Public Health
On October 13, 2010, the Yingjiang District People's Court in Anqing city, Anhui province, began China's first reported trial involving HIV-based employment discrimination, according to an October 14 China Daily article. Xiao Wu (alias) filed a lawsuit against the Anqing Bureau of Education (BOE) claiming that city officials' refusal to grant him a teaching position based on his HIV-positive test results "violated stipulations in relevant laws prohibiting discrimination against persons living with HIV/AIDS and infringed upon the plaintiff's lawful right to enjoy equal employment," according to the plaintiff's statement, cited in an August 26 Legal Daily report.
Officials from the domestic security unit of the Beijing Public Security Bureau and local taxation bureau authorities entered the offices of the NGO Beijing Aizhixing on Wednesday, December 22, 2010, and took with them "three large suitcases full of documents" as part of an inspection into the organization's compliance with tax regulations, according to a December 22 Radio Free Asia (RFA) article. Authorities took materials with financial and project information, some dating back to 2002, including funding agreements (with attachments, and financial and donor work reports), account books and vouchers, financial and audit reports, documents related to Aizhixing's property and taxes, and bank statements.
The following Chinese text was retrieved on December 2, 2016, from the website of the State Council of the People's Republic of China.
The following Chinese text was retrieved on December 6, 2016, from the website of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People's Republic of China; it does not reflect the change provided in the 2010 amendment.
Lead Poisoning in Children Triggers Protests by Parents
Transcript (PDF) (Text)
At this CECC Roundtable, award-winning HIV/AIDS activist Dr. Gao Yaojie gave a first-hand account of her work in HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and treatment in Henan province and throughout China. Have conditions improved for people living with HIV/AIDS in rural China since the 1990s blood scandal in Henan province?
Although the Chinese government has developed an anti-AIDS policy framework, civil society engagement remains a major challenge in the fight against the epidemic, according to an October 8 article written by the Executive Director of the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) published in the state-run China Daily. As of October 2007, an estimated 700,000 new HIV infections reportedly had occurred in China since 2006, representing an 8-percent increase, according to Chinese and UN official statistics cited in the scientific journal Nature's new study (subscription required) released on October 2, 2008. Among those newly infected, the study reported that men who have sex with men and women in general had the highest rate of growth.
Reports of the employment of underage workers in factories in Shanghai and Wuhan emerged in October, according to October 6 reports from Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch (CRLW) and Radio Free Asia, as well as an October 21 report from the Hong Kong-based China CSR and an October 9 entry from a well-known Chinese blog. In Shanghai, a 15-year-old laborer died from wounds suffered at the hands of coworkers at a pipe valve factory earlier this year, while a local blogger exposed several cases of child labor in Wuhan factories in October. These reports follow a child labor scandal in Guangdong that attracted international attention in late spring of this year.
Chinese authorities have made significant progress in their efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS since 2003, but at the same time continue to harass HIV/AIDS advocates. Authorities reportedly ordered the closure of the "AIDS Museum" Web site, www.aidsmuseum.cn, according its founder, Chang Kun, in a May 7 Radio Free Asia interview. Chang, an HIV/AIDS activist, said he received a phone call on May 6 from the site's Internet Service Provider (ISP) saying that the local public security bureau's Internet surveillance division reportedly ordered the site closed because it contained information about "firearms and ammunition."