Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - Friday, July 9, 2004
Penchan Charoensuthiphan
If the government does so, the private sector will have to follow suit and stop discriminating against job applicants and employees with HIV/Aids, they said.
The Aids test requirement constituted a serious violation of individual rights, said the groups which made their calls to Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra at Government House yesterday.
The groups also demanded that the government provide Aids drugs to infected people as part of its 30-baht health care scheme, as well as scrap the regulation limiting the Social Security Fund's budget for buying Aids drugs at 5,000 baht per head per month.
Surachai Panakitsuwan, from an alliance of Thai business groups against Aids, said surveys conducted by his group among 900 employees at 510 workplaces in 29 provinces found that 12% of workplaces required job applicants to undergo Aids tests, 9.5% required their workers to take blood tests, and 4.9% had laid off HIV-infected workers.
The studies also showed that 54% of the workplaces had no clear policy on whether to continue hiring employees with Aids or keep their HIV infection secret, 66.9% had no measure to prevent discrimination against HIV-infected employees, and 46.8% failed to educate employees about Aids.
According to the surveys, 7.9% of the respondents said they would kill themselves if they were infected with the Aids virus.
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