We are appalled at John Howard’s assertion that ‘HIV-positive people should be denied entry to Australia as migrants and refugees’ (The Age, April 13).

  

It does not make sense to have a refugee program and exclude people with HIV. How can Australia have a ‘Women at Risk’ program, welcoming single women and mothers from refugee camps, many who have been sexually abused, and turn away women with HIV? Sexual assault is a weapon of war, and in many countries experiencing conflict people become infected through rape, often in refugee camps, in Africa, at the Thai Burma border, or in countries receiving Iraqi and Afghani people fleeing the conflicts in their regions. How can we deny them refugee status? Being a refugee is about the strength of one’s refugee claim, not about one’s health. How can we stigmatise people even more than we already do?

  

Two months ago, Pauline Hanson attempted a political comeback suggesting that South Africans with HIV were allowed into Australia and infecting our population. It is interesting to see how little time it has taken for this ludicrous allegation to be embraced by the Federal government.

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