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A torch-lit parade and protest in the Belgian city of Gent against the retaliatory measures of paper company Stora Enso has the full endorsement of Brussels-based ICEM, the Global Union Federation representing pulp and paper trade unions across the world. 
 
The parade and protest, to be held beginning at 19h00 on Tuesday, 7 February, is sponsored by the Gent-Dendermonde Region of ICEM affiliate De Algemene Centrale ABVV (La Centrale Générale FGTB). The march will convene in front of ABBV’s regional headquarters at Vrijdagmarkt (Friday Market), 9000 Gent, and after assembly, will proceed for one hour through the city streets of Gent. 

<img height="99" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMpaper.jpg" width="100"/>
 
The retaliation involves the sudden dismissal of two ABVV shop stewards at Stora Enso’s Langerbrugge paper mill on 30 December. Mill Management executed legal papers for their dismissal and had constables deliver the termination notices to their homes. 
 
The union protested directly to Stora Enso, and alerted the Finnish-Swedish paper company that it had 30 days to reinstate the pair to their rightful jobs, or it would set the Belgian legal process in play. The company, responding through its law firm, said that if ABVV/FGTB filed legal action for compensatory damages for the two, it would sue ABVV/FGTB for business losses connected to a short, but legal strike last fall that the union and two other trade unions conducted. 
 
Such a lawsuit against a union is unprecedented and currently not possible in Belgian courts due to the legal definition of a trade union. But right-wing political parties inside Belgium are pushing for a legislative debate on holding unions responsible for financial restitution during a work stoppage, and Stora Enso has now entered that debate. 
 
Tuesday’s event will showcase the necessity to strengthen workplace protections for on-the-job trade union leaders. And Stora Enso’s anti-worker practices at Langerbrugge will be shown as the shameful example of anti-social behaviour in Belgium. 
 
“This march is intended for the citizens and politicians of Belgium and to alert them that current law protecting shop stewards is inadequate,” said Katrien Van der Heist, regional Secretary for De Algemene Centrale. “It is clear to us that Langerbrugge management holds our two shop stewards responsible for the strike, and this is illegal.” 
 
But under Belgian law, a trade union’s only legal recourse is to seek a fine against the company and compensation for the individuals, but not reinstatement. “This is something that must change,” added Van Der Heist. “We must make the law stricter and force companies to take back union representatives who are fired for carrying out their legitimate duties.” 
 
The sackings came as a result of a 12-day strike by 330 workers at the Langerbrugger newsprint and publication papers mill from 28 October to 8 November, 2005. During that strike, mill management used coercive tactics by petitioning a Gent court to impose a €1,000-a-day fine on the union and its representatives for each worker that did not cross picket lines. The company also publicly declared that its concessionary proposals would only get worse each day that the strike lasted. (Further information on that strike can be found at <a href="/?id=19&doc=1482 &la=EN" type="internal">/?id=19&doc=1482 &la=EN</a> and <a href="/?id=19&doc=1485&la=EN" type="internal">/?id=19&doc=1485&la=EN</a>.) 
 

<img height="173" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0602ACCGCEPpicture.JPG" width="260"/>
From left: CEP President Brian Payne, ABVV Regional Secretary Katrien Van der Helst,and FGTB/ABVV National Federal Secretary Bruno Bachely.
Stora Enso also took indirect action against two ABVV shop stewards of cleaning contractor ACS. They informed the contractor that the stewards could not work inside Langerbrugge under threat of ACS losing the cleaning contract. The two women shop stewards had stopped by picket lines during the strike to express solidarity. 
 
The torch-lit march through the streets of Gent comes 12 days after the world’s largest pulp, paper and paperboard company locked out 600 members of ICEM affiliate Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada at a mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. (For information on the lockout, see <a href="/?id=77&doc=1635&la=EN" type="internal">/?id=77&doc=1635&la=EN</a>.) Brian Payne, president of CEP, was in Brussels yesterday and not only pledged a presence at the parade, but also pledged a continued link of solidarity and communication between CEP Local 972 in Nova Scotia and Belgian ABVV-FGTB.

