(New York) -- Chinese Vice-Premier and Minister of Health Wu Yi should do more to address abuses against persons living with HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch said today. The Vice-Premier is visiting Washington D.C. this week for meetings on trade and commerce.
China faces what could become the largest HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world. Since Wu took the helm of the Ministry of Health in 2003, the Ministry has announced a new AIDS treatment plan, issued several new policy statements, and established a national AIDS prevention committee. However, many abuses have yet to be addressed.
"The Vice-premier has made some good statements about a new approach to China's HIV/AIDS epidemic," said Sara Davis, researcher in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "But China should be judged on whether it really implements those promises."
Human Rights Watch said China urgently needs to pass a national law barring discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS, and to create a mechanism through which victims of discrimination can file complaints.
A 2003 report by Human Rights Watch, Locked Doors: the Human Rights of People Living with HIV/AIDS, detailed widespread discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS, especially by health care facilities. As a result, many with HIV/AIDS in China live "underground" without access to treatment or care. China has no national law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of health status, and local regulations in many areas permit discrimination.
In March, Yunnan province passed new regulations that aim to protect people living with HIV/AIDS from discrimination. The "Yunnan Province AIDS Prevention Methods" stipulate severe fines and prison sentences for officials who discriminate against people living with HIV/AIDS, and underscore the importance of ensuring access to care.
"The new regulations are an important step forward," said Davis. "The Chinese leadership and Vice Premier Wu should use them as the basis for a national law."
Human Rights Watch pointed out that Yunnan and other provinces continue to detain injection drug users and sex workers, two groups at high risk of HIV transmission, without trial. In Yunnan, injection drug users are forced to labor creating batiks and fake jade for sale to the tourist trade. Sex workers, also at high risk of transmission of HIV, are also forced to work in labor camps.
"China's policy of administrative detention for injection drug users and sex workers is driving those people underground, and away from government agencies that might help protect them from HIV transmission," Davis said.
This month, Wu promised "severe punishment" to any official who covers up the extent of the AIDS epidemic.
Human Rights Watch said the Chinese government has yet to hold Henan officials accountable for a scandal in which perhaps a million or more villagers contracted HIV through blood collection centers run by health department officials and their relatives in the 1990s. Henan Communist Party officials covered up the epidemic for years, harassing protestors and expelling Chinese and international journalists.
"No official has been jailed for the Henan scandal," said Davis. "Worse, some of the officials who profited from the blood scandal and who covered up AIDS in Henan have been promoted. We suggest Wu begin her new accountability policy with them."
