By Sara L.M. Davis
Yu Hua’s New York Times op-ed, “In China, Grievances Keep Coming“, says that China’s petitioning system works alongside the legal system as a parallel way to channel thousands of individual grievances each year. In fact, as Asia Catalyst sees in our work with Chinese AIDS NGOs, the petitioning system undermines social stability.
Wish tree at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna
By Mike Frick
Last week, China’s Ministry of Health released a draft “Code of Conduct for Medical Practitioners” for public review and comment. The document lays out a code of conduct for hospital administrators, doctors, nurses and other medical personnel. According to the ILO, many Chinese hospitals refuse to treat patients with HIV/AIDS – so there is definitely a need for new policies. We reviewed the draft code within Asia Catalyst and found some areas of progress, as well as some areas where the standards need a lot more work.
It’s not every day that Asia Catalyst appears in the Wall Street Journal…or the People’s Daily, the official organ of the Chinese Communist Party. It was a pleasant surprise, then, when both happened in the same week.
Here’s a link to an article about Chinese civil rights group Tianxia Gong and their campaign to end employment-related discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in China. Staff of the grassroots NGO asked friends and supporters to pose for the camera with signs reading “PLWHA can be teachers” and “End discrimination against PLWHA”. UNAIDS picked it up, and over 12,000 people around the country have had their photos taken. We are honored to be part of this important campaign.
We’re delighted to see the fine work of Red Ribbon Home was featured in the Shanghai Daily on December 1, World AIDS Day. As the Daily write, Red Ribbon Home was founded by Zhang Lin, a woman living with HIV/AIDS, in Ruili, Yunnan. Red Ribbon Home provides frontline services to people living with HIV/AIDS, and holds social activities to provide a safe space for the community to connect with one another.
Red Ribbon Home was selected as a member of Asia Catalyst’s 2012 NGO Leadership Cohort program, which is training ten grassroots health rights groups in organizational management and advocacy skills.
Asia Catalyst, Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group and Dongjen Center for Human Rights Education and Action announce the publication of the second in our series of human rights manuals for grassroots groups from HIV/AIDS-affected communities: Know It: The Rights Framework.