Stora Enso Retaliates Against Union Leaders in Gent, Belgium

<img height="80" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ThailandFlag.gif" width="120"/>
An ICEM intervention in a Thai glass factory dispute at Saint-Gobain Sekurit produced a victory for 700 workers last week. 
The majority of the workers, members of a plant union affiliated with the Federation of Thailand Automobile Workers’ Unions, had been locked out since 6 January by hostile local managers. They conducted demonstrations in front of the factory in Thailand’s Rayong province and at the Labour Ministry in Bangkok, while the ICEM and French trade unions used a steady stream of facts and data in open-channelled dialogue with senior officials of Saint-Gobain in Paris. 
<img height="225" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0602ThaiSaintGobainprotest.jpg" width="300"/>
The factual matter included the harsh treatment inflicted on trade unionists at the plant, including initiating a court case in order to sack four of them for leading plant-gate protests. The contract dispute was over many issues, including bonus payments for 2005 and management proposals to cut Sunday overtime pay by half. 
After Saint-Gobain Sekurit imposed the lockout on half the workforce and sacked the four, bargaining became regressive as Thai managers dramatically reduced the bonus proposal and said it would be for two years instead of one. 
With front-line information provided by the ICEM, French unions Fédération Chimie Energie CFDT, CGT Verre Céramique and Fédéchimie CGT-FO were in daily contact with Saint-Gobain in Paris, putting pressure on top-level decision makers who steered the dispute to a successful conclusion. 
The result is that Thai glass managers reinstated the four and dropped the court cases. Union and local managers also agreed on all collective bargaining issues, including a bonus. The ICEM commends the French unions for delivering a fair and just labour agreement to workers at the productive and growth-filled glass factory.

Saint Gobain Glass Workers in Thailand Gain When ICEM Intervenes

<img height="40" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="100" alt=""/>
Global unions worldwide condemned the government of Iran’s brutal suppression of bus drivers in Tehran and surrounding areas on 15 February. The condemnations came from the Global Union Federations, national unions and the ICFTU, but also were heard strongly from transport and oil unions in Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Tunisia. Rail workers and maritime unions in some of those North African and Middle East countries also participated in the Day of Action in support of Iranian bus drivers.
The government’s Intelligence Ministry and its security militia, Basij, has deployed brute force since spring 2005 to put down strikes by drivers who have been seeking unpaid wages. And since December, the repression has become more violent with the government using a variety of means to silence drivers’ protests. 
On 28 January, 30 drivers were seriously injured and up to 1,400 were jailed for demonstrating. A few days later, family members and spouses of the jailed drivers gathered outside Iran’s parliament, Majiles, and were met by security forces. The leader of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Co. (Sherkat-e Vahed), Mansour Osanloo, has been held since the government arrested leaders of the union on 22 December.
Because Iranian security teams have used beatings to force drivers out on routes, workers have resorted to a continual “lights on” protest of buses to draw attention to the violent crack-down of workers’ rights by Iran’s authorities. The ICEM sent a strong letter of protest to the government of Iran on the 15 February Day of Action, which can be found at <a href="/index.php?id=24&doc=1658.&la=EN" type="internal">/index.php?id=24&doc=1658.&la=EN</a>

