Removing HIV/AIDS discrimination in Indonesian labor regulations

Eliminating HIV/AIDS discrimination

Tauvik Muhamad, Jakarta

The Thai newspaper, The Nation, reported that while Bangkok prepares to host 20,000 delegates to the first-ever international AIDS conference to be held in Southeast Asia (from July 11 through July 16, 2004), a four-star hotel is separating guests who are living with HIV/AIDS (LWHA) from the rest of its clientele.

Conference participants who are LWHA to be billeted at the hotel have been asked to stay in separate rooms and take their meals apart from other guests. Ironically, the conference the participants are to attend is trying to garner political commitment among world leaders, as well as ratchet up the response of business to the challenge of stigmatization and discrimination in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Several countries have adopted the rights of workers LWHA (WLWHA) in their law, but the reality is still different. South Africa, for instance, legislatively protects the rights of WLWHA but discrimination and denial still prevail in the workplace in a country that has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world.

"We have the best legal framework around but this has not changed mind-sets. People still get dismissed because of their HIV status," said Jennifer Joni, an attorney for the AIDS Law Project in Johannesburg. "I handle HIV/AIDS discrimination cases almost every day."

Victim stigmatization and discrimination is prevalent everywhere in the world. In Indonesia, Yanti, now an HIV/AIDS counselor living with HIV, was asked by her employer to resign as rumors of her HIV status spread soon after the AIDS-related death of her husband. Her coworkers sent a petition to the company, urging them to dismiss her, as they feared infection through sharing their computers, eating or working with her in the same room.

Some migrant workers lose their jobs when they undergo preemployment medical screening, a mandatory procedure. Victim stigmatization and discrimination stems from misunderstanding about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted. Few people are aware that HIV cannot be transmitted by casual contact, only via blood or other, specific body fluids (semen, pre-ejaculate, vaginal fluids, breast milk).

Myths on HIV transmission have contributed to the continuing spread of the epidemic, resulting in an increase in the number of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). These same people are increasingly losing jobs and finding it more and more difficult to secure new employment. Every day, approximately 14,000 people globally are infected with HIV, 85 percent of whom are at their most productive age. A survey conducted by the Thai Business Coalition on AIDS found that 45 percent of PLWHA surveyed were either unemployed or without a regular source of income, and 95 percent of the same respondents reported loss of income due to the disease.

In Indonesia, discrimination against PLWHA is yet to be reported. This is indicative of the heightened awareness that is occurring in Indonesia. In May 2004, the Indonesian government enacted Ministry of Manpower Decree No. 68 on HIV/AIDS prevention and control in the workplace. The decree, drawing on the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work, bans employers from discriminating against workers with the virus, and it obliges employers to take steps to prevent and control the spread of HIV/AIDS in the workplace through occupational safety and health schemes.

The decree refers to the Indonesian Labor Law, which clearly stipulates a policy of nondiscrimination. But the challenge ahead lies in making the decree operable, so that it complements other regulations and is adopted by the regions, thus assisting in eliminating victim stigmatization and discrimination in the workplace.

The government must, therefore, produce further implementing regulations and review Ministry of Manpower Regulation PER- 05/MEN/1993 on employee social security, which currently excludes PLWHA from workplace medical benefit schemes. In the light of the government's decentralization plans, provinces and districts are also obliged to adopt similar decrees on occupational health service and employment opportunities.

In addition to these developments in legislation, there is a need to scale up interventions in practice, through strategic awareness-raising and capacity-building, as part of an outreach prevention program in the workplace, for greater impact in the wider community.

It is important that workplaces combat the fear and discrimination that still surrounds HIV/AIDS, by opposing mandatory HIV testing for job applicants and employees, and the continuing employment of HIV-positive workers, ensuring their involvement in workplace responses to HIV/AIDS. Because, for PLWHA, as for many people, getting and maintaining decent employment is one of life's crucial issues.

In the ILO New Delhi Newsletter, Naveen Kumar, an Indian AIDS activist LWHA, had this to say on HIV/AIDS discrimination in the workplace: "If you take away our jobs, you will kill us faster than the HIV virus will. We can work. We pose no risk to our coworkers. Work is more than medicine to us. It keeps us going and enables us to bring home food and medicine."

The writer is National Program Coordinator of the ILO Jakarta program on HIV/AIDS.