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Govt urged to move carefully on legislation on...
2007-12-20 09:22:50
By Rose Mwalongo
The government has been challenged to move especially cautiously on the enactment of the draft legislation on HIV/Aids prevention and control, which stakeholders say is wrought with flaws.
Many stakeholders say drawbacks in the HIV/Aids Bill of 2007 include viewing the pandemic as a health problem, which contradicts with the policy now in use, and the failure to point out the body to supervise its implementation.
Remarks to that effect were made in Dar es Salaam yesterday at a workshop to discuss an NGO fact sheet on the draft legislation and discriminatory laws currently in use in Tanzania.
A number of those who spoke at the workshop, organised by the Tanzania Chapter of the Southern Africa Human Rights NGO Network (SAHRINGON), supported the planned introduction of a law providing for the prevention and control of HIV/Aids and the promotion of public health among persons living with HIV/Aids.
However, they were near-unanimous that qualifying that with a clause saying appropriate treatment would be provided only where resources allowed was making a non-committal statement the government could use to deviate from its responsibilities.
``The government doesn’t define its commitment to the implementation of the proposed legislation. The bill looks at HIV/Aids solely as a health problem that is supposed to preoccupy only medical practitioners,`` observed workshop facilitator Evod Mmanda.
Mmanda, a human rights activist, also challenged what he described as the too sweeping definition of the term ``stigma`` as the making of any gesture or other communication to the public that is threatening, abusive or insulting.
He added that the definition of ``sexual partner`` as a person involved in sex, as appears in the bill, was also wrong because it was too broad and suggested that rape was also subsumed under the concept as well.
Mmanda proposed that the bill be reviewed so that it requires all employers to provide their workers with education on the pandemic and supply condoms to those living with HIV/Aids.
He said that would be contrary to the clause in the draft bill reading: ``No religious organisation or group shall be compelled in any manner to do or not to do anything which is against the belief of that organisation or group so long as such doing or forbearance thereof does not contravene any provision of any written law.``
According to Mmanda, the bill has overlooked the fact that religious organisations are also employers and requiring them to provide their employees with condoms was against their religious teachings where the thrust is on abstinence as the only prevention against Aids.
The chief guest at the workshop, Dr Emanuel Kandusi, called upon human right activists to seize the opportunity given by the government to raise their concerns over the pandemic because keeping silent was tantamount to trying to rebuff inevitable changes.
SAHRINGON Tanzania Chapter national coordinator Rehema Kerefu said the workshop was aimed at discussing the bill so as to come up with recommendations for onward submission to the relevant authorities.
Leadership Forum representative Kapteni Ngweta explained that many people were disappointed seeing the incidence of HIV/Aids continue to rise, suggesting that humankind should seek divine intervention as the only way to rid the world of the pandemic.
But a representative of Upendo Group chipped in by saying it was wrong for people to randomly misbehave and then seek God’s mercy or help out of their problems.
The government sees the endorsement of the bill, which is applicable only to mainland Tanzania and is awaiting parliamentary approval, as leading to the enactment of a comprehensive law providing for the prevention and control of HIV/Aids.
The idea is to engage a combination of public health and human rights awareness campaigns and criminal law approaches to fight the spread of Aids and the stigmatization of people living with HIV/Aids.
Workshop participants included human rights activists, lawyers, religious leaders and representatives of government ministries.
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