Removing HIV/AIDS discrimination in Indonesian labor regulations

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.