Employers in China’s Yunnan Province openly discriminate against former drug users living with HIV/AIDS, according to a
joint report released by Asia Catalyst and Kangxin Home, a Chinese community organization.

Staff and volunteers of Kangxin Home interviewed community members and found that many had been fired multiple times from their jobs at small businesses such as auto repair shops, tobacco shops and supermarkets.

“While China celebrates International Labor Day, many people living with HIV/AIDS lack their basic right to work,” said Sara L.M. Davis, executive director of Asia Catalyst.

The report, Employment Discrimination Against People Living with HIV/AIDS and Injection Drug Users, is jointly published by Asia Catalyst, a U.S. nonprofit, and Kangxin Home, a group of former drug users living with HIV/AIDS in Mengzi City, Yunnan Province, China. Kangxin Home drew on their own experience and collected testimony from eighteen other drug users living with HIV/AIDS.

In many cases, drug users and people living with HIV/AIDS said they were fired after co-workers found out about their background. One part-time employee said he was fired by a hospital when co-workers learned he was living with HIV. They wrote a letter to the supervisor threatening to resign collectively if he was not fired. Instead of educating the staff about HIV, the hospital director complied with their demand.

“Discrimination is open and widespread in the private sector, but Chinese courts have tended to side with employers, so many people living with HIV/AIDS don’t sue for discrimination,” said Davis. “One person said her lawyer had told her not to even try.”

Kangxin Home calls on the government to strengthen legal protections against discrimination, asked the Yunnan Labor Bureau to better integrate people living with HIV/AIDS and former drug users into existing job training and placement programs.

Read the full report in English and Chinese here.