- 现金
- 943 元
- 精华
- 4
- 帖子
- 205
- 注册时间
- 2007-8-6
- 最后登录
- 2011-11-8
|
Hepatitis B carriers challenge discrimination
http://special.globaltimes.cn/2009-09/471637.html
The efforts of a young migrant worker from Fujian Province to become a cook in Beijing ended up creating a spectacle that involved reporters, disease control authorities and the police.
Mr Liao, who declined to give his full name, has the hepatitis B virus. He was applying for a health certificate at the Beijing Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention when reporters followed him on September 10. The certificate is required for all food catering workers.
There was hope for him to get it as a college student in Hangzhou became the first hepatitis B virus carrier in China to be issued the certificate on September 1. The new Law of Food Safety, which came into force on June 1, allowed hepatitis B virus carriers to enter catering.
But when reporters photographed his application process, the Beijing Centers staff became upset and finally called the police. Liao's application was put off.
"Beijing is Beijing. You cannot compare it to other cities," Liao quoted the Beijing Centers staff as saying. He was told this after asking why hepatitis B carriers could obtain the certificate in Hangzhou but not Beijing, he said.
Liao was not frustrated. He plans to visit the Centers again after a few weeks. "I have hundreds of thousands of people standing behind me," he said.
He is a core member of an online community for hepatitis B carriers. The website hbvhbv. com has accrued 370,000 members since it was launched in November 2007. Community members encouraged Liao to apply and showed him favorable laws and regulations. One of them accompanied him to the Beijing Centers.
A non-governmental organization (NGO) provided him with legal support. Beijing Yirenping Center counsels more than 100 people who come from around China every month and helps about 10 percent of them go to the court.
It was built with donations from hepatitis B carriers and foundations in December 2006.
Like Liao, hepatitis B virus carriers are no longer fighting alone for their rights. Many know each other on the Internet. They have clubs in a dozen major cities and have set up several non-governmental organizations in defense of their rights.
They believe that they have been discriminated against in the process of finding a school or looking for jobs. In spite of government regulations in their support, some of the best universities and institutions have closed their doors to hepatitis B virus carriers, and many Chinese and multinational companies prefer non-carrier candidates.
Hepatitis B carriers might be the largest marginalized group in China. China had 100 million chronic carriers of hepatitis B virus, according to a World Health Organization 2002 report, with the United States having 1 million and the world an estimated 350 million. China's Ministry of Health said in 2006 that the country had 93 million hepatitis B virus carriers.
Stepping into the light
In spite of their large numbers, it is only in recent years that these marginalized people have made their voice heard. Before, they were either silent or neglected.
"Even now many hepatitis B virus carriers prefer to remain silent. They are afraid that they will lose their jobs and have difficulty in finding other jobs when people know that they carry the virus," said Yu Fangqiang, who is in charge of legal aid projects at the non-governmental Yirenping Center.
Zhang Xianzhu, a 23-year-old college graduate, became the first Chinese to launch a lawsuit on hepatitis B virus discrimination when he took the local government of Wuhu, Anhui Province to court in November 2003. He won the case, but "became so famous that he could not find or maintain a job," Yu said.
"He is still shifting from one job to another in southern China. He has to leave as soon as people know that he is the one who sued for hepatitis B virus discrimination."
A greater hero for many hepatitis B virus carriers is an executed murderer. Zhou Yichao, a graduate of Zhejiang University, stabbed to death a government official in the prefecture-level city of Jiaxing, northern Zhejiang Province, in March 2004. A month earlier, he had been denied the chance of working at the local government because he carried the virus.
"The greater majority of hepatitis B carriers whom I know have respect and even gratitude for him. They organize events to remember him on the annual tomb sweeping day. They visit his mother regularly," Yu said.
"If not for him, discrimination against hepatitis B carriers would have been taken for granted as before. We think that he was going to extremes. But we understand how he felt."
Months after Zhou's case, the central government issued a regulation in January 2005 stipulating that hepatitis B carriers can become public servants.
Hepatitis B carriers are allowed to work in jobs other than those prohibited by the Ministry of Health – such as at hospitals and laboratories – according to another regulation published in May 2007. The regulation also said that the privacy of hepatitis B virus carriers should be protected.
They can launch lawsuits if a potential employer discriminates against them, according to the Employment Promotion Law, which came into force on January 1, 2008.
Although they have the protection of laws and regulations, hepatitis B virus carriers still have the feeling that the virus harms their career.
"Many excellent people cannot get into good companies because they carry the virus. They can only stay at small companies and small places," said Dong, a hepatitis B carrier who accompanied Liao to the Beijing Centers.
Dong, who would not give his full name, said he could not join a major aviation company when he graduated from college in 2007. He is pursuing a master's degree at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and will finish his graduate studies next year.
"My only good choice was to be a public servant because the government has excluded the hepatitis B virus from pre-employment physical checkups. The companies that may use my skills almost all require information about the virus," he said.
Legal battles
To get around the requirement about hepatitis B virus information, many carriers resort to cheating in the physical checkup, said Yu at the Yirenping Center. In a typical case, a carrier will pay a healthy person about 2,000 yuan, and have the latter's blood drawn under his name.
Others seek out the law. "Hepatitis B carriers know that the law is on their side, thanks to the publicity of previous cases," Yu said. Of those who turned to his organization for help, more than 100 went to court every year.
Multinational companies are more cooperative facing accusations of discrimination, according to Yu. "After all, they don't have this discrimination in their home country," he said.
More than 80 percent of the 96 multinational companies that his center surveyed in 2008 requested the hepatitis B virus information of potential employees, Yu said.
Of the approximate 100 hepatitis B virus carriers who went to court with the NGO's help, more than half reached an agreement with their employers or potential employers in the process of the lawsuit.
"Large companies don't like the publicity that comes with a discrimination case," Yu said.
About 90 percent of court decisions favor hepatitis B carriers when Yirenping is involved. However, compensation is nominal: about 4,000 yuan in Beijing and half that in smaller cities.
"It's not enough to have the law," Yu said. "We need to tell people that the virus is not as terrifying as they imagine. Otherwise discrimination will always be there."
Street hugs
To explain the virus, hepatitis B carriers in a dozen cities have organized regular lectures. Dong said that he and his friends in the online community invited doctors and medical professors to give public lectures at least once a month at Beijing universities.
"Those who come to listen are often relatives and friends of hepatitis B carriers," he said.
Some hepatitis B carriers have taken more radical action to share their problems. Lei Chuang, a student of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, held a banner and walked along the city's major streets for three hours on a Sunday in August 2007.
His banner said: "The hepatitis B virus is transmitted through sex, blood and during the delivery of babies. It does not transmit through food or water, or at workplaces. I am a hepatitis B virus carrier. Are you worried?"
He wanted to attract local media attention, and had one of his classmates call newspapers and television stations. But no reporters came until the end of his walk.
Even his classmate who accompanied him in the walk quitted halfway as he could not bear the way passers-by stared at them.
In the next two years, he walked another 10 times in Hangzhou and also Beijing. This August he and his friends dressed up as cartoon figures and stood at the gate of Peking University, accusing the institution of discriminating against hepatitis B carriers.
His efforts paid off. He became the first in China to receive a health certificate from the authorities on September 1, although he applied only to "test the enforcement of the law," he said.
"It is time for hepatitis B virus carriers to act as a group. We have to do something to change our fate," said the 22-year-old.
(NIDDK) |
|