Retired magistrate Sue Gordon, the first Aboriginal magistrate in WA, told the forum sexual health was almost a taboo subject for Aboriginal people.
The “Walking Together” Aboriginal Sexual Health forum also heard from the WA AIDS Council that rates of HIV in Aboriginal communities were unknown and the disease could spread rapidly if it went unchecked.
Dr Gordon told delegates in Fremantle a stronger message was needed.
“Why shouldn’t we run sexual education classes which are explicit and shocking?” she asked.
“We do it in some cases with drugs. We did it with cigarettes and the effect of drugs but we’re still pussyfooting around the subject.”
She suggested new ways of conveying the key ideas that people should use condoms to protect against sexually transmissible infections and should never share needles, tattooing equipment and razors.
“Messages such as worst case scenarios from these STIs: you can become infertile, your brain can become affected causing mental illness, or you can become blind if not treated,” Dr Gordon suggested.
“This can be likened to young police officers being shown their first corpse at the morgue.”
Dr Gordon led the Federal Government’s 2007 intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities following allegations of child sexual abuse, and headed an inquiry into domestic violence and sexual abuse across WA Aboriginal communities.
Sexual health taking ‘a back seat’
She said sexual health “took a back seat” when people became drug-afflicted.
That view was supported by the Aboriginal Health Council of WA’s Veronica Walshe, who said intravenous drug use was increasing among Aboriginal people.
“Particularly in the prisons and in a lot of the regional and remote areas, where you have a lot of mining and a lot of money,” she said.
“You’re getting a lot of these harder drugs, which aren’t that expensive any more, coming into communities.”
The influx of methamphetamines had led to an increase in domestic violence, child sexual abuse and sexually transmissible infections.
Higher IV drug use had contributed to hepatitis C rates seven times higher than the state average.
Ms Walshe said the Kimberley, Pilbara and Goldfields were regions with historically endemic STI levels, where people had never been properly treated.
A major problem was encouraging women’s partners to seek help.
She said normalising testing for STI’s during health checks could help.
“Getting them to think about, ‘Well look, while you’re here here at our service we offer testing for STIs for all young people aged between 15 and 35, would you like a test? It’s just a urine test’,” Ms Walshe said.
HIV could be devastating for Indigenous population
WA AIDS Council spokesman Dennis Beros warned HIV could have a devastating impact on Aboriginal people.
He explained while only 32 WA Aboriginal people tested positive for the disease between 2003 and 2013, there was no way of knowing how many had been tested overall because information on Aboriginality was not recorded.
“How are we meant to get a grip on how we are doing without that information?” he asked.
Of the 32, they were equally divided between men and women, 75 per cent were heterosexual, and 56 per cent were from remote and rural regions.
In the rest of the population, about 25 per cent of people with the virus are heterosexual and 17 per cent are female.
Mr Beros believed Aboriginal people were averse to testing.
But he said they were at high risk of contracting HIV because of the high rates of STIs, the fact a higher portion of Aboriginal women had previously become infected, increasing IV drug use and high incarceration levels with no needle exchanges in prisons.
“It’s a big issue that we want to be engaging with now, not when the dam’s coming over the wall,” he said.