Sharleen Spiteri (sex worker)

Sharleen Spiteri was an HIV+ sex worker, who became the focus of significant media, public and New South Wales Government attention in Australia after appearing on the 60 Minutes television programme in 1989, where she revealed in an interview that she sometimes had sex with clients without revealing her illness or using condoms.[1][2]

After the 60 Minutes programme went to air, Spiteri was forcibly detained by New South Wales Police and Health Department authorities, using an obscure section of the Public Health Act (Section 32a), originally intended for the control of tuberculosis. She was kept in detention in Prince Henry Hospital's AIDS ward, and then Rozelle Mental Hospital for several weeks.

Into the early 1990s Spiteri's case continued to spark national public debate. A new law was introduced in New South Wales, colloquially known as "Sharleen's Law" where informed consent prior to sexual intercourse was required.

Although there were many other sex workers in the community who were also HIV+, in similar situations and known to authorities, after her initial release Spiteri came under subsequent public health orders (as well as other agreements undisclosed by the NSW Health Department), spending much of the remaining 16 years of her life under supervision of health workers as a public patient of the NSW Health system. She died in 2005.

Journalism, Moral Panic and the Public Interest

In 2015, Tom Morton and Eurydice Aroney, both journalists and lecturers at the University of Technology Sydney,[3][4] published Journalism, Moral Panic and the Public Interest - The case of Sharleen Spiteri.[5] The paper questioned the ethics of the reporting of Spiteri's case.[5]

gollark: For example, you can call people "utterly isomorphic to the group of integers modulo 7" or "literally made of pentavalent carbon".
gollark: The best insults are ones which are not actually recognizable in any way as insults.
gollark: Is the US not attempting to develop similarly ææææ laws?
gollark: Anyway, it doesn't really matter if Signal is still extant if you can't download it easily (or at all on iPhones) and the backend servers are blocked (which the bill also gives the communications regulator the power to do...).
gollark: I see. Australia is probably among the worst places for it though.

References
  1. "ABC Radio National Hindsight program 'Shutting Down Sharleen' (2010)". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 2012-05-22.
  2. Sendziuk, Paul (1991-07-01). Learning to trust: Australian responses to AIDS By Paul Sendziuk. ISBN 9780868407180. Retrieved 2012-05-22.
  3. "Tom Morton". University of Technology Sydney. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  4. "Eurydice Aroney". University of Technology Sydney. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  5. Morton, Tom; Aroney, Eurydice (17 February 2015). "Journalism, Moral Panic and the Public Interest". Journalism Practice. 10: 18–34. doi:10.1080/17512786.2015.1006935. hdl:10453/36274.
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