A seminar on human rights and the law relating to HIV/AIDS was held in mid December in Shanghai, giving usually invisible groups of people the opportunity to have their voices heard in public.

 

It was the first of its kind in China, with representatives of non-governmental organizations and gay and lesbian communities discussing HIV/AIDS issues with scholars of law, public policy, medical science and the media.

 

Speaking at the seminar, Li Dun, a professor of public policy at Beijing's Tsinghua University, said that few people in China would say they did not respect the human rights of others. "But when it comes to HIV/AIDS, neglect and violation of human rights still occur."

 

"Some medical workers lack professional training, and some hospitals and doctors even refuse to provide services to HIV/AIDS patients," said Ren Guoliang, a 31-year-old with AIDS from northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

 

On behalf of various groups of people with HIV/AIDS, he called for legislation to guarantee rational medical services for those who test positive for HIV; respect for patients' right to know; provision of legal assistance; the setting-up of a fund to compensate those who get infected from blood transfusions; and open access to health information.

 

Li said intentional or unintentional discrimination stems from the fact that "AIDS has touched upon profound issues of culture, economy and ideology. It has long been ideologized and stigmatized in China."

 

Yang Shaogang, a professor of law, cited a case he is representing in which five hemophiliacs are suing the Shanghai Biological Products Institute for breaking the law in its failure to properly screen blood products, leaving them all HIV positive.

 

The institute refused to compensate them, despite compensating all 54 Shanghai residents who had been infected by the same batch of products with 100,000 yuan (US$12,500) each, plus a monthly subsidy of 1,000 yuan (US$120) and free medication worth 3-5,000 yuan (US$361-602) a month.

 

Yang said it "shows we still have much to do to provide legal guarantees of human rights for people living with HIV/AIDS, even though it has been written into our Constitution that the state respects and safeguards human rights."

 

When AIDS was first diagnosed in China in 1985, in a Portuguese tourist who died here, it was regarded as "a Western disease exclusively caused by a decaying bourgeois life style," said Yang.

 

Officials believed that Chinese attitudes towards sex and public censure of individual choices would help keep AIDS away. Foreigners coming to China for longer than a year are required to have an HIV test, as are Chinese who have stayed abroad for three months or more.

 

Despite such determination to keep AIDS out of China, it has spread quickly, with official figures for infections hitting 840,000 by the end of 2003.

 

"This year is a turning point, a signal of starting a nationwide campaign against AIDS," Yang said.

 

"Vice Premier Wu Yi visited AIDS patients in the hardest hit region in central Henan Province. And the government invested huge amounts of money into prevention campaigns and medicines for local communities around the country. This commitment shows the determination of the government and people to fight its spread," Yang said.

 

To eliminate discrimination is "the starting point in China's endeavor to win the battle against the AIDS epidemic," said Wan Yanhai, director of Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education.

 

Participants agreed that it is impossible to reduce infection rates solely through ideological preaching or condom distribution.

 

"If we don't honestly honor the rights of disenfranchised groups to health, and respect the rights of people with HIV, the disease is not likely to be kept at bay," experts said.

 

Meanwhile, Kan Zhiming, one of the hemophiliacs in the lawsuit against the Shanghai institute, is determined to go on with his legal battle, and has appealed to the intermediate court with Yang's support.

 

(China Daily December 29, 2004)