Breaking Silences and Upholding Confidences: Responding to HIV in the Lihir Islands, Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Various forms of silence are understood to characterize the response to HIV/AIDS in the Lihir Islands in Papua New Guinea. While some efforts have been made to prevent HIV and educate residents, these seem not to have been in proportion to its classification as a high-risk setting for transmission, given social factors associated with the Lihir gold mine. Confidentiality is both practiced yet critiqued in Lihir as another form of silencing that detracts from efforts to emphasize the serious nature of HIV, promote its prevention, and care for those who live with it. ‘Breaking the silence’ has come to be seen as key to preventing HIV in Lihir, yet while certain silences are acknowledged, others have escaped scrutiny.

Keywords:

• confidentiality
• health promotion and prevention
• HIV/AIDS
• Papua New Guinea
• secrecy

Notes

1. Constructed by Davey Kinhill Flour Daniel, from production in 1997 it was managed by Lihir Management Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto. It was then sold and became Lihir Gold, and more recently in 2010 was bought by Newcrest Mining.

2. It was not until 2011 that Lihir gained accreditation to officially offer VCT and ART following two health staff completing courses with the PNG National AIDS Council Secretariat. Before that time there was no access to ART or medicine for PMTCT.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan R. Hemer

Susan R. Hemer is a social anthropologist based at the University of Adelaide in Australia, whose work focuses on medical and psychological well-being and development, particularly in Papua New Guinea. Her book Tracing the Melanesian Person: Emotions and Relations in Lihir (2013) explores what it means to be Lihirian in a world that has rapidly changed in the last century through the work of Christian missions, government administration, and the development of the Lihir gold mine.