HIV-positive men urge the Chinese government to end discrimination
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Three future school teachers appealed to Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to end discrimination against people living with HIV after they were denied work after finding an immunodeficiency virus.
The petition was delivered on Monday by mail to the State Council of the Legislative Affairs Office.
The three men filed separate lawsuits against their local authorities after the provincial educational authorities rejected their applications for employment, because mandatory blood tests showed that they were HIV positive, even though they had successfully passed the interview and written tests. They hoped to convince the courts that the law should protect the labor rights of people with HIV, as well as abolish local rules that do not allow hiring HIV-infected civil servants.
Two courts in China made a decision against men who filed lawsuits against their governments in Anhui and Sichuan in 2010. In a third lawsuit filed in Guizhou, the judge told the plaintiff that the court "will not accept the claim and that the plaintiff must ask the local authorities to resolve the matter," said Yu Fengqiang, a public advocate for people living with HIV.
"We know that in 1,3-milion China, 740,000 people are infected with HIV, a small part of the population," the party to the petition said. "The voices in defense of the labor rights of people living with HIV are usually drowned out by a sense of fear of the authoritarian laws of the country and the authorities, but we also know that the rule of law in the country and the equality of all its people is the basis for modernizing the state towards democratization. A Chinese citizen will undoubtedly benefit from such changes, getting rid of the fear of being threatened with illegal deprivation of rights and freedoms. "
Beijing initially did not hurry to recognize the problem of the spread of HIV / AIDS in the country. In the 1990s, the authorities tried to hide it when hundreds of thousands of poor farmers in the rural province of Henan were infected as a result of a massive blood transfusion.
But since then, the government has strengthened the fight against HIV / AIDS by financing preventive programs, nationwide schemes for free access to antiretroviral drugs, and pursuing a policy of eliminating discrimination.
Currently, the virus of immunodeficiency spreads in the country, mainly through sex.
In a country where sex is taboo, discussion of this topic is largely limited, and people with HIV / AIDS are often stigmatized.
Discrimination against people living with HIV, especially in the public service, is still a very big problem. According to a study published by the United Nations in May 2011, people living with HIV and AIDS are usually denied medical care in ordinary hospitals because of fear and ignorance about the disease.
The application was sent to a government agency on the eve of World AIDS Day (1 December).
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