Iranian Bus Drivers Given Global Union Support

<img height="55" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief%201.gif" width="138"/>
Nigerian affiliate NUPENG held its First Delegates’ Conference in Benin City, Edo state, this month, and took unprecedented action toward peace and stability for the oil and gas sector of the country. 
The union issued a mandate that all refineries and other government assets that currently are up for privatisation need to maintain 10% stakes held by workers. NUPENG called for only “credible and competent” investors to take 51% stakes in enterprises, with 39% holdings held by the Nigerian government. 
The union’s Delegate Assembly also called on oil exporting companies to build new refineries in Africa’s most populous country, and pledged industrial actions between January and June, 2006, to address the issue of casualisation and contract labour. 
Specifically, NUPENG condemned the non-existent screening and auditing of expatriate worker quotas by the government’s Directorate of Petroleum Resources. Such standards exist now in memorandums of agreement. 
Peter Akpatason was re-elected as NUPENG President; Ikechi Pius was re-elected as First Deputy; and Wosu Goodluck won election as Second Deputy. In elections for vice presidents, Osai Eddy was elected for Warri Zone, Okeke Basil elected for Port Harcourt Zone, Bako Joseph won re-election in Kaduna Zone, and Fakumoju K. in Lagos Zone. Elijah Okougbo remains NUPENG’s General Secretary.

NUPENG Promises Industrial Actions over High Contract Labour Use

<img height="55" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/InBrief 1.gif" width="138"/>
Works Councils in Europe of chemical/foods conglomerate Unilever will handbill company plants in Germany and The Netherlands on the first of December. 
The actions, along with press attention and mass meetings, are in protest to Unilever’s decision to outsource 2,500 finance and shared services jobs to outside companies. 
The December date was chosen because it is then that the company will announce to workers outsourcing of human resource and shared services jobs to employment agency Accenture, and finance jobs to IBM. 
Unilever sites most heavily affected will be Rotterdam and Hamburg.

Workers at Unilever in Europe Take Protest Actions

<img height="101" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/ICEMOil.JPG" width="100" alt=""/>
US-based Halliburton, the giant construction and oil services company so closely linked to the Bush government, is intent on supplanting a national union at its Indonesian operations in oil-rich Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. 
The company is challenging the certification of Chemical Energy, Mines, Oil & Gas and General Workers’ Union (FSP KEP) at a regional labour agency, claiming a plant union is in place. FSP KEP has been the registered union at Halliburton’s energy services base in Balikpapan since 2001. 
Even prior to last month’s challenge favouring a company union, Halliburton systematically has attempted to weaken FSP KEP’s representation status by refusing to recognise the union’s shop-floor leaders, and then threatening to discharge FSP KEP leaders who step forward in the course of their union responsibilities. 
Halliburton got a foothold in Indonesia’s oil and energy industries some 30 years ago under the Suharto regime.

Halliburton Out to Break Energy Union in Indonesia

<img height="259" alt="" src="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/0511aficheviolenciamujer.jpg" width="200"/>
25 November 2005 
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 
 
Contents 
 
1. Belgium - Amnesty International 
2. Brazil 
3. Canada 
4. Costa Rica 
5. Guatemala 
6. Mexico 
7. Philippines 
8. Spain 
9. China - Worker Dies After 24-hour Shift 
10. European Union - Social Partners Agree Joint Text on Gender Equality 
11. Finland - Pay for women in Finnish industry is now 85 cents 
12. France - Equal Opportunities at TOTAL 
13. International Partnership for Microbicides 
14. ORIT - Women at the Summit of the Americas 
15. South Africa - ICEM Women’s Strategy Meeting 
16. Switzerland - New Weapon to Combat Salary Discrimination 
17. United Kingdom - “Women are less happy with their pay” 
 
1. Belgium - Amnesty International 
 
“If you beat your wife, you’re not a man,” is the theme of Amnesty International Belgium’s year-end campaign which runs from 25 November to 10 December 2005, which is International Human Rights Day. 
The campaign is geared primarily to men and young people. At least one woman out of five is a victim of domestic violence in Belgium, and apparently it is men who are responsible for such abhorrent behavior that drives too many women to the hospital…or the morgue. 
 
According to the World Bank, one woman or adolescent out of five (hence many millions of women) worldwide have been battered, or are victims of sexual violence at least once in their lives. Violence against women at home knows no social, ethnic, geographical or economic bounds. Unfortunately, this violence seems to be more and more a trait of all societies. 
 
Likewise UNIFEM, which has launched its 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence to last until 10 December, is also symbolically linked against gender violence and the abusive onslaught against human rights, which such violence brings. 
 
