China: Discrimination Fuels HIV/AIDS Crisis

Investigation Urged into Blood Infection Scandal

(Hong Kong, September 3, 2003) -- Widespread discrimination against
people with HIV/AIDS is fueling the spread of the epidemic in China,
Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released todayMany people
living with HIV/AIDS have no access to health care because hospitals
refuse to treat them. Human Rights Watch found that at one hospital,
the door to the AIDS clinic was actually padlocked.

National laws discriminate against people with HIV/AIDS, and some
local laws ban them from using swimming pools or working in food
service. The police send drug users to detoxification centers, where
they are forced to labor without pay to make trinkets for tourists.
Instead of receiving help for their problem, they are driven
underground, making it harder for the government to combat the AIDS
virus.

The 94-page report, "Locked Doors: The human rights of people living
with HIV/AIDS in China", is based on more than 30 interviews with
people with HIV/AIDS, police officers, drug users, and AIDS outreach
workers in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Yunnan province."Discrimination is
forcing many people to live as outcasts, and the Chinese government
tolerates it instead of combatting it," said Brad Adams, executive
director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division. "That is sure to make
the AIDS crisis worse."The Human Rights Watch report documents:

The spread of HIV through unsafe state-run blood collection centers
in seven provinces, the cover-up of the epidemic by local officials,
and the state's failure to provide treatment or hold officials
accountable;· Restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly,
association and the right to information of those living with
HIV/AIDS and those seeking to help them;·

Discrimination based on HIV status by government hospitals and
government employees;

Mandatory HIV testing in state facilities and violations of patient
confidentiality; and Lack of access to treatment and other issues in
China's underfunded and problem-ridden health care system.

In Yunnan province, Human Rights Watch researchers visited Southeast
Asia's largest forced detoxification center, where drug users live in
crowded, unclean cells without adequate food or clean water.

The centers test drug users for HIV without their knowledge, do not
inform those who test positive, and do not offer treatment for
HIV/AIDS. Chinese government documents obtained by Human Rights Watch
show HIV prevalence rates among blood donors ranging from four to
forty percent across seven provinces, provinces that have a combined
total population of 420 million. This suggests that the number of
persons with HIV is much higher than the one million cases that
Beijing officially acknowledges.

Beijing has recently issued some positive policy statements about
HIV/AIDS, asserting the importance of non-discrimination in national
action plans. Some local legislatures, such as in Suzhou city, have
passed regulations to protect the rights of people with HIV/AIDS.

Small-scale pilot AIDS education and prevention projects could be
expanded and successful laws and practices in Hong Kong could be
studied on the mainland. But the Human Rights Watch report emphasizes
that the relatively small number of projects fails to address the
scope of the escalating AIDS crisis. "SARS showed the importance of
national leadership and a strong public health system in fighting an
epidemic," said Adams. "It is time for Beijing to show the same
resolve in helping people with HIV/AIDS."The Chinese government
continues to abet the local cover-up of one of the world's greatest
HIV/AIDS scandals, the Human Rights Watch report shows.

Chinese citizens in seven central provinces contracted HIV through
state-run blood collection centers, but few have received treatment
or compensation, and not a single official has been prosecuted to
date."It is time for China to confront the blood collection scandal,"
Adams said. "Beijing should authorize a full and impartial
investigation into the involvement of local authorities in the blood
scandal, and hold those responsible accountable. If China can't do
this, it should ask the United Nations or another independent
organization to establish the facts.

"China should immediately start providing compensation and treatment
to anyone who directly or indirectly contracted HIV/AIDS as a result
of the unprecedented blood collection scandal, Adams said.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/china0803/