Mission & Justice

19/11/08; (3 Items)

Young women are offering sex to men on credit. They then make arrangements to collect the payment from their clients on paydays, a HIV/AIDS workshop in Lae was told yesterday. The workshop was told that this trade in sex, commonly called “dinau sex,” was also contributing to the spread of the HIV virus in Papua New Guinea. Adviser on HIV/AIDS in the AusAID sponsored Law and Justice Sector program, Ghang Oyang highlighted this to staff of the national judicial services during a three-day workshop in Lae. Speaking on cross cutting issues that affected staff productivity at the workplace or organisation, Mr Oyang said apart from domestic and child violence, alcohol and drug abuse, HIV/AIDS was one of the issues that was dismantling the family unit and affecting the performance of employees. Mr Oyang said with the increase in prices of goods and services, people especially young women and mothers turned to sex outside marriage for money to support their families.

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Nasser Arrabyee;17/11/08; http://www.gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/10260461.html

A total of 14 centres for HIV/Aids voluntary check ups and consultations were opened in six main cities, to fight the disease. According to officials in Yemen new cases rose to 2,432 this year. The centres target the prevention of the spreading of HIV/Aids, said Dr Abdul Hamid Al Suhaibi, Director of the National Programme for Combating HIV/Aids and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Al Suhaibi said the centres were opened in the capital Sana’a, Taiz, Ibb, Dhammar, Hadramout, and Hudeidah. The programme aims at providing preventive services to prevent transfer of the HIV/Aids disease from mother to children.

17/11/08; http://www.postcourier.com.pg/20081118/tuhome.htm

The 6.5 million people of Papua New Guinea need collaborative efforts to fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country. Chairman of National Capital District AIDS committee Pastor Daniel Hewali said this at a press conference in Port Moresby yesterday. “Combating HIV/AIDS must be the business of everybody on a daily basis. People from all walks of life, regardless of status, creed, colour and nationality have to do something,” he said. After the conference, he left with 30 other pastors for Hula village in Central Province to attend a five-day program on home-based care for people living with HIV/AIDS. He said the inter-denomination workshop for pastors assisted by the NCD provincial AIDS committee would also be attended by pastors of village churches. Pastor Hewali said the workshop would be be followed by awareness, including dramas to be conducted by the workshop participants in two to three villages of the area. He said churches were respected institutions in the country and it was important for the church workers to prepare correct information on HIV/AIDS to teach the members.

14/11/08; (2 Items)

Men in same sex relationships have come “out of the closet” for the first time in PNG to join in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Men in these relationships are regarded as the most vulnerable group in the fight against HIV/AIDS and have formed a body that will take on issues surrounding their wellbeing. This is the first time in PNG that men have come out publicly and joined forces with other agencies in the country to fight HIV/AIDS. The group calls itself Huon Friends and it’s members are persons commonly referred to as “geligelis” in tok Pisin or transsexual, a group made up of men with strong female characteristics.

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3/11/08

About 150 people living with HIV are expected to attend the first national people living with HIV conference in Port Moresby this week. The three-day event was officially opened at Holiday Inn yesterday by the chairman of the Special Parliamentary Committee on HIV/AIDS Jamie Maxtone-Graham. Co-ordinator of Igat Hope Inc Annie MacPherson said 47 of the participants of the conference were coming from the 20 provinces, including the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. Sixty per cent of these people have also not yet disclosed their HIV status to the public. Overseas participants include representatives from the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA) in Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands, Solomon Islands and the Pacific Islands Association Federation in Cook Islands.

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3/12/08

The number of people living with HIV virus has increased to 12 after results from bloods samples sent to Australia returned to the country. The new HIV positive case was revealed to National Express by a reliable source. But attempts by National Express to contact medical authorities to confirm the new case was futile as they were reluctant to provide information. “The increasing number of cases shows that people are not responsible for themselves. The 12 confirmed cases are only from people who are willing to provide blood samples to be tested,” said the source

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23/10/08

The HIV Department of the Ministry of Health has rejected claims that there are herbal medicines that can heal the HIV virus. This stern warning has come about because of a recent claim that a young boy with HIV infection had been healed using herbal medicines. The Department calls on the public not to believe such rumors pointing out that even if it were true, this would have to be verified and declared as such by the National Aids Council. An officer of the HIV Department made the clarifications following rumors that someone has been healed through the use of herbal medicines.

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22/10/08

Primary school teachers from public-run schools in Port Moresby should be in a better position now to teach HIV/AIDS life skills. A program on the topic was run by the Education Department in partnership with United Nations AIDS (UNAIDS). UNAIDS conducted the two-week life skills workshop for HIV/AIDS at the Hideaway Hotel. It was conducted by the program facilitators Joe Anang and Andandi of UNAIDS. Mr Anang said the workshop was aimed at training teachers to develop skills that would enable them to teach young people how to adopt positive behaviours that would help them to deal with demands and challenges of everyday life. “With a focus on HIV/AIDS and using the life skills approach, it is hoped these skills would help the teachers to teach their children in their own schools,” he said.

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Gina,Maka’a 17/10/08

HIV is an emergency issue which people should seriously regard as a deadly killer. A nurse from Western Province, Christina Tawa stressed that everyone should make HIV their business “because it is not sex workers or teenagers alone who are vulnerable to the killer disease”. Mrs. Tawa is representing Western Province in the first ever health workshop currently conducted in Honiara for health workers in the provinces. The workshop highlights on the need to be professionals in dealing with young people on the issues of HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI).

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17/10/08

The PNG University of Technology yesterday launched its HIV/AIDS work place policy to keep students and staff with their families and the surrounding community free from HIV/AIDS. The policy is the outcome of much effort put in by the Unitech HIV/AIDS working committee. It sets down the measures and initiatives on how the university will deal with issues related to HIV/AIDS. It highlights four main components which include: Rights of staff; rights of students; responsibilities of staff and students; inclusion of HIV/AIDS in the curriculum of all activities of the University; and preventive and supportive services for HIV/AIDS by the university.The policy, among others, calls for the introduction of compulsory curriculum on HIV/AIDS for all undergraduate students, covering aspects such as the disease as historical, biological, health, legal and prevention.

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