2. Brazil 
 
On 25 November, the 36 local unions affiliated to the FETIESC Federation in Santa Catarina commemorated the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women by launching a campaign entitled “What Example Are you Giving? What Future Are you Providing?" 
In Brazil, approximately 15,000 rapes and other acts of sexual violence occur each year, but women in most cases do not denounce their aggressors for fear of future insecurity. Most are cases of aggression committed at home by husbands and partners, in many cases in the presence of children. 
In Latin America and the Caribbean, domestic violence costs nearly 15% of GNP; in Brazil it is 10.5%. FETIESC has created a group called Men for the End of Violence against Women. 
 
3. Canada 
 
Vigils start on 25 November and go to 10 December, because in Canada 6 December marks the anniversary of 14 women who were murdered at a polytechnic school in Montreal. On that day in 1989, the students were gunned down by a man motivated solely by his hatred of women. 
Maria Shupenia from affiliate CEP Women’s Committee writes, “Since this massacre, and every year since, we remember these women, and gather to denounce all acts of violence against women in Canada.” 
4. Costa Rica 
 
SITRAPEQUIA’s Women’s Section had a debate on the draft legislation on the penalization of domestic violence together with the National Women’s Institute, including a film and panelists. 
All SITRAPEQUIA members received a flyer against economic and job-related violence which affects women workers in the Americas. Their conclusion is that there is no such thing as a democratic society with violence on the job. 
Elena Gutiérrez from SITRAPEQUIA writes, “The RECOPE refinery has many men and few women, there will always be more men…they were very impressed by the topic of the law to penalize violence against women. It is a draft that has been in discussion for three years. The women in the National Assembly are fighting for it.” 
 
5. Guatemala 
 
A group of women from Guatemala traveled to Spain and then to Brussels from 22 to 26 November together with Comisiones Obreras and the Spanish Women’s Institute to denounce the situation of extreme injustice of murders of women in Guatemala. 
This barbarism was influenced by armed conflict that went on for 36 years, during which rapes and sexual violence were part of the strategy of counterinsurgency. 
No one to date has been held accountable for these atrocious acts. Rather, since Guatemala is a patriarchal and macho society, women are penalized and no one recognizes their rights. They find themselves alone in fighting against the gangs of delinquents roaming the towns. The murders are not judged or condemned, which implies connivance on the part of the state. 
According to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, 1,188 women were murdered between 2001 and August 2004 in Guatemala. 
 
6. Mexico 
 
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s fourth largest city, is known as the capital of murdered women. At least 75 women, most of them factory workers, have been raped and murdered there since 1993. Scores more are missing. The city’s law-enforcement authorities have been exposed as incompetent or corrupt. 
More than a dozen women’s groups have arisen in the city, and these groups are composed of mothers and grandmothers and friends of the murdered and missing. The groups demand that more attention be paid to violence against women in a city where young women’s lives do not count for much. 
Women work late into the night without security. Billboards and bus advertisements warn women to be careful and watch for their lives. Women’s groups believe that the murders are the work of copycats who have discovered that they can rape and kill with impunity. 
In El Paso, Texas, just across the border, local lawmakers, trade unionists and students recently launched a Coalition on Violence Against Women and Families on the Border. Because of NAFTA, both countries must take the responsibility for the violence. 
 
7. Philippines 
 
The United Nations has adopted a Philippines-led resolution calling for global action against violence against migrant workers who are women. Among the key features of the resolution, nations are called upon to incorporate a gender perspective in all policies on international migration, including protection of women migrant workers from violence, discrimination, exploitation and abuse. 
The resolution also calls on criminalizing violence against women migrant workers, and protecting rights of women migrant workers, regardless of their immigration status. The Philippines has been forefront in advancing the safety of women migrant workers. 
 
