Dr. Angela El-Adas interacting with the media
A revised version of the National HIV/AIDS Workplace Policy has been launched by the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) to provide guidelines for organizations in the development and implementation of workplace HIV policies.
The policy document developed by the National Tripartite Committee, together with the Ghana AIDS Commission, highlights key issues to ensure that organizations create a safe environment for everybody, irrespective of their HIV status, to operate comfortably and normally in their workplaces without having their human rights infringed upon.
The policy, sponsored by the International Labour Organization (ILO), will also ensure that there is confidentiality with regard to the disclosure of an employee?s HIV status within an organization.
Dr. Angela El-Adas, Director General of the commission, disclosed this during a media encounter last Friday in Accra.
The event was to offer the commission the opportunity to interact with key civil society organizations, representatives of development partners, and the media who have supported the commission?s work in the country.
Dr. El-Adas said the revised policy was to ensure that various workplaces across the country were free of stigma and discrimination relating to HIV or behaviours that would drive the HIV epidemic at the workplace.
She said stigma was a major factor why people would not go for HIV services; thus the introduction of the workplace policy to ensure people were not discriminated against at their workplaces because of their HIV status.
She noted that the commission was dialoguing with institutions in the country that had a mandatory HIV test policy, in order to deal with the issue of stigmatization.
?We must not have people denied employment because of their HIV status. In fact, an HIV test must not be mandatory condition for employment for this country, it is against the policy that we are operating within,? she noted.
She further noted that the commission was in the process of developing a resource mobilization strategy which would include a national HIV fund that would not only go for policy issues but would also support the national response.
?Come first quarter next year, we should have a sound mobilization resource in hand. We should have lobbied and increased our advocacy that we would perhaps have parliament considering funding in order to ensure that we sustain our response in the country,? she said.
Ransford Tetteh, President of the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA), admonished the media not to focus all their attention on politics and rather look at the issues that confronted the development of the country.
He said the media had the responsibility to educate the populace on the effect of stigmatization of persons with the HIV virus.
He also called on management of organizations to give the needed support and commitment so the objectives of the new HIV/AIDS workplace policy would be achieved.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
