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Fighting job bias against HIV and even short stature
By Wang Jian and Zhu Qing |
March 30, 2011, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AN HIV-positive college graduate burst into tears after losing his appeal of a lower court ruling that a school did not wrongfully discriminate when it refused to hire him as a teacher because of his HIV status.
The verdict last week in the People's Intermediate Court in Anqing, Anhui Province, brought to an end the country's first HIV/AIDS-related job discrimination case, and also ended the young man's eight-month fight to be treated like any other prospective hire without HIV.
HIV is not transmitted casually by simple body contact and is transmitted only by body fluids, but many Chinese are not aware of the medical facts and are frightened of anyone with the HIV virus or AIDS.
The plaintiff surnamed Wu argued that discrimination against him was wrong and illegal, denying him the right to work based solely on his HIV status. A district court and the appeals court both disagreed, saying the school district in Anhui Province was justified because regulations bar hiring HIV-positive people.
Wu first filed suit in district court in August 2010 after being denied a teaching post because testing positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. After losing, he appealed to the intermediate court in November.
In China, the pre-employment physical checks used by government institutions also apply to many state-owned institutions such as public schools and hospitals.
"If government and public institutions refuse to employ people with HIV/AIDS, the country's vow to ensure people with HIV/AIDS the right to employment is nothing more than empty talk," Wu said.
People with HIV/AIDS had been demonized in China throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s. However, the government and general public have become somewhat more compassionate and the government has been working to combat the spread of the virus and to protect the rights and dignity of the afflicted.
According to the Employment Promotion Act and the Regulations on AIDS Prevention and Control, people with HIV/AIDS should not be denied employment due to their infectious status.
"It is such a tragedy that my case has became the first HIV/AIDS-related job bias case in China, because obviously I'm neither the first nor the last one to be discriminated against in the job market," Wu said. Wu's grievance is echoed by many young people who have seen the door to job opportunities slammed shut because of their physical conditions.
According to a 2010 survey of 11 colleges in six cities conducted by China University of Political Science and Law, a majority of students seeking jobs say they have been discriminated against. In 2009, four job seekers in Wugang City of central China's Hubei Province sued the city's education bureau for denying them placement in schools because they were not considered tall enough.
At the end of 2009 in Foshan City, south China's Guangdong Province, three candidates sued the city's Human Resources and Social Security Bureau after civil servant exam recruiters turned them down because they were carriers of thalassemia, a noncommunicable genetic blood disease. However, none of those discrimination suits have have succeeded in the past decade, according to data collected by Yirenping, a Beijing-based anti-discrimination public welfare body.
Li Fangping, a lawyer at Yirenping, said the failure of the first HIV/AIDS-related job bias case could create a slippery slope leading to weaker protections for people with HIV/AIDS. Disappointed but not defeated, job bias victims see a slight upside since their complaints gain sympathy among the public and policy makers.
Six years after graduating from collage and suffering through numerous failures and heartbreaks, Liu Xiao, who carries the hepatitis B virus (HBV), secured a position as a teacher at a private high school in central China's Hubei Province.
Liu was among tens of thousands of job hunters discriminated against for carrying HBV during a time when the civil servants' pre-employment health check standards denied people with the virus the right to work in government institutions.
The government has moved to resolve this inequality and HBV carriers are gaining equal work opportunities.
According to a standard jointly issued by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in 2010, a compulsory test for HBV should be removed in the pre-employment physical exam for civil servants. Lu Jun, an anti-discrimination activist, said that since job discrimination against people with HBV has been removed at least at the policy level, the situation for those with HIV/AIDS could also be improved in the future.
Pu Cunxi, a famous actor and member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, submitted a anti-discrimination proposal during the annual full session of the CPPCC National Committee in March. He asked government organizations to open their doors to HIV/AIDS carriers in an effort to boost social justice.
(The authors are Xinhua writers. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.)
The verdict last week in the People's Intermediate Court in Anqing, Anhui Province, brought to an end the country's first HIV/AIDS-related job discrimination case, and also ended the young man's eight-month fight to be treated like any other prospective hire without HIV.
HIV is not transmitted casually by simple body contact and is transmitted only by body fluids, but many Chinese are not aware of the medical facts and are frightened of anyone with the HIV virus or AIDS.
The plaintiff surnamed Wu argued that discrimination against him was wrong and illegal, denying him the right to work based solely on his HIV status. A district court and the appeals court both disagreed, saying the school district in Anhui Province was justified because regulations bar hiring HIV-positive people.
Wu first filed suit in district court in August 2010 after being denied a teaching post because testing positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. After losing, he appealed to the intermediate court in November.
In China, the pre-employment physical checks used by government institutions also apply to many state-owned institutions such as public schools and hospitals.
"If government and public institutions refuse to employ people with HIV/AIDS, the country's vow to ensure people with HIV/AIDS the right to employment is nothing more than empty talk," Wu said.
People with HIV/AIDS had been demonized in China throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s. However, the government and general public have become somewhat more compassionate and the government has been working to combat the spread of the virus and to protect the rights and dignity of the afflicted.
According to the Employment Promotion Act and the Regulations on AIDS Prevention and Control, people with HIV/AIDS should not be denied employment due to their infectious status.
"It is such a tragedy that my case has became the first HIV/AIDS-related job bias case in China, because obviously I'm neither the first nor the last one to be discriminated against in the job market," Wu said. Wu's grievance is echoed by many young people who have seen the door to job opportunities slammed shut because of their physical conditions.
According to a 2010 survey of 11 colleges in six cities conducted by China University of Political Science and Law, a majority of students seeking jobs say they have been discriminated against. In 2009, four job seekers in Wugang City of central China's Hubei Province sued the city's education bureau for denying them placement in schools because they were not considered tall enough.
At the end of 2009 in Foshan City, south China's Guangdong Province, three candidates sued the city's Human Resources and Social Security Bureau after civil servant exam recruiters turned them down because they were carriers of thalassemia, a noncommunicable genetic blood disease. However, none of those discrimination suits have have succeeded in the past decade, according to data collected by Yirenping, a Beijing-based anti-discrimination public welfare body.
Li Fangping, a lawyer at Yirenping, said the failure of the first HIV/AIDS-related job bias case could create a slippery slope leading to weaker protections for people with HIV/AIDS. Disappointed but not defeated, job bias victims see a slight upside since their complaints gain sympathy among the public and policy makers.
Six years after graduating from collage and suffering through numerous failures and heartbreaks, Liu Xiao, who carries the hepatitis B virus (HBV), secured a position as a teacher at a private high school in central China's Hubei Province.
Liu was among tens of thousands of job hunters discriminated against for carrying HBV during a time when the civil servants' pre-employment health check standards denied people with the virus the right to work in government institutions.
The government has moved to resolve this inequality and HBV carriers are gaining equal work opportunities.
According to a standard jointly issued by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in 2010, a compulsory test for HBV should be removed in the pre-employment physical exam for civil servants. Lu Jun, an anti-discrimination activist, said that since job discrimination against people with HBV has been removed at least at the policy level, the situation for those with HIV/AIDS could also be improved in the future.
Pu Cunxi, a famous actor and member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, submitted a anti-discrimination proposal during the annual full session of the CPPCC National Committee in March. He asked government organizations to open their doors to HIV/AIDS carriers in an effort to boost social justice.
(The authors are Xinhua writers. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.)
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