8. Spain 
 
Comisiones Obreras condemned once again violence against women which is manifested at work by sexual harassment and bullying. In Spain, 60 women have died in 2005 of gender-related violence. 
This is a structural and globalized phenomenon due to unequal power relations between men and women. It is an expression of existing discrimination which is passed on by means of models and cultural patterns that see violence as acceptable. That is why education is necessary to raise awareness on prevention, detection and eradication of violence. 
Action is necessary to protect the most vulnerable such as the disabled, young girls, the elderly or migrant women who, because of their irregular situation, have little or no protection. What is even worse is the vulnerability of women and girls who are victims of trafficking and networks of sexual exploitation. 
Likewise, Comisiones Obreras denounces violence against women trade unionists, women and girls who are the victims of belligerent conflicts or fundamentalism and religious fanaticism. 
 
9. China - Worker Dies After 24-hour Shift 
 
A woman died of exhaustion after working a 24-hour shift at a Chinese handicraft factory, following weeks of 15-hour days, the Chinese state media reported on 3 November. 
The 30-year-old migrant worker, He Chunmei, fell into a coma and died after working for 24 hours at the Guangzhou Huaxin Handicraft Factory in southern Guangdong province. A co-worker said factory employees had been ordered to work 15 hours a day since 24 October to complete orders ahead of a planned move to a new location. 
 
10. European Union - Social Partners Agree on Text of Gender Equality 
 
The EU-level social partners agreed a new text to improve gender equality at the workplace in March 2005. The joint text is called “Framework of Actions on Gender Equality,” and was concluded by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the employers’ side.
Both parties state that integrated strategies are needed to promote gender equality and tackle the remaining inequalities of the labor market. These strategies include actions to desegregate labour markets and to address gender roles in society. The parties do note that difficulties still persist such as the difficulty to reconcile work and family life, the reproduction of gender stereotypes in employment, gender segregation in the labour market, and the gender pay gap. 
Four priorities were set to tackle the problems in the years ahead. They are meant to address gender roles, to promote women in decision making, to support work-life balance, and to tackle the gender pay gap. 
 
11. Finland - Pay Deficit for Finnish women is now 85 cents to the Euro 
 
In second quarter 2005, women's pay for regular working hours in the Finnish industrial sector was, on average, €11.42 per hour, with men earning €13.46. This means that for every Euro paid to a man, a woman earns the equivalent of €0.848 cents. 
In second quarter 2005, nominal wages for men were, on average, 1.4% above the second quarter 2004 level. In the same period, women's nominal wages rose by 2%. On average, real growth was 0.5%. The higher percentage for women reflects the lockout of the male-dominated paper industry in May and June. 
 
The biggest growth, 6.1%, took place in the rubber industry. 
 
12. France - Equal Opportunities at TOTAL 
 
The European Federation of Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers’ Unions (EMCEF), signed a European agreement on 21 November with TOTAL on equal opportunities. 
The agreement is based, on one hand, on a report on diversity and equal opportunities drawn up by the TOTAL European Works Council, and on the other the equal opportunities framework adopted by the ETUC and European employers in March 2005. 
An annual report will be presented which will enable the European Works Council to follow relevant developments. The report will be based on data on recruitment, career development, mobility, work-life balance, equal pay and training. The agreement lays down goals and objectives which will be negotiated together with the employer. 
 
13. International Partnership for Microbicides 
 
Women in developing countries will have easier access to future microbicides that will offer some protection against the HIV/AIDS virus. 
Two pharmaceuticals companies, Merck & Co and Bristol-Myers Squibb, have agreed to donate the rights to develop, manufacture and distribute vaginal gels and creams that include experimental compounds to help prevent HIV infection. T
he nonprofit International Partnership for Microbicides will be permitted to develop the products without paying royalties. 
“The search for an effective microbicide is crucial to providing women with more options to protect themselves against HIV infection,” said Dr Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. 
 
14. ORIT - Women at the Summit of the Americas 
 
Women trade unionists from the Americas met on 1 November in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in the framework of the Peoples’ Forum. The theme was to create work to overcome poverty. 
Unity and integration of the working class were also stressed as representatives from ICFTU/ORIT joined together with the trade union federation CLAT from the WCL. 
Decent work is the key to creating more democratic societies. Civil society needs space to participate, including activities promoted by the Organization of American States. 
 
