RAYMOND OZOJI reports
The Anambra State House of Assembly has displayed what maybe described as empathetic concern for persons living with HIV/AIDS virus as the legislature comes up with a bill to protect carriers of the deadly virus from all forms of discriminatory tendencies ranging from ostracism, termination of job appointments, dehumanization as well as stigmatization due to their medical conditions.
Lawmakers during the debate for the bill to scale through second reading on the floor of the house, argued that persons living with the virus are being subjected to very excruciating conditions in the society which oftentimes resulted in isolation, depression and eventual death of the victims even as the legislators concurred that HIV/AIDS are not worst than tuberculosis, diabetes and other dire health conditions coupled with the fact that it is not a death sentence.
Chief sponsor of the bill and member representing Ogbaru 1 state constituency Hon. Noble Igwe said it is important that persons living with HIV and AIDS virus are given sense of belonging and fulfillment; arguing that someone who has the virus can still live a normal life devoid of societal discriminations.
Igwe noted that most times HIV/AIDS carriers are sacked from their jobs because of their medical conditions. The lawmaker who maintained that such dehumanizing treatments are unfair, stressed that they should not be discriminated against because they are human beings too.
He therefore called on his colleagues to lend their voices to the bill to ensure that it sees the light of the day so as to prevent HIV/AIDS carriers from being isolated or discriminated against in churches, schools, workplaces, family settings and other forms of associations and interpersonal relationships.
Meanwhile the Chairman House of Assembly Committee on Health and member representing Aguata 2 state constituency Hon.Tony Muobike added that the bill is very timely especially at a time when the American Government under Donald Trump has withdrawn all aids given to developing nations like Nigeria to tackle the HIV/AIDS scourge.
Muobike noted that the crux of the proposed law is the protection of persons living with HIV/AIDS virus from victimizations. He noted that when persons living with the virus are discriminated against, it pierces through their very beings and leads to depressions; loss of personal worth and dignity thereby making them feel less human which he said results in other chain effects like low productivity at the workplace, truncated marriages and other interpersonal relationships as well as their contributions to the society at large.
The House of Assembly Health Committee Chairman therefore posited that if the 8th legislature is able to pass the bill into law and people understand that persons living with HIV AIDS virus should not be victimized or discriminated against, then they will have their pride as human beings and be able to live up their full potentials contributing their own quota to the society.
Muobike also emphasized the dire need for people to go for routine tests to ascertain their HIV status as he believes so many people do not know whether they are HIV positive or negative because people, according to him, are afraid to go for tests because they have seen how people living with the virus are being treated and stigmatized.
He further disclosed that the refusal of people to go for tests to ascertain their HIV status have escalated transmission of the deadly virus because people, according to him, are ignorant of their status and also do not subject themselves to anti-retrovirals and modern medicine even when they have unprotected sexual intercourses and other forms of blood contact including mother to child transmission of the virus.
Also the Deputy Chairman House of Assembly Committee on Health and member representing Orumba-North state constituency Mazi Paul Obu declared that persons living with HIV virus are oftentimes treated as outcasts in the Nigerian society.
Obu who is a medical practitioner in the United States of America noted that there are so many HIV carriers in the western world who go to work, school, churches and get involved in other forms of social interactions with others without being treated like outcasts or separated from their fellow human beings because of their health conditions.
Obu therefore emphasized the need for confidentiality of information such that one who has the virus will not be put in the public domain unnecessarily thereby exposing his medical condition as such would prevent other people from going to conduct tests to know their HIV status.
The lawmaker noted that HIV is a transmitted disease but not infectious as interactions with persons living with the virus does not make them harmful to others even as he urged the government to see the bill as a life-saving bill because he believes that if persons living with HIV AIDS virus are saved from depressions and coma, they would be very glad to come out and exercise their fundamental rights and privileges as law-abiding citizens.
Similarly