[NEWS] Guangdong Province Ends Mandatory HIV Testing for Teaching Candidates

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By Mikaela Chase

Guangdong Province appears likely to be the first province in China to end mandatory HIV testing for prospective teachers. Currently, teaching candidates must take an HIV test as part of the required physical examination for teachers. Those who test positive for HIV/AIDS are effectively disqualified and banned from working in the education sector. On May 27, the Guangzhou provincial education department made public their revised health standards; as of September 1, people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) will be able to work as teachers (along with other previously excluded groups, including applicants with physical disabilities). The issue of employment discrimination against PLWHA in China received international attention this January, when the Nanjing-based nonprofit Justice for All obtained compensation for the plaintiff in the first ever successful AIDS employment lawsuit.

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[PROFILE] Shen Tingting: Researcher For Action

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tingting.jpg

Shen Tingting, a prominent HIV/AIDS and human rights advocate in Beijing, China, has been working with marginalized communities since her college days. In 2007, she, along with Li Dan, co-founded the Korekata AIDS Law Center. Until 2012, she was the deputy director of its parent organization, Dongjen Center for Human Rights Education and Action [https://www.dongjen.org/]. At Dongjen, she founded and managed an outreach program for sex workers in Beijing after she earned her masters from Renmin University in Social Welfare in 2009. Currently Tingting is a visiting research fellow at Asia Catalyst.

Tingting has written and advocated on a range of rights-related HIV/AIDS issues, including testing and confidentiality, compensation for victims of China’s blood disaster, and the rights of sex workers and drug users. She is the author of a new report on HIV testing and human rights in China, Real-Name Testing: Is China Ready? and previously conducted research to co-author a major bilingual human rights report, China’s Blood Disaster: The Way Forward. Her articles have also appeared in the HIV/AIDS Law and Policy Review.
She will present a poster on compensation for China’s HIV blood disaster on Tuesday, July 24th from 12:30 to 2:30pm and will speak in several other sessions. In the run-up to this year’s International AIDS Conference, AIDS 2012, Tingting sat down with Asia Catalyst to chat about her work.

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[REPORT] HIV Real-Name Testing: Is China Ready? (2012)

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By Meg Davis and Shen Tingting

About 4 months ago, Guangxi and Hunan provinces announced plans to require real-name testing for HIV, and the Ministry of Health expressed support stating it should be a national policy. Immediately there was a huge outcry from the China Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS, the China Gay Male Health Forum, and others.
A joint report from Asia Catalyst and Korekata AIDS Law Center calls on China to protect patient confidentiality, provide counseling, and end compulsory testing in order to encourage more people to get tested for HIV. Without these basic rights, Chinese government programs that aim to expand HIV testing will not succeed.

The following briefly outlines our joint report and conclusions, but first we want to tell you about a community-run HIV testing program right here in Beijing, which has been dealing with these issues on the ground.

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[COMMENTARY] On the Measures on the Administration of Internet Information Services／关于《互联网信息服务管理办法（修订草案征求意见稿）》的意见

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To:The National Internet Information Office,Ministry
of Industry and Information Technology 
国家互联网信息办公室、工业和信息化部：

In response to the Notice of Soliciting Public Comment on the Measures on the Administration of Internet Information Services (Draft for Public Comment)
issued by the two departments on June 7, 2012, I set out below my comment.

根据二〇一二年六月七日两部门发布的”关于《互联网信息服务管理办法（修订草案征求意见稿）》公开征求意见的通知”（以下简称”征求意见的通知”），兹提出如下意见。

Section 1 of Article 15 of the Measures on the Administration of Internet Information Services (Draft for Public Comment) (hereinafter referred to as “the Draft”) stipulates that any Internet information service provider which provides services of Internet users disseminating information to the public should require any of the Internet users to register real identity information. 

随同征求意见的通知公布的《互联网信息服务管理办法（修订草案征求意见稿）》（以下简称”征求意见稿”）第十五条第一款规定，”提供由互联网用户向公众发布信息服务的互联网信息服务提供者，应当要求用户用真实身份信息注册。”

对此，我基于如下所述理由提出删除该款规定的意见。

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[COMMENTARY] Rapid HIV Tests in China: The Voice From Community-based Organizations| 社区快检在中国，听听来自社区组织的声音

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By Hou Ye

The debate around real-name HIV testing–sparked by proposals in Guangxi and Hunan provinces early this year–has pushed the issue of confidentiality once again to center stage. To decrease loss to follow-up among people who test positive for HIV (i.e. people not returning for their results), testing agencies should rigorously protect patients’ confidentiality. Without an expectation of confidentiality, people may be reluctant to return for test results and be HIV-identified. This issue is no longer just relevant to hospitals, as a growing number of community-based organizations have begun providing HIV screening to their members and clients. Many of these organizations work with key affected populations (KAPs), such as gay and male sex workers, provide HIV screening to their communities. It is important for these agencies to share their experiences.

随着前段时间广西、湖南等地拟立法推行艾滋病检测实名制引起社会各界激烈的讨论，感染者的隐私权成为关注焦点。值得注意的是，为降低艾滋病检测的阳性流失率，检测机构应该对个人信息严密的保护以及负责人的后续跟进#。因此近几年来，在中国各个地区出现了越来越多的社区小组，他们大多来自于重点或易感人群–男同、男性性工作者等，为社区成员提供HIV抗体快速初筛检测。

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