HIV/AIDS victims in Thailand to get rights law

[wowpow]

""HEALTH / PATIENTS CONTINUE TO FACE DISCRIMINATION
"Commission drafting new human rights bill to protect Aids victims, "ANUCHA CHAROENPO, Bangkok Post

" The drafting of a bill aimed at protecting the human rights of people living with HIV/Aids will be completed and submitted for cabinet approval by the end of the year, said National Human Rights Commissioner Pradit Charoenthaitawee. If approved, it would be the first bill that ensures fairer treatment and better understanding of people with HIV/Aids, said Dr Pradit, chairman of the drafting committee. Thailand currently has more than 500,000 people living with HIV/Aids.

"Dr Pradit said the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) decided to draft the bill after receiving a number of complaints from HIV/Aids patients who faced various forms of discrimination. People living with HIV/Aids had been prevented from getting jobs and were unable to get access to basic education and health care services. They were sometimes also detested by people living around them, he said. '' 'The existing laws on HIV/Aids are obsolete, so there should be a new specific law that could protect the rights of HIV/Aids patients,' Dr Pradit said.

"Under the proposed bill, compulsory HIV/Aids blood tests for job applicants would be prohibited, while employers who fired infected employees would be prosecuted.

"Schools and universities would also be banned from conducting blood tests on students, as there have been reports that some academic institutes have kicked HIV/Aids-infected students out of schools, said the commissioner. State and privately-run hospitals would be obliged to provide basic medical treatment for people suffering from HIV/Aids, especially pregnant women infected with the disease.

"Many pregnant women did not receive proper pre-natal care and anti-viral drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission, said Dr Pradit.

"Kamol Uppakaew of the Thai Aids Treatment Action Group, who has suffered from HIV/Aids for 10 years, said that apart from drafting the law, the NHRC should also focus its work on educating the public and government officials about the disease. It should encourage them to be more open-minded towards HIV/Aids patients, many of whom had isolated themselves from society because they faced fierce discrimination." -- end of article Article courtesy the Bangkok Post: <http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/01Jul2006_news05.php>"

copied with the unknowing courtesy of http://www.pattayagay.com/weeklyreport-jul206.html

[Marsilius]

"Under the proposed bill, compulsory HIV/Aids blood tests for job applicants would be prohibited, while employers who fired infected employees would be prosecuted."

So how would go-go bars (who often like to claim that they give regular tests to boys on their customers' behalf - and who, I assume, would therefore have given one on a boy's entry to the business too) manage?

Will they now be banned from giving an initial test - and also banned from dismissing a boy who turns in a positive test in the course of his employment?

I don't think that go-go bars exactly operate within the scope of the law as it is. They're basically an illegal business to begin with, in legal limbo.

[Gaypattayan]

Although the Thai Human Rights Commission is supportive, I have doubts that the government or parliament would adopt so fair, reasonable and comprehensive a human rights law ... and if it does become law, that is certainly not to say it will ever be enforced.

A good start, and I surely hope they follow through, but I fear it will be a long time in coming unless public support gets behind it ... and I don't see that happening.

G.P. (Allen)

This is a good start as many people will agree. I personally think the testing of bar boys will still arise albeit on a voluntary basis. The owners will say, no problem if you don't get tested as it is "unlawful" but they won't then "get the job". I suspect in some form or other they will have medicals, similar to what they have now and that will continue, i.e. the doc turns up at the club, and it will be voluntary - if a person decides not to, he or she will be "marginalised" in some form or other, there will be ways around it. And as someone said go go bars are not legal in the first place - or are they?

Wear a condom!!!

Sadly this topic is fast becoming a dirty word in my home country of the UK, where we once prided ourselves on our leadership of a free and democratic society.

But as for testing young men who work in bars - frankly I think we ought to be campaigning against that, and being clear with the owners of the bars that we do not approve of anyone being forced to have an HIV test. Even if the man does have a test, there can be no legitimate way of the result being given to anyone but the young man concerned.

The test is nt a protection for anyone, it simply enables those who are infected to get proper care, since nowadays the drugs can be given early to prevent people progressing to AIDS when there immune system starts to weaken.

Safer sex is a responsibility for everyone, and those who find "barebacking" exciting are simply stupid.