‘Pinoys with HIV suffer from workplace discrimination’

The group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said workers and employees in the Philippines living with HIV who suffer workplace discrimination often do not seek redress.

HRW said workplace discrimination in the Philippines includes refusal to hire, unlawful firing, and forced resignation of people with HIV. Some employers may also disregard or actively facilitate workplace harassment of employees who are HIV positive.

In most of the discrimination cases the group had documented, employees with HIV did not file formal complaints, mostly owing to fear of being further exposed as an HIV patient that could disrupt future employment.

“The Philippines faces a double whammy of increasing HIV infection and fears by workers with HIV that they can’t seek justice if they are discriminated against on the job. The government needs to ensure that people living with HIV get better protection in their jobs and that the public gets more and better information on HIV,” said Carlos Conde, Philippines researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The Philippines has the fastest-growing HIV infection rate in the Asia-Pacific region.

The number of new cases in the Philippines of HIV, which causes AIDS, jumped from only four a day in 2010 to 31 a day as of November 2017. From just 117 cases a decade ago, the total number of HIV cases as of last November is 49,733, an overwhelming majority of which – 41,369, or 83 percent – were reported in the past five years alone.

Most new infections, up to 83 percent according to the government, occur among men or transgender women who have sex with men.

The increase prompted the government to declare a “national emergency” in August 2017. The epidemic is fueled by an environment hostile to policies and programs proven to help prevent HIV transmission. Government policies create obstacles to access to condoms and HIV testing and limit educational efforts on HIV prevention.

Conde said the Philippines has strong laws on HIV/AIDS law, which criminalizes workplace discrimination against people living with HIV but the government is adequately enforcing the laws to prevent and punish workplace discrimination.

The extent of workplace discrimination is difficult to ascertain, HRW said.

“Government agencies authorized to investigate and prosecute violations of the HIV/AIDS discrimination laws do not maintain a database of cases and rely almost exclusively on nongovernmental organizations such as Action for Health Initiatives (ACHIEVE) and Pinoy Plus, which only have databases of people seeking their services.”