CHENGDU - On Friday, a Yanbian county court in Southwest China's Sichuan province will hear China's second case involving charges of employment discrimination against an HIV carrier.

Xu Xinhua, who is representing the petitioner Xiao Jun (an alias), said he is confident his client can win, even though the first such case brought before judges ended in failure during a single hearing.

Xiao Jun, a 28-year-old Yanbian resident who aspires to be a teacher, tested positive for HIV during a mandatory medical examination, which he had to undergo before taking a post at a government-run school.

After seeing the test results, the county education bureau declined to offer him the job. As bad as that was, an even worse blow came for Xiao Jun when he learned that the news of his contraction of HIV had begun to spread around the education bureau.

Xiao Jun took the case to court on Oct 20, demanding the job he was promised. He also asked the county education bureau to apologize for allowing its knowledge of his medical condition to leak.

The Yanbian county court accepted the case in one week but did not follow the common practice of scheduling a hearing for a date within the next three months.

"The delay came about because the county education bureau has tried to give Xiao Jun a certain amount of money so that he will withdraw the case. But it won't offer him the job," Xu said, without disclosing the amount offered.

Xiao Jun said that he would not accept the money. "I just want a job to support my parents, since I am an only child," he told China Daily.

"I would even accept a non-teaching job in the school from the education bureau."

"We are confident about winning this case," Xu, whose practice is based in Kunming, Yunnan province, told China Daily in a telephone interview. He said China's AIDS Prevention and Treatment Regulation stipulates that HIV carriers and AIDS patients have the right to be married, employed, treated for medical conditions and enrolled in schools.

But a staff member of the bureau, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Xiao Jun has no chance of obtaining a job in China, largely because the general public is afraid to put their children in a classroom supervised by an HIV-positive teacher.

Xiao Jun, who comes from a family of illiterate farmers in Sichuan, graduated in 2002 with a degree in music from a teachers' college in the province. Since then, he has worked as a substitute teacher at primary schools, while supplementing his income by undertaking odd jobs.

Last August, Xiao Jun passed an examination given to gauge his qualifications for teaching music to students in a primary school in the county seat. He was asked to report to work on Aug 31. But before starting, he underwent two physical examinations organized by the county education bureau and was found to be HIV positive. The bureau later informed him that it would not offer him the teaching post.

Xiao Jun insisted that he had only contracted HIV and that he could work as well as a non-infected person so long as he does not develop AIDS.

Xiao Jun, who is single and has no girlfriend, said he doesn't know how he contracted the deadly virus. Shortly after learning he is HIV positive, he turned to the non-profit Beijing Yirenping Center, which helped him find his attorney, Xu.

Before Xiao Jun's case came to light, a young HIV carrier in East China's Anhui province had become the first Chinese person to fight employment discrimination directed against an HIV carrier. The man sued the Anqing education bureau in Anhui province after the bureau refused to give him a teaching post.

The court in Anhui ruled against the man in December. He later appealed to a higher court, which has yet to rule on the case, according to Xu.

Xu said he knows Xiao Jun isn't the only HIV carrier who has suffered from prejudice.

"Many don't have the courage to speak out, because they're afraid their information will be leaked," he said. "That could subject them to more discrimination."

China Daily