The Burnett Foundation Aotearoa, in collaboration with Positive Women Inc., Toitū te Ao, and Body Positive, is leading a national survey to understand how current laws around HIV affect people living with HIV in Aotearoa.
The survey is available in both English and Te Reo Māori, and we are encouraging as many people as possible to take part so we can gather a wide range of voices and lived experiences.
In Aotearoa, people living with HIV can still be criminally charged if they are accused of not telling their sexual partner they have HIV, even when there is no transmission and regardless of whether a person is on effective HIV treatment. These laws do not reflect current scientific evidence about HIV, particularly the understanding that a person with an undetectable viral load cannot pass on the virus (Undetectable = Untransmittable, or U=U).
Despite the progress in treatment and knowledge, people living with HIV continue to be held to outdated legal standards, such as being required to use condoms to be considered as taking