15. South Africa - ICEM Women’s Strategy Meeting 
 
The Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) sponsored a meeting of ICEM’s African Women’s Committee to develop strategy. 
The shop-steward development project also has women’s facilitators who are building up women’s leadership on the shop floor. This work can be linked to the broader work of the women’s committee. The group worked on equal pay criteria and decided to investigate the pay situation in 14 different jobs done by women and men. 
In addition, Shirley Miller, ICEM’s African HIV/AIDS coordinator, presented ICEM’s fight against HIV/AIDS programme with an emphasis on gender-related challenges to the fight against HIV/AIDS. The women attending discovered how they can become more actively involved in ICEM’s project on HIV/AIDS. 
 
16. Switzerland - New Weapon to Combat Salary Discrimination 
 
Swiss trade unions say a new method of calculating salary differences between the sexes shows women are paid up to one-fifth less for performing the same work. Despite equal pay for equal work being enshrined in the Swiss Constitution, the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions said there had been little progress over the past 25 years. 
As part of a new campaign for higher pay for women, the unions unveiled an on-line pay calculator. The tool takes into account qualifications, including work experience and level of education to evaluate salaries between men and women doing the same job. The unions said making the calculation tool available on the internet promotes transparency and empowers women to demand equal pay. 
See <a href="http://www.lohngleichheit.ch">www.lohngleichheit.ch</a> (available in German, French and Italian). 
 
17. United Kingdom - “Women are less happy with their pay” 
 
Women are less likely to be satisfied with their take-home pay than men, a survey in the UK has revealed. Over one in four female employees said they are unhappy with their pay, compared to one in five male workers. 
However, in spite of this, women were found to be less likely to complain about pay. Only 39% of female respondents said that they had discussed their pay with their manager. Workers can check their salary against that of people doing similar jobs across the UK on the following website: <a href="http://www.paywizard.co.uk">www.paywizard.co.uk</a>.
<hr/>

 
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ICEM Women’s bulletin No. 7 – December 2005

This third issue of the ICEM e-bulletin on HIV/AIDS coincides with World AIDS Day, 1 December. On this day, the ICEM launches its leaflet on HIV/AIDS. You can find this leaflet on the ICEM website <a href="/sites/default/files/migration/icem/AIDS.pdf" type="internal">here</a> or by visiting the ICEM homepage and clicking on HIV/AIDS (<a href="/index.php?id=72" type="internal">/index.php?id=72</a>). 
You can also order copies of the leaflet from the ICEM Head Office. 
 
We hope that affiliates follow the ICEM’s call and use World AIDS Day to intensify their activities and campaigns to reverse the pandemic. Please let us know about your activities by sending information to <a href="mailto:hiv.aids@icem.org">hiv.aids@icem.org</a> so that we can include an item in the next e-bulletin. 
 
We have also included a new link on the <a href="/index.php?id=72&doc=1253" type="internal">ICEM HIV-AIDS web pages</a> to the German GTZ programme “AIDS Control in Companies in Africa”: <a href="http://www.acca-toolbox.org">www.acca-toolbox.org</a>. You can register on the website to get information on workplace interventions. 
 
 
Collective Bargaining Workshop on ‘Fighting for our rights’: Right to information, right not to suffer discrimination, right to treatment and care 
 
The ICEM AFRICA HIV/AIDS Project held its second National Workshop in Johannesburg in November 2005. 
 
Previous workshops had shown that we need to use our collective bargaining skills to prevent the spread of the epidemic, to defend our members’ rights at the workplace and to ensure that workers, their families and communities have access to treatment, support and care. 
 
Ten countries participated in the workshop and exchanged experiences in taking up HIV/AIDS issues at the workplace. Trade unionists identified key issues to assist negotiators in taking forward these issues at all levels: from the local workplace to the company, sector, national, regional and international levels. 
 
