clients, and how the Centre’s work takes a holistic approach to the law.

In 2012, the Global Commission on HIV and the Law Report brought together fourteen experts and advocates on HIV, law, public health and development from Africa, the Middle East, North America, the Pacific, South America and South-East Asia to make recommendations for improvement in the areas of public health, human rights and law, that could improve responses to HIV. The Commission’s final report, ‘HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health’, was a landmark intervention in human rights and legal issues relating to HIV globally.

Louisa Luong joined the Health+Law team earlier this month as a research assistant, working primarily on the Legal Needs Study. Louisa has a background in migration law and was a solicitor at the Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS), providing casework and legal advice across a range of migration matters. We spoke to Lou about her experience and role.

As part of the Health+Law research partnership’s involvement in advocacy and education campaigns in relation to blood-borne viruses, Health+Law Chief Investigators Dr Anthea Vogl and Dr David Carter and Research Assistant Dr Elsher Lawson-Boyd authored a Brief on Blood Borne Virus (BBV) Infection via Spitting or Biting.

Associate Professor Kate Seear, research lead in the Gender, Law and Drugs (GLaD) program at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University and one of Health+Law’s expert advisors, commenced a three-year research project in 2020 addressing legal, policy and practice discrimination related to Hepatitis C in a ‘post-cure’ world.

The recently published Health+Law article, The Legal Needs of People Living with a Sexually Transmissible Infection or Blood-Borne Virus: Perspectives from a Sample of the Australian Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Workforce, represents an important first step towards understanding the incidence and impact of unmet legal needs on people living with blood borne viruses (BBVs) and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Australia.

Little has been understood about the legal issues, needs and access to justice for people living with HIV and viral hepatitis in Australia. The recently published Health+Law research article, HIV related Legal Needs, Demographic Change, and Trends in Australia since 1992: A Review of Legal Administrative Data, analysed unique legal administrative data from the HIV/ AIDS Legal Centre (HALC) to develop insight into the trends and types of HIV and viral hepatitis-related legal issues experienced by HALC clients, as well as how these legal issues and HALC client demographics have changed over time, from 1992 to 2020.

A recent Health+Law article has been published in the Journal of Law and Medicine, The Legal Needs of People Living with a Sexually Transmissible Infection or Blood-Borne Virus: Perspectives From a Sample of the Australian Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Workforce, authored by David J Carter, Benjamin Riley, Rhys Evans, Adel Rahmani, Anthea Vogl, Alexandra Stratigos, James J Brown, Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia.

The Health+Law research partnership is inviting people living with HIV or Hepatitis B to participate in new research about their life and health as part of our Legal Needs Study (LeNS).

LeNS uses both interviews and a survey to understand more about the legal needs and experiences of community members.

Health+Law met with PEACE Multicultural Services in Adelaide after an introduction by Hepatitis SA. Over the weeks that followed, PEACE peer support worker Salma Safi worked closely with Health+Law to recruit, coordinate and support Legal Needs Study (LeNS) participants through the interview process. Salma has joined the Health+Law team as a valued peer research worker and shared with us a part of her story and her hopes for the future.

Earlier this year, Dr David Carter, Scientia Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law & Justice, University of New South Wales, convened the Law Stream as part of the ACT NOW on global HIV migration, mobility and health equity forum at the 2023 IAS Conference in Brisbane. The forum aimed to develop a stronger sector response to the question of ‘Global Migration, Mobility and Health Equity’.

The first major piece of work by Health+Law is our Legal Needs Study (LeNS). This is a legal needs survey, a form of legal research that helps us to understand people’s experiences of justiciable issues – everyday issues that could have a legal solution, regardless of whether a legal solution is sought. Justiciable issues can arise in all areas of life, for example in housing, employment, relationships and finances. A legal need occurs when a justiciable issue requires legal support to be dealt with appropriately and effectively.

For the past few years, migration law has attracted increasing attention in the field of blood-borne virus advocacy. According to the World Health Organisation, about 1 in 8 of the global population is a migrant, and evidence shows that HIV is more prevalent among migrant populations than those residing in their country of birth.

Since October 2017, New South Wales law has required people living with a sexually transmitted infection to take ‘reasonable precautions’ against further transmission. This requirement was the result of an amendment to the Public Health Act 2010 (NSW), which had previously stated that a person living with an STI must disclose their status to any potential sexual partner.

In an earlier blog post, we discussed one of Health+Law Lead CI Dr David Carter’s presentations at ASHM’s Joint HIV & AIDS and Sexual Health Conferences last year, about the migration-related legal needs of people living with HIV (PLHIV). Today we’re looking at his second presentation, which went into more detail about how exactly we should go about understanding and responding to those needs.

This month we delivered a presentation to the National Hepatitis Infoline Working Group on the Health+Law project. As part of the presentation, Rhys Evans, Research Assistant and PhD candidate, provided the Working Group with a detailed explanation of the term ‘legal need’, drawing on work by Health+Law Chief Investigator Anthea Vogl. Given that this is essential context for our project, particularly in our Legal Needs Study (LeNS), we want to share Anthea and Rhys’s insights here on our blog.

At ASHM’s Joint HIV & AIDS and Sexual Health Conferences 2022, held on the Sunshine Coast, Health+Law Chief Investigator Dr David Carter delivered a presentation on our project’s introductory research into the relentless harms inflicted on people living with HIV (PLHIV) by Australia’s migration system.

For several years, we have known that the migration process is one of the major legal issues causing harm to people living with HIV and Hepatitis B in Australia. But what exactly does that migration process look like, and what can clinicians do to support better migration outcomes for their patients?

At Health+Law, the ‘legal environment’ we are concerned with refers to all laws and regulations that affect the lives of people living with Hepatitis B or HIV in Australia as a result of their condition – which is to say, Australian laws and regulations related to public health generally and blood-borne viruses (BBVs) specifically.

Health+Law is a project to seek out and eliminate the legal issues causing harm to people living with HIV and Hepatitis B in Australia. As we get started with this necessary and long-overdue work, we want to communicate what makes it so important.