Discrimination

Indonesia: HIV Discrimination In Institutions

Noticias

Asia/ Indonesia/ 21.07.2020/ Source: theaseanpost.com.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), HIV/AIDS in Indonesia is one of Asia’s fastest growing epidemics in recent years. As the world is currently battling a new coronavirus outbreak, old diseases such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remain a threat to many.

It was reported that more than half a million Indonesians are living with HIV. Nevertheless, because of the low understanding of the symptoms of the disease and high social stigma attached to it, some are suffering in silence.

An Indonesian activist, who is also a doctor, revealed that people who have contracted HIV in the country still face rampant stigmatisation and discrimination in the workplace. This was despite the existence of various regulations that are meant to guarantee people living with HIV their basic human right to work.

Local Indonesian media quoted the doctor who has treated HIV since 2000, Maya Tri Siswati, as revealing that one of her patients recently experienced such discrimination. Apparently, the company where the patient worked had fired him soon after he was identified as being HIV-positive.

«I’ve gotten so many reports of similar incidents in other companies, proving that discrimination against people with HIV is still rampant in the workplace,» she explained to the media.

Maya, a lecturer of medicine at Yarsi University who also serves as an International Labour Organization (ILO) consultant for HIV prevention and occasionally provides HIV education at a number of companies across the country’s capital Jakarta, suggested that medical school students should conduct a survey about the violation of the rights of people living with HIV in the workplace.

She said HIV-positive people who have undergone antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and consumed ARV drugs to suppress the HIV virus, as well as to stop progression of the disease, could still function normally like people without an HIV infection.

The activist was speaking to local media on the side-lines of a public lecture titled ‘HIV/AIDS Stigma and Discrimination in the Workplace: Time to Stop!’, which was facilitated by the University of Indonesia’s School of Medicine (FKUI) late last year.

HIV Indonesia
Source: UNAIDS

Indonesia’s former health minister, Nafsiah Mboi who was also at the forum, said that Indonesia already had a number of regulations that were meant to guarantee that people living with HIV had the right to work. These regulations include the Manpower Ministerial Regulation No.68/2004 on HIV/AIDS prevention and control at the workplace. Nafsiah, however, admitted that these regulations were poorly enforced.

According to the regulation, she said, employers were obliged to – among other things – take steps to prevent and control the spread of HIV in the workplace and protect workers with HIV from discriminatory acts.

«However, we can still easily find discriminatory treatment against people with HIV in the workplace, especially when they are women,» Nafsiah said, adding that female sex workers often received «unfair» treatment from society while men who used their services could walk free from stigma.

Schools

But discrimination against people with HIV is not only present in the work environment nor is it only among adults. This is also the case with children who are either born with HIV or contracted the disease early in life.

In February 2019, it was reported that 14 students with HIV had been expelled from a public elementary school in the country following demands from parents of other students.

The headmaster of the Purwotomo Public Elementary School who, like many Indonesians, goes by the single name Karwi, told local media that the students in question had not been allowed to attend classes in the town of Solo in Central Java province.

He said that the school’s explanation on how HIV is transmitted failed to convince the concerned parents, who threatened to move their children to another school if it did not expel the students suffering from HIV.

Treatment for HIV has come a long way since the early days. Both, Nafsiah and Maya have urged all stakeholders to work hand in hand with Indonesian society to tackle discrimination against workers with HIV as they could still work like other people as long as they underwent proper medical-treatment.

Source of news: https://theaseanpost.com/article/indonesia-hiv-discrimination-institutions

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United Kingdom: ‘I have a tiny violin somewhere’: Private schools roasted online after complaining about plans to get more poor students into uni

Noticias

Europe/United Kingdom/02-02-2020/ Author and Source: www.rt.com

Leading private schools in England have criticized plans to improve access to top universities for poorer students, saying it could lead to discrimination of rich kids based on “class,” provoking ridicule on social media.

The Headmasters’ & Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC), an association that represents some of the UK’s most expensive private schools, voiced concerns about proposals published on Wednesday by the Office for Students, the higher education regulator for England.

Mike Buchanan, the HMC’s executive director, claimed universities should expand to accommodate as many “truly suitable students” as needed, rather than “rob some students of a future to award it to others.” He argued that institutions must look at their international students intake rather than restrict places to UK students “based on their class.”Plans being put forward by the regulator include a promise to halve the access gap at England’s most selective institutions in the next five years, increasing the amount of disadvantaged students by 6,500 a year from 2024-25.

The seemingly hostile reaction from elite private schools has, perhaps unsurprisingly, prompted much mockery online, with many people expressing little sympathy with their “predicament,” with one person tweeting: “I have a tiny violin. Somewhere.”

Guardian columnist Frances Ryan sarcastically remarked that being discriminated based on class sounded like a “terrible education system,” adding: “We should totally do something to fix that.” Others online mercilessly attacked the premise that the “kids of the rich and greedy” deserve sympathy because they’re being attacked based on their “accident-of-birth privilege.”

Helen the Zen@helenmallam

All those poor, expensively educated, emotionally deprived, kids of the rich and the greedy, being discriminated against on the basis of their accident-of-birth privilege. You’ve got to laugh. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/29/private-schools-criticise-plans-to-get-more-poor-students-into-university?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other …

Private schools criticise plans to get more poor students into university

Regulator’s pledge to boost university access in England ‘may discriminate based on class’

theguardian.com

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Some accused the private schools of being “actual Marvel villains,” while another Twitter user claimed the “lack of self-awareness is astounding.”

Kalwant Bhopal, a professor of education and justice at Birmingham University, said that it was clear that young people going to independent fee-paying schools were “more likely to be middle-class,” adding that “these schools continue to perpetuate privilege.”

Fuente e Imagen: https://www.rt.com/uk/479471-private-schools-poor-students-universities/

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50,000 children missing from school: Australia’s ‘hidden disaster’ revealed

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Oceania/ Australia/ 03.12.2019/ By: Fergus Hunter /Fuente: www.smh.com.au.

At least 50,000 Australian children are completely detached from formal education at any one time, a new report has found, challenging schools and governments to face up to a «hidden disaster» that is structurally entrenched and poorly understood.

The research from the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education has sounded the alarm on children disappearing through «trap doors» in education systems that are failing to accommodate young people’s needs and embrace those who are struggling.

«Australia has a very serious educational problem that we seemingly do not want to acknowledge,» the researchers, Jim Watterston and Megan O’Connell, concluded. «It is an issue that needs to be brought out into the open and receive urgent attention.»

Through modelling based on internal education department data and statistics from multiple other sources, the report concluded 50,000 was a conservative estimate of the number of unaccounted school-age children who are completely disconnected from any form of education.

Some of the detached children may never have been enrolled in school while others fell out of the system along the way, having been expelled, dropped out, or moved home. The research emphasised this group of detached young people as distinct from students who are sporadically engaged at school.

«They’re not absent from school; they simply aren’t in one. We’ve allowed them to opt out and disappear through a range of different ‘trap doors’,» declared Dr Watterston, the dean of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education and a former teacher, principal and head of the Queensland and ACT education departments.

In the report – titled «Those who disappear: The Australian education problem nobody wants to talk about» – Dr Watterston and Ms O’Connell identified a number of drivers of detachment, including mental health issues, dysfunctional home lives, disabilities, behavioural disorders, bullying, and discrimination.

«These students either disappear or, worse still, are silently ushered out of the ‘back door’ by school leaders concerned about the reputational impact of these students on potentially lowered NAPLAN and ATAR scores or due to community concerns about their behaviour or ‘fit’,» the report found.

It lashed mainstream school systems for exhibiting hostility to students seen as problematic, who become «collateral damage» in a competitive school market focused on academic achievement.

The researchers have put forward a series of recommendations to tackle the issue. They called for a national approach led by the federal government, including early intervention and boosted support for accessible education programs and alternative environments to mainstream schools.

One student who has experienced disengagement and detachment from education, Eddie Wilkins, told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald schools had failed to manage his personal circumstances.

Eddie, 16, has come from a difficult background and dealt with a number of behavioural issues. Having grown up in Bayswater in Melbourne’s east, he was excluded from the classroom for all of year 5, missed all of year 8 following surgery, only attended six hours a week in year 9 and was expelled in year 10.

«From my point of view, it was pretty unfair,» he said.

He said his teachers had been hostile to him because of his record and dismissive of his issues, including a sensory disorder that makes him sensitive to certain clothing.

«They’re pushing kids for better results – and I guess that’s a good thing – but the kids who aren’t getting good results are just ignored,» he said.

Eddie eventually ended up at Lynall Hall Community School in Richmond, an alternative setting that is significantly more accommodating to his needs. He is now more motivated to attend class.

«These kids exist right through the system,» said Dr Watterston. «It is time to take serious coordinated action to prevent our most vulnerable young people from falling through the cracks.

Source of the notice: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/50-000-children-missing-from-school-australia-s-hidden-disaster-revealed-20191126-p53e5z.html

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Education as a weapon in Iran and South Africa

Amy Fehilly

By Amy Fehilly

Education is usually seen as the key to better societies and better futures. But it can also be used as a weapon of discrimination, as the legacy of South Africa’s apartheid era has shown. And in Iran today, the government withholds education for the same effect: to marginalize, penalize and repress the country’s Baha’i people.

“Education is a double edged sword that can liberate or be used to enslave,” said Professor Somadoda Fikeni, a policy and political analyst at the University of South Africa, speaking at an event marking the launch of Not A Crime’s new project in Johannesburg on June 1.

The project raises awareness of the educational apartheid against the Baha’is of Iran, the country’s largest religious minority. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian government has blocked Baha’i’s from pursuing higher education. As part of the initiative, Not A Crime studies the cost of discrimination in other countries where groups of people have faced discrimination. South Africa, which was ruled by the apartheid regime from 1948 to 1994, was the natural first choice for the study.

The panel discussion, which included experts in economics, law and sociology and IranWire founder Maziar Bahari via Skype, drew parallels between systematic and government-sanctioned education discrimination during apartheid and Iran today. “Iran cut links with South Africa during apartheid, but they continued to implement their own human rights abuses,” said Khwezi Cenenda, who chaired the debate.

The panel also featured Tahirih Matthee, Director of the Baha’i Office of Public Affairs in Johannesburg, Dr Iraj Abedian, founder and CEO of Pan-African Capital Holdings, and Professor Salim Nakhjavani from the University of Wits in the city, and took place at the School of Law at the university.

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Anti-Baha’i graffiti in Iran

So what happened to education in South Africa under apartheid, and what is its legacy today? The South African government, led by a number of leaders including Hendrik Verwoerd, denied South Africa’s blacks and “coloreds” access to equal education for close to 50 years. The fallout from that cruel education segregation is one of the main causes of South Africa’s wealth disparity and high unemployment today. “Just over 50 percent of our population is unemployed,” said Iraj Abedian, a South African-based Iranian working in economics and business. “Our economy is not doing well, we have a shortage of skills. This is not a society at ease with itself. If a society is not at ease with itself it cannot unlock its full potential.”

The Baha’is in Iran are subjected to discrimination on religious grounds rather than race. The discriminatory policies are rooted in a 1991 memorandum signed by Iran’s then and current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which said that the progress of the Baha’is should be “blocked” by denying them work opportunities and higher education.

“What are the Bahai’s really doing that makes the government so angry?” asked Tahirih Matthee.  It’s a question, she said, that you would never dare ask of South African blacks today, so the same can be assumed for Iran’s Baha’is. “Iran has the potential to thrive if they give equal opportunities to all their citizens,” she said.

In response to the ban on higher education, Baha’is created the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), an underground university, in 1987. Thousands of Baha’is currently study through the BIHE system, and academic institutions around the world recognize its qualifications. “The more I studied BIHE the more I admired the resilience of young Baha’is who were fighting to study,” said Maziar Bahari, speaking about the inspiration behind the project. “So I decided to make a film about the Baha’is in Iran. The Baha’is have flourished because of education and peaceful resistance. As a result, everyone should know about the BIHE and this successful peaceful resistance movement.” Bahari’s film, To Light a Candle, was released in 2014.

Not A Crime also focuses on the history of the civil rights movement in the United States, and a series of murals have gone up in streets in Harlem, New York, Atlanta, Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee — where divisive, discriminatory laws wreaked damage on communities for decades. Speaking about the murals, Bahari said Not A Crime looked to the experience of black Americans in order to “explore the real cost of discrimination, as a warning to the Iranian government.”

The event in Johannesburg also featured three short films produced by Not A Crime, interviews with South Africans who studied under the Bantu education system, which was implemented by the architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd, as a secondary form of education tasked with creating second class jobs for black citizens. “There is no place for the Bantu in a European community above certain forms of labor,” said Somadoda Fikeni.

African-Americans are still dealing with the aftermath of brutal discrimination, and South Africans still deal with the legacies of apartheid today. In South Africa, overcoming that past and working for equal education is now a national mandate. The stories of people who lived through this time serve as an inspiration for the Baha’is in Iran – and, as Bahari describes, specifically as a warning to the Iranian government of the consequences of denying basic rights to 300,000 Baha’i Iranian citizens.

Speaking at the Johannesburg event, Abedian also issued a warning against “institutionalized, state-driven and politically motivated” denial of education. “The discrimination is based not on racial grounds but religious grounds; the essence is identical,” he said.

Perhaps most importantly, the discussion in South Africa ended on a message of hope. “The denial of access to knowledge is in itself one of the most grievous acts of oppression,” said Salim Nakhjavani. He asked the audience what they thought Iran could learn from the South African experience, and speakers discussed how peaceful resistance — a key tenet of the Baha’i faith — could bring about change in Iran.

 

Source of the article: http://iranpresswatch.org/post/14813/education-as-a-weapon-in-iran-and-south-africa/

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