title: Legal knowledge, needs, and assistance seeking among HIV positive and negative women in Umlazi, South Africa.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The rights of women and people living with HIV (PLHIV) are protected under South African law, yet there is a gap in the application of these laws. While there are numerous systemic and social barriers to women's and PLHIV's exercise of their legal rights and rights to access social services, there has been little effort to document these barriers as well as legal needs and knowledge in this context.
  
  
  METHODS
  1480 HIV-positive and HIV-negative women recruited from an antenatal clinic in Umlazi Township completed a questionnaire on legal knowledge, experience of legal issues, assistance seeking for legal issues, and barriers to seeking assistance. We compared the legal knowledge and experience of legal issues of HIV-positive and HIV-negative women, and described assistance seeking and barriers to assistance seeking among all women.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Both HIV-positive and HIV-negative women had high levels of knowledge of their legal rights. There were few important differences in legal knowledge and experience of legal issues by HIV status. The most common legal issues women experienced were difficulty obtaining employment (11 %) and identification documents (7 %). A minority of women who had ever experienced a legal issue had sought assistance for this issue (38 %), and half (50 %) of assistance sought was from informal sources such as family and friends. Women cited lack of time and government bureaucracy as the major barriers to seeking assistance.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results indicate few differences in legal knowledge and needs between HIV-positive and HIV-negative women in this context, but rather legal needs common among women of reproductive age. Legal knowledge may be a less important barrier to seeking assistance for legal issues than time, convenience, and cost. Expanding the power of customary courts to address routine legal issues, encouragement of pro bono legal assistance, and introduction of legal navigators could help to address these barriers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 331 Rosenau Hall, CB #7440, Chapel Hill, 27599, NC, USA. hilllm@email.unc.edu.
authors.forename: Lauren M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Hill
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 331 Rosenau Hall, CB #7440, Chapel Hill, 27599, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maman
authors.affiliation: University of KwaZulu-Natal Law Clinic, Durban, South Africa.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Holness
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
authors.forename: Dhayendre
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Moodley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004651:Employment / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D005260:Female; D018023:HIV Seronegativity; D006679:HIV Seropositivity; D006806:Human Rights / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D013019:South Africa; D055815:Young Adult