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8 July, 2008July 2008
HIV/AIDS Project in India Launched
The ICEM HIV/AIDS Project, in cooperation with affiliates in India and sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim, a German world leader in pharmaceuticals, was launched with a planning workshop in Delhi on 3-4 July.
The workshop was attended by 16 participants from ICEM affiliates in the cement, diamond, chemicals, and coal mining sectors. The workshop benefited from the participation of SM Afsar, Technical Specialist, HIV/AIDS South Asia, and National Programme Coordinator, HIV/AIDS and the World of Work, and his assistant, Joshila. Coal India Limited was represented by the Deputy Chief Medical Officer of a regional coal mine, Dr Anurag Verma. The talk by Ms. Bhagwati, an HIV+ person invited by the ILO, was exceptional. She radiated will-power and confidence.
At the beginning of the implementation phase of the project, the ILO will do the initial training of a select group of master trainers from coal mining, chemicals, diamonds, and the cement sectors as technical support. This will be based on their trainers’ manual for HIV/AIDS peer educators. These master trainers will, in turn, train the peer educators.
The course for master trainers will be held in Kolkata, 18-20 August. In September 2008, the training of peer educators/lay counsellors by the master trainers will commence. It is envisaged that 500 peer educators will be trained (400 mining, 50 cement, and 25 each for chemicals and diamonds).
With the conclusion of the training of the peer educators, they will carry it to workers, family members, and members of the community. In the period to December 2009, each peer educator should reach 1,000 people. This is ambitious, but participants were enthusiastic and confident that this goal can be achieved.
CEP Humanity Fund Supports HIV/AIDS Project in Nigeria
The Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada agreed to support a joint project in cooperation with the ICEM HIV/AIDS Project and affiliates in Nigeria. Through the union’s Humanity Fund, CEP is contributing to train HIV/AIDS counsellors within ICEM’s two oil and gas union affiliates, NUPENG and PENGASSAN.
The project will extend ICEM’s work in Nigeria in training peer counsellors to provide HIV and AIDS awareness, education, and testing for workers and their families.
CEP’s Humanity Fund is unique in that funding comes through negotiated agreements with Canadian employers. To date, some 100 CEP locals, numbering 30,000 workers, have successfully negotiated payments into the Humanity Fund with employers. In 2007, contributions to the Humanity Fund increased by 30%. The CEP currently is also funding a project in partnership with the Fédération des Travailleurs de Québec on HIV/AIDS awareness with an oil workers’ union in Chad.
CEP heralds the fund as not charity, but rather solidarity in “building partnerships with workers’, community, and women’s organisations in developing countries.”
News from Affiliates
ICEM affiliates in Nepal have mainstreamed HIV/AIDS in Occupational Safety and Health training. In a workshop, attended by 31 participants and resource persons, information on transmission and prevention was given. Participants resolved to intensify awareness campaigns at the grass-root level.
NUPENG and PENGASSAN, ICEM affiliates in Nigeria, continued their successful HIV/AIDS activities with a training workshop for peer educators/lay counsellors in Ibadan on 4-6 June 2008. The workshop was organised by national HIV/AIDS coordinator Olawale Afolabi. Twelve unionists received intensive training on peer education and counselling skills. Resource persons from SMARTWork facilitated technical sessions of the workshop.
The United Mineworkers’ Union (UMU) of Sierra Leone organised two workshops at the end of May. The workshops were aimed at building capacity for shop stewards, grassroots diggers, and community members, and to promote behaviour change and advocacy of VCT.
In Zambia, ICEM affiliates Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia (MUZ) and the National Union of Commercial and Industry Workers (NUCIW) have started on a series of follow-up workshops for peer educators to ascertain the achievements and difficulties faced by peer educators trained in previous years. Long working hours and the unwillingness of management to allow time for talks on HIV/AIDS were cited as the main difficulties.
In Côte d’Ivoire, national coordinator Charlotte Nguessan organised a training course for VCT counsellors from the unions. The course was spread over five weekends and included pre- and post-test counselling and practical cases at CIRBA, a medical centre which also facilitated the training.
ICEM Sub-Saharan Women Draft Women’s Charter; Global Women’s Committee Adopts Action Plan on Zimbabwe
The Women’s Committee of ICEM’s Sub-Saharan Africa Region met in Accra, Ghana, on 5-7June to draft a women’s charter for Africa. After a brainstorming session, three major issues were identified: decent work, gender justice, and HIV/AIDS.
