Fighting to teach with HIV(2)

Employment discrimination

The legitimacy of the ban has always been questionable.

Guangdong Province put in place health requirements for teaching candidates in 2007 and revised it in 2011. Both banned HIV carriers. This stemmed from a regulation issued by the Ministry of Education in 2000, which stipulated that teachers should have no infectious diseases.

However, this is at odds with employment laws, as well as laws on the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. These laws stipulate that employers should not refuse to hire a pathogen carrier of an infectious disease, using his or her disease as a pretext.

The contradictory laws have created a legal vacuum. Han Chengxiang, a researcher with Nanjing Tianxiagong (justice for all), an NGO that has helped HIV carriers file four lawsuits over employment discrimination, including Xiao Qi's case, told the Global Times that HIV carriers have slim odds of victory in these cases.

"The laws are controversial and the public often holds a discriminatory mentality toward HIV carriers," Han said. "This encourages the courts to make conservative judgments."

Xia Donghua, a program director with Marie Stopes International, an NGO that deals with HIV/AIDS prevention, told the Global Times that there are three main kinds of discrimination against HIV carriers. "The first is an institutional one, for example, health standards for teachers or civil servants."

"The second results from the public's lack of knowledge of the disease," Xia said. "And the third is a cultural one, which labels HIV carriers or AIDS patients as a group outside mainstream culture."

　　Government prejudice?

Han said that often, there aren't specific health standards for teachers, so instead the standards for civil service candidates - which ban HIV carriers - are applied, leading to institutional discrimination.

Guo echoed Han's opinion that government agencies, public institutions and State-owned enterprises are the main bodies contributing to this discrimination. "Restricted by laws, companies are forbidden to impose HIV tests on potential employees," Guo said. "But health regulations for potential employees of government-owned bodies still have clauses banning HIV carriers. Government departments are those who discriminate against HIV carriers."

Both Guo and Han cited the successful performance the government has achieved in combating discrimination against hepatitis B carriers and said they hope the same could happen for HIV carriers. Nanjing Tianxiagong has sent letters to the other 31 regions, provinces and municipalities urging them to follow Guangdong's example.

"The key to removing discrimination against HIV carriers is protecting their privacy rights," Guo said. "Compulsory HIV tests should be abolished," Han said.

Han still has concerns about the implementation of Guangdong's new regulation, because it did not specifically stipulate that compulsory HIV tests should be abolished. "HIV tests may still be kept, with employers using other pretexts to refuse HIV carriers' applications." Han said.

Xiao now works as a clerk for a company in Jiangxi. He said that in the private sector, hardly anybody forces employees to take HIV tests.