The workshop noted that discrimination, stigmatisation and lack of job security led to some workers not wanting to know their status. Greater awareness and knowledge about the epidemic and its treatment is essential to create an environment where more and more workers participate in voluntary counselling and testing. 
The workshop concluded that, in order to be successful, prevention strategies had to go hand in hand with treatment, including ART (Antiretroviral treatment). Another conclusion was that our policies and collective bargaining agreements have to ensure that workers’ human rights are safeguarded and strengthened. 
 
 
UNICEF/UNAIDS and Children 
“The face of AIDS now is becoming the face of a child” 
 
Participants at the ICEM AFRICA HIV/AIDS workshops have consistently raised concerns about the welfare of children either orphaned or infected with HIV/AIDS. UNICEF and UNAIDS have now launched a campaign focusing on the plight of children. A recent study by UNICEF highlights these difficulties for children, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. 
 
The study reveals that girls are 5 to 6 times more likely to contract the disease than boys. Also, less than 5% of HIV positive children have access to life preserving drugs. Most children get HIV/AIDS through mother to child transmission (MTCT). The majority of child deaths from AIDS occurs in sub-Saharan Africa: 450,000 of the 510,000 children who died in 2004. HIV/AIDS is made worse by poverty – in high income countries less than 300 children died in 2004. 
 
One of the most pressing problems is that the needs of children are not highlighted in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. In addition, antiretroviral drugs for children cost 4 to 8 times as much as those for adults. Getting the right drugs and administering the correct dose is difficult with children. 
 
Children do sometimes not even receive cheaper medications that can save lives (such as antibacterial agents which prevent infections like pneumonia), even though this could halve the number of children dying from AIDS-related diseases. 
 
(Source: Star 26 October 2005, Johannesburg) 
 
<a href="http://www.unicef.org/uniteforchildren/index.html">http://www.unicef.org/uniteforchildren/index.html</a>
 
UNAIDS/WHO: Global Number of PLWHA Continues to Rise 
 
Despite decreases in the rate of infection in certain countries, the overall number of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) has continued to rise in all regions of the world except the Caribbean. There are an additional five million new infections in 2005. The number globally has reached its highest level as a result, going up to an estimated 40.3 million people. More than three million people died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2005; of these, over 500,000 were children. 
 
These latest findings were published in AIDS Epidemic Update 2005, the joint report of UNAIDS and the WHO, which was released on 21 November 2005. According to the report, the steepest increases in HIV infections have occurred in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (a 2003 to 2005 increase of 33% from 1.2 to 1.6 million people) and in East Asia (20% increase to 870,000). Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the most affected globally – with 64% of new infections (over three million people) occurring here. 
 
The report stresses that the changes in people’s behaviour to prevent infection - such as an increased use of condoms, the delaying of the first sexual experience and having fewer sexual partners – have played a key part in the decline of infections in some countries. 
The 2005 report emphasises that a comprehensive response to HIV and AIDS requires the simultaneous acceleration of treatment and prevention efforts, with the ultimate goal of universal access to prevention, treatment and care. 
 
The full report can be accessed on the UNAIDS website <a href="http://www.unaids.org">www.unaids.org</a>. 
 
(Source: UNAIDS/WHO Press Release, 21 November 2005) 
 
 
“I’ll keep on Fighting” - Ugandan Woman Gets Human Rights Award 
 
Beatrice Were was honoured by Human Rights Watch with the Human Rights Defender Award for her campaign to help women like herself who carry HIV and the often heavy stigma that comes with it. 
 
Uganda was once hailed as a model for Africa because of its approach to fighting HIV/AIDS. There used to be an aggressive campaign, led by political, religious and community leaders, credited with significantly lowering the infection rate. But experts fear that those gains could be lost because of what they see as an increasing emphasis on abstinence, encouraged in part by the United States, a major donor. 
 
“Political leaders and religious people are now campaigning against the use of condoms and preach abstinence as if AIDS was a moral and not a health issue”, said Were. Were discovered she was HIV-positive in 1991 when she was 37 years old. Her husband had died of AIDS in the early 1980s. In 1995, she founded the national community of women living with HIV and AIDS, which has grown to 40,000 members today. 
 
 
Madagascan Mine Brings AIDS Threat 
 
QMM, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, the world’s largest international mining company, has responded to environmental concerns around the ilmenite (a mineral) mine, which it is building in the south of Madagascar. With many problems already solved, one problem remains, towering over the others: the threat of HIV/AIDS. 
 
So far the country has a low rate of infection, estimated at under 2%. But QMM has to bring in specialised workers from abroad, most likely from Rio Tinto’s old ilmenite mine in Richard’s Bay in South Africa, where the rate of HIV infection is almost ten times as high. The mining area and the community surrounding it have been made a priority zone for the national HIV/AIDS plan to prevent it from becoming a Trojan horse for the disease. 
 
(Source: BBC Radio 4, 3 November 2005) 
 
 
Country Profiles 
 
You can access your country’s HIV and AIDS estimates by going to the UNAIDS website <a href="http://www.unaids.org/en/geographical+area/by+country.asp">http://www.unaids.org/en/geographical+area/ 
by+country.asp</a>. Here you will also find the names and contact details of the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS, as well as the name for the UNAIDS Country Coordinator in your country. For a more detailed profile, click on UN Epidemiological Fact Sheets on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections on the individual country pages. 
 
 
This ICEM HIV-AIDS Newsletter – How to Subscribe or Translate? 
 
To subscribe to the e-bulletin, send an email to <a href="mailto:press@icem.org">press@icem.org</a>. Please put “subscribe ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin” in the subject line. 
 
Unfortunately, the e-bulletin can only be published in English. 
For a free automated (non-ICEM) translation of this HIV-AIDS bulletin into other languages, you may want to try <a href="http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr">http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr</a> or <a href="http://www.google.com/language_tools">http://www.google.com/language_tools</a> and insert the following URL into the window “Translate a Web page“: <a href="/index.php?id=72&la=EN&doc=1539" type="internal">/index.php?id=72&la=EN&doc=1539</a>

ICEM HIV/AIDS e-bulletin - No. 3

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British Gas engineers and technicians, members of ICEM affiliate GMB in the UK, began the first of five 24-hour strikes today at 7 AM on the company’s insistence to close the final pension scheme to new employees.
The 6,000 union workers will strike again on 19 and 21 December, and on 6 and 9 January. GMB members will also suspend off-hour service and repair from 8 PM to 8 AM from today to 23 December, and again from 4-10 January.
The union said it would keep service workers available to the utility’s most vulnerable customers, and is urging British Gas to supply customers that experience furnace problems with electric heaters. The union asks for British Gas to pay their electric bills as well.

GMB Members at British Gas Launch Strike Actions

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An eleventh hour agreement was reached late on Saturday, 30 September, just hours before 800 Canadian members of United Steelworkers (USW) were set to strike the Highland Valley copper mine and operations near Kamloops, British Colombia. 
 
USW Local 7619 and the mine’s owner, Teck Cominco, reached a tentative five-year labour agreement that will now be voted on by union members over the next week. The USW local issued a 72-hour strike notice on 26 September, and the Vancouver-based global mining house began shutting down operations in anticipation of a strike at the expiration of a prior agreement on 1 October. The tentative agreement came with the help of a provincial mediator. 
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The Highland Valley operation is Canada’s largest copper producer and generates 1.2% of the world’s copper supply, with roughly 80% headed to Asian manufacturers. 
 
In Eastern Canada, a strike by USW members at Inco’s Voisey Bay nickel operations ended 23 September, after 120 workers ratified a new labour contract. The strike started on 28 July 2006. 
 
The accord gives Voisey Bay steelworkers a 15.5% raise over the three-year contract, as well as a retention bonus of C$6,000. It also allows the nickel miners to gain parity with unionised Inco miners in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba.

Strike Averted at Canada’s Largest Copper Mine

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