In relation to HIV/AIDS, the women unionists from ten Sub-Saharan African countries discussed cultural features, such as polygamy and female genital mutilation, which present particular challenges to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The ICEM Women’s Committee, meeting in Geneva on 19 June, adopted an Action Plan on Zimbabwe. The violence by the bankrupt ZANU-PF government has hit women particularly hard. Those affected by HIV/AIDS are most vulnerable. Proper treatment to prevent spread from mother to child is not available. In their desperation, women have become commercial sex workers and hence, add to the spread of the virus.
Operations of all NGOs, which have been a major conduit for HIV/AIDS services, have been suspended. Although it was reported that more than 400 organisations working in the HIV/AIDS sector would be allowed to operate again, war veterans and ZANU-PF militants have prevented them doing their valuable work in areas of dire need.
UN High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS – Union Leader Speaks up on Workplace Interventions
The UN General Assembly organised a high-level meeting on 10-11 June to review progress on the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS.
While progress has been made on reducing infections, bringing down the death rate, and increasing the number of people on anti-retroviral treatment (ART), the number of people newly infected still outnumber the number of people who have been treated in 2007 by five-to-two, i.e. 2.5 million newly infected as compared to one million on ART (see article below).
During the civil society hearing, workplace responses were addressed by Romano Ojiambo Ochieng, General Secretary of the Ugandan Amalgamated Transport and General Workers’ Union. He emphasised that HIV/AIDS is a workplace issue, linked to the broader issues of economic growth and sustainable development.
The potential of the workplace as a vital entry point for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes continues to be overlooked. Many national plans to fight the pandemic still lack a strategy for the world of work.
Many companies began to act when they realised that HIV/AIDS programmes were not only good for corporate social responsibility, but also essential for corporate self-interest, evening some cases, the company’s survival. The position of labour unions in the workplace makes them ideally placed to help workers who are reluctant to submit to testing for fear of discrimination.
Ochieng came out with a number of recommendations, including companies seeking new co-investment opportunities must collaborate with unions to strengthen the impact of interventions; to increase investment in training for union activists; to introduce policies keeping with the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work; and representation of unions and employers on national HIV/AIDS consultative and policy-making bodies.
(Sources: UN Press Releases and ITF HIV/AIDS Update 46 of 1 July)
Three Million Now Receiving Life-saving Drugs
The close of 2007 marks an important step in the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Nearly three million people are now receiving anti-retroviral treatment (ART) in low- and middle-income countries, according to a new report jointly launched on 2 June by WHO, UNAIDS, and UNICEF.
The report, Towards Universal Access: Scaling Up Priority Interventions in the Health Sector, also points to other gains. These include improved access to interventions aimed at preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), and expanding testing and counselling.
According to the authors of the report, the close of 2007 saw nearly one million more people receiving ART, bringing the total to almost three million. This figure was the target of the 3x5 initiative that sought to have three million HIV-positive people on treatment by the end of 2005. Although that target was not achieved until two years later, it is widely credited with jump-starting the push towards ART scale-up.
(Source: WHO press release, 2 June)
Risk Factors for Spread of HIV in Afghanistan High
Although the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is relatively low in Afghanistan, the country’s Ministry of Public Health recently said that the potential risk factors for the spread of the virus are high. These include war, poverty, illiteracy, massive internal and external displacement, the existence of commercial and unsafe sex, and unsafe injection practices and blood transfusions.
There is widespread stigma and a lack of awareness about the disease in Afghanistan. The World Bank has granted US$10 million to the country’s Health Ministry for identifying and creating public awareness among groups most at risk of HIV/AIDS.
(Source: www.news–medical.net, published 28 May and based on a report by Reuters)
News from the Global Union Programme and Global Unions
In its most recent HIV/AIDS Updates, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) (www.itfglobal.org) reports, among other things, on the publication of the ILO report entitled “Saving Lives, Protecting Jobs” on the SHARE project. According to the report, workplace attitudes towards people living with HIV/AIDS and acceptance of condom use and other preventive measures have increased in the countries covered by the SHARE project.
It further reports on inroads made against the epidemic in Cambodia and the dangers of a potential increase of infections in Sri Lanka because of the large number of commercial sex workers, internally displaced people and migrant workers. In Kiev, the ITF organised an Eastern European sub-regional HIV/AIDS workshop.