Abstract
BackgroundThe rights of women and people living with HIV (PLHIV) are protected under South African law, yet there is a gap in the application of these laws. While there are numerous systemic and social barriers to women's and PLHIV's exercise of their legal rights and rights to access social services, there has been little effort to document these barriers as well as legal needs and knowledge in this context.Methods1480 HIV-positive and HIV-negative women recruited from an antenatal clinic in Umlazi Township completed a questionnaire on legal knowledge, experience of legal issues, assistance seeking for legal issues, and barriers to seeking assistance. We compared the legal knowledge and experience of legal issues of HIV-positive and HIV-negative women, and described assistance seeking and barriers to assistance seeking among all women. ResultsBoth HIV-positive and HIV-negative women had high levels of knowledge of their legal rights. There were few important differences in legal knowledge and experience of legal issues by HIV status. The most common legal issues women experienced were difficulty obtaining employment (11 %) and identification documents (7 %). A minority of women who had ever experienced a legal issue had sought assistance for this issue (38 %), and half (50 %) of assistance sought was from informal sources such as family and friends. Women cited lack of time and government bureaucracy as the major barriers to seeking assistance.ConclusionsThese results indicate few differences in legal knowledge and needs between HIV-positive and HIV-negative women in this context, but rather legal needs common among women of reproductive age. Legal knowledge may be a less important barrier to seeking assistance for legal issues than time, convenience, and cost. Expanding the power of customary courts to address routine legal issues, encouragement of pro bono legal assistance, and introduction of legal navigators could help to address these barriers.
Highlights
The rights of women and people living with HIV (PLHIV) are protected under South African law, yet there is a gap in the application of these laws
South Africa’s legal environment concerning both the rights of women and the rights of people living with HIV/ AIDS (PLHIV) has been cited as a potential model for other countries on the continent [1]
Such concerns affect a significant proportion of women of reproductive age living in South Africa as it is estimated that 1 out of every 3 young women in the country is living with HIV [5]
Summary
The rights of women and people living with HIV (PLHIV) are protected under South African law, yet there is a gap in the application of these laws. Unfair termination and refusal of employment and health care services on the basis of HIV-status has been documented in South Africa [4], as has discrimination in schools often in the form of enrollment denial or differential treatment by instructors [4]. Such concerns affect a significant proportion of women of reproductive age living in South Africa as it is estimated that 1 out of every 3 young women in the country is living with HIV [5]. Forty-two percent of women seeking antenatal care services at Umlazi Section D clinic in KwaZuluNatal, an urban primary health care clinic in South Africa, are living with HIV
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