Mozambique Passes Law to Protect Workers with AIDS
By Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
The two main political parties in Mozambique have joined forces to approve a law protecting the rights of employees with HIV/AIDS. Many employers there had routinely forced job applicants to take HIV tests and refused to hire anyone who tested positive for the virus.
Mozambique's AIDS problem is serious. Estimates are that some 700 more people are infected each day, and the government believes that 400,000 people may die from AIDS related causes by 2002. Many of those infected are men working in South African mines.
AIDS took the lives of 2.3 million Africans in 2001, according to the United Nations. More than 28 million Africans now have the virus. More than 12 million children have lost their mothers or both parents.
There are some successes in the fight against AIDS. In Zambia, HIV prevalence in urban areas is on the decline thanks to prevention programs.
Information for this story was taken from stories in Lusaka's The Post and the African News Service, available at http://allafrica.com/.
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