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Dec 1, 2010
When President Hu Jintao shook hands with Aids patients at the Beijing Youan Hospital in a high-profile visit ahead of World Aids Day in 2004, his intention could not have been clearer.
Nor could the message that casual contact with someone who is HIV-positive does not put a person at risk have been more straightforward. Celebrities such as NBA star Yao Ming have mingled with Aids patients in awareness campaigns over the years.
And yet what Xiao Jun, an HIV-positive young man from Sichuan whose real name has never been disclosed, has experienced while job hunting this year has demonstrated how poorly the message has got across in a country where discrimination against those with HIV/Aids appears to have become part of the institution. A recent survey of HIV-positive and Aids-carrying people indicates their frustration over the lack of public education on the matter, even among government and Communist Party leaders on various levels. So far, efforts to obtain justice through the court system have been unsuccessful.
A joint estimate by the Ministry of Health and UNAids put the number of people living with HIV/Aids on the mainland at 740,000 by the end of last year, though the number is widely believed to be understated.
The main barrier to job-seeking efforts by HIV/Aids patients appears to be a set of guidelines on health check-ups for civil servants, jointly issued by the Ministries of Public Health and Labour and Social Security in 2005.
Under those guidelines, which have been widely applied to teachers' recruitment on the mainland, applicants fail if they test positive for HIV/Aids or at least six other types of sexually transmitted diseases, including gonorrhea and syphilis.
Xiao Jun, a native of the Taliang Mountains area in Sichuan, applied to the Yanbian county Education Bureau for a music teacher's job in June.
He passed the qualifying exams as well as the job interview in August, but his application was rejected because his HIV test during a mandatory health check-up was positive. The Education Bureau said it had decided in accordance with the 2005 guidelines.
Xiao Jun lodged a lawsuit at the Yanbian County People's Court in October asking the court to declare the county education authorities' rejection of him unlawful and demanding an apology.
The mainland's first HIV/Aids workplace discrimination lawsuit was lodged by a young man from Anqing , Anhui , identified by mainland press only as Xiao Wu , who was denied a teaching job in July on the grounds that he was HIV-positive during a mandatory health check-up. He lost when the district court ruled in October that the Education Bureau had done nothing wrong in disqualifying him in accordance with the 2005 guidelines for civil servants.
Zheng Jineng , his lawyer, said the Education Bureau's decision was a gross violation of a number of laws but he could argue only on a technicality in which teachers should not be classified as civil servants, and as a result the application of the health check-up guidelines for civil servants should not have applied to teachers' recruitment.
The gloomy prospects for HIV/Aids victims, both in the job market and in terms of equal access to public services, are reflected in the results of a 2008-09 survey released last year.
The survey - jointly conducted by UNAids, Marie Stopes International and the Institute of Social Development Research of the Central Party School - sampled 2,096 people with HIV/Aids in 25 mainland regions.
It found that 83 per cent of respondents said they chose to relocate after learning of their status, 41 per cent said they were discriminated against at work, 33 per cent were denied promotions and 13.3 per cent of those surveyed said they had lost or were denied jobs because of their HIV status.
And fighting the issue, as Xiao Jun and Xiao Wu discovered, appears to be futile. The survey found that fewer than one-third of people living with HIV/Aids have tried to fight against the discrimination and that fewer than 20 per cent of those who did stand up felt they had seen justice done.
The survey also asked the HIV/Aids victims about their relations with various sectors of society. The results showed that they accused more than 25 per cent of medical staff, 35.3 per cent of government officials and 36.2 per cent of teachers of prejudice towards those with HIV/Aids upon learning of their status.
Fang Tong, a young man from Shenyang , Liaoning , even encountered prejudice in a place that should be expected to be among the best informed. He was hospitalised for an anal infection in May, but when the hospital learnt he was HIV-positive, it asked him to leave six times that day.
When Fang saw he had no choice, he left the hospital with the drip still attached to his arm, as none of the nurses was willing to touch him.
The prejudice has its roots in a deep misunderstanding even among government officials of the condition and how it is transmitted. About 100,000 cadres have undergone training programmes on HIV/Aids issues at Communist Party schools around the country in the past decade.
Jin Wei , one of three Central Party School professors involved in the training programme, said officials were so ill-informed about HIV/Aids before the training that they asked if people could acquire the virus by swimming in public pools or from mosquito bites.
When asked at the end of their training if they would fire employees with HIV/Aids, Jin said a significant number of the officials said they would not because they now knew there was no risk of transmitting the virus in the workplace.
Even so, he added: "Some officials continued to insist they didn't want their kids to have a teacher or a classmate with HIV/Aids even though they are better informed about the virus.
"It's not as if, once they've learnt how the virus spreads, they would overcome the fear and there would be no discrimination the day after.
"But the reason we've singled out discrimination against people with HIV/Aids is that such discrimination threatens the livelihood of these people, their rights to lead decent lives and to self-development."
Xiong Wenzhao , a constitutional law professor at Minzu University, said there was no practical justification for using HIV/Aids status as a criterion for teacher or police recruitment, as it is irrelevant to how the virus spreads.
Wu Rulian , the International Labour Organisation's HIV/Aids project manager, said the time had come to regard HIV/Aids as a medical issue and free it of stigma.
She said that HIV/Aids was being increasingly seen as a chronic disease like hypertension, diabetes or heart disease, which are manageable with medication.
The public misconception of HIV/Aids was underscored by a Peking University professor quoted in a November 12 report by the Global Times, who said that he supported the decision by the Anqing Education Bureau to reject the applicant because the immunity of students under 18 may not be strong enough to resist the virus, and the working environment could also reduce the teacher's immunity - thus increasing the risk of developing Aids.
The professor, who was identified only by surname, said he disagreed that the job-seeker from Anqing was the victim of discrimination, and he called for individuals to show social responsibility rather than caring only about their own rights.
Yu Fangqiang of Yirenping, a rights advocacy group in Beijing, said prejudice towards people living with HIV/Aids is even more pervasive than that for people with hepatitis B due to the public's misperceptions.
Yu's organisation has petitioned the National People's Congress along with other rights groups to revise the health check-up guidelines for civil servants in accordance with the constitution and the law.
"The government should have taken the lead in fighting discrimination," Yu said. "But if such discriminatory policies are part of the institution, how can you expect people to change their mindset?" Copyright (c) 2010. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.