Wed 28 Sep 2016 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Two HIV-support organisations say they are noticing issues of abuse and domestic violence in couples where one or other partner is infected by HIV. Marama Pala of INA says the problem was detected through the support her organisation does for same-sex and heterosexual couples where one partner is infected by HIV. "We have been supporting Maori and Pacific Island whanau facing domestic violence issues and subsequent court appearances. We started tracking what the common themes were issues such as the HIV-positive person feeling that no one else is going to want them and staying in unhealthy relationships because they feel they don't have anywhere else to go... they're afraid of being alone." She says it appears a person's HIV-positive status is sometimes used against them "in a blackmail kind of way... such as 'if you go there I'm going to tell everyone you have HIV. They've been coerced into doing things, had money taken from them... and if they didn't have HIV they would have walked away from the relationship. Some people are exploiting people living with HIV due to the stigma and discrimination directed at people living with HIV." Pala says the issue of intimate partner violence needs to be talked about to empower people with HIV in this situation to get help such as counseling. She says the communities these people live in, their families and their workplaces need to become more understanding of HIV and people infected with it." "And that includes marae," she says. "Some people with HIV have been told to get off the marae when their infection has become known to some people." Mark Fisher, general manager of Body Positive, the country's largest HIV peer support organisations which caters mostly to gay and bi men, says his organisation is also aware of the problem. "We have seen a little bit of violence in the work we do and therefore we've worked with our health navigator and social work people on training around that. Mostly we connect them into counselling."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 28th September 2016 - 8:51am