Stigma and Discrimination: a Situational Analysis

Ford Foundation/Deakin University This session is one of three and is part of a project to review progress achieved by six countries - China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam - with respect to discrimination and stigmatisation against people who are HIV positive. It especially seeks to review the progress of each country's efforts to ensure humane care and support for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. The project is expected to run for 18 months and have as its outcomes, six national review of progress reports in addressing the issues of stigma and discrimination, six national consultations to focus on creating policies and/or to improve the implementation of policies to address the issue, and a plan of action to sustain an informal regional network to combat AIDS related discrimination. Speakers from the six countries gave reports on the extent of the epidemic in their country. They also gave descriptions of how HIV positive people faced discrimination based on cultural, social and religious taboos. This ranged from HIV positive women in India being blamed for their husband's HIV status and thrown out of the home to how children of deceased AIDS patients in the Philippines are denied permission to view their parents as the bodies are rapidly disposed of after death. To quote Dr Konglai Zhang of China, the prevailing opinion is that, "good people do not get HIV and those who get HIV are not good people".

The speaker who created the greatest impact was Mr Song Peng Fei of China who brought a video he had made of a family living with HIV in a Chinese village. Due to technical difficulties, the video could not be shown so he described it through an interpreter. This proved to be very vivid, for example, his description of how the other villagers refused to even pass by the house of this family. When they had no choice about it, they would walk by holding their noses and not breathe even when their faces turned purple in the process. He hopes to show his video at today's session.