Eve van Grafhorst was born in 1982 and lived in the community of Kincumber, New South Wales, Australia. As a premature baby she had received a number of blood transfusions, one of which was contaminated with HIV and, in consequence, she became infected with the virus

She was already in pre-school in Kincumber when her parents learned of her HIV status and they informed the school immediately. Soon afterwards they were told that they must remove their daughter from the school. Then she was allowed back in on the condition that she wear a plastic face mask at all times. Despite her parents consenting to this, they were subsequently asked to remove her after other parents objected to her presence and began removing their children from the school.

As news of Eve’s HIV status spread throughout the community the level of hostility increased. Neighbours built high fences, presumably as some sort of gesture at ‘keeping AIDS out’. Those children who remained friends with Eve were bullied and assaulted and there was even an attempt to run over the family dog. Then people started to demand that the family left the town.

By this time Eve’s story had hit the headlines and a journalist in New Zealand began a fundraising campaign to bring the family over there. And so, in 1986 they moved to Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, where they experienced a very different type of reception. The community could not have been more supportive.  Another family put them up until they could find a place of their own, the parents were offered jobs and Eve was offered a place in a variety of schools. The media attention continued but this time it was very much on the side of Eve and her family and they used this to try and tackle ignorance about AIDS.

When Eve eventually died from AIDS in 1993 700 people attended her funeral. Back in Kincumber in Australia, the mayor apologised for the way the family had been treated and said the local people had realised the error of their ways. He also said that people would never be treated like lepers in that community again. His apology was, of course, widely reported and Eve’s story has been told repeatedly as an example of the consequences of discrimination.

Sadly, it’s hard not to believe that the mayor’s statement was the consequence of the bad publicity the community received. It also has to be asked whether there would be a similar response if the target of discrimination had been a gay man. There is and always has been a shockingly high level of discrimination against gay men with HIV/AIDS, yet it rarely merits the same level of outrage since they’re not seen as ‘innocent victims’.