Addressing stigma and discrimination as a barrier to effective workplace interventions

Leadership, understanding and feedback is essential in workplace HIV/AIDS interventions

This document is the report from the ICASA (International Conference of HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa) Skills Building Workshop held in Nairobi in September 2003. The participants were asked to consider the effects and counter-measures for stigma and discrimination in four areas of workplace intervention: policy development and implementation; prevention, education and behaviour change; voluntary counselling and testing (VCT); and care, support and treatment. The report is based on the discussions held at this workshop.

Key recommendations that emerged from the meeting included: HIV/AIDS policy must reflect the real threat to the company and its community; and leadership is vital in demonstrating company commitment to an AIDS programme and to tackling stigma in particular; proper implementation relies on the support and understanding of managers and other key staff; and the impact of the policy on individual employees should be positive and success should be reported. Workshop participants agreed that however comprehensive a company’s HIV/AIDS programme might be, stigma and discrimination present real barriers to its implementation. Consequently, companies should draw on a wide range of strategies and practices to help tackle them at all stages of policy creation and implementation.[adapted from author]

Related content

Document
Transactional sex and risk for HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Joyce Wamoyi, Kirsten Stoebena, Natalia Bobrova, T. Abramsky, Charlotte Watts / 2016
Young women aged 15 to 24 years in sub-Saharan Africa continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV. A growing number of studies have suggested that the practice of transactional sex may in part explain women's heightened risk, but evidence on the association between transactional sex and HIV has not yet been synthesized.
Document
Income-generating activities for young peoplein southern Africa: Exploring AIDS andother constraints
Flora Hadju, Nicola Ansell, E. Robson, Lorraine van Blerk, Lucy Chipeta / Wiley Online Library, 2010
This paper reports on a study with rural young people (aged 10–24 years) in Malawi and Lesotho, focusing on their opportunities to learn skills and access capital and assets to engage in income-generating activities (IGAs).
Document
Ending child marriage and stopping the spread of HIV ...opportunities and challenges for action
End Child Marriage Now (African Union), 2016
AIDS is now the number-one killer of adolescents in Africa. What is more worrying is that seven of every 10 new infections of HIV among adolescents are girls, which shows how vulnerable girls are to acquiring HIV.
Document
Averting 'New Variant Famine' in Southern Africa: building food-secure livelihoods with AIDS-affected young people
N. Ansell, E. Robson, L. van Blerk, F. Hajdu / Economic and Social Research Council, UK, 2009
Numerous reports have linked AIDS’ impacts on young people and their long term food insecurity, through, for instance, orphans’ failure to inherit property and resources; inability to retain rights to land which they are too young or inexperienced to farm; or interruption of intergenerational knowledge transfer following parental deaths.
Document
Averting ‘New Variant Famine’ in Southern Africa: building food-secure rural livelihoods with AIDS-affected young people
N. Ansell / Department for International Development, UK, 2009
Southern Africa is experiencing the world’s highest HIV prevalence rates alongside recurrent food crises. This has prompted scholars to hypothesise a 'New Variant Famine' in which inability to access food is driven by the effects of AIDS. In line with this, it has been suggested that the impacts of AIDS on young people today is likely to diminish their prospects of food security in adult life.

Eldis

Addressing stigma and discrimination as a barrier to effective workplace interventions