Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Mallee, who has eloquently outlined the many problems of the Akha people. He has called on the House to recognise and understand the issues that are confronting the Akha people. In particular, he has called on the United Nations to further their programs into recognising the issues that are faced by the Akha people.

I want to spend this time concentrating on health aspects, particularly HIV-AIDS. Statelessness is the most disgraceful situation for anyone to be in. As a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union HIV-AIDS committee I have been working on this for some time. Statelessness contributes enormously to the vulnerability of children in the sex-trafficking industry. As a result of children being trafficked into a raging sex trade the spread of HIV-AIDS has become rampant. If we are to stem the spread of HIV-AIDS we must address statelessness. People who have been exiled and declared stateless have no rights and are not recognised. They have no access to health treatment and those people who take children and traffic them into the sex trade or slavery are not prosecuted. There are no rights for the parents or the children.

The Akha people in particular are viewed as dirty and worthless. Therefore, they have no rights and are given no consideration. Their children are taken and trafficked in the sex industry where they are raped repeatedly and subsequently suffer with an enormous number of sexually transmitted diseases. Ultimately, this results in AIDS and other diseases and they then die at a very early age. This should not happen to any child anywhere in the world. All governments in developed countries across the world and the United Nations need to start to earnestly address the issue of statelessness and the problems that statelessness causes, including the lack of access to fundamental human rights. This is about access to fundamental human rights.

In some of the material there is a report written by doctors about 12 Akha girls aged between 12 and 16 years of age. They had been rescued from the sex slave trade after they had been constantly raped and had contracted every venereal disease there is from gonorrhoea, syphilis to AIDS—and some diseases I have never heard of. Basically these children are given no access to treatment, thus we have the indiscriminate spread of HIV-AIDS.

This is a worldwide problem. It is up to us, men and women in developed countries, to take this seriously. We should look at the private member’s motion moved by the member for Mallee with all his good intentions and at his report which outlines many of the trials and tribulations that the Akha people are exposed to. Most of all, countries and the United Nations need to start working their way into these areas to offer AIDS prevention programs, AIDS prevention support and treatment for HIV-AIDS and to assist these children out of the depths of despair.

The Akha people simply have no rights. They are considered not worthy of rights because they have no country to call their own. This is the problem that you see time and time again. It exposes the vulnerable children of the world to the disgusting practices of the sex slave industry. I commend the member for Mallee for bringing this issue to my attention. I will do all I can to support him in getting assistance for the Akha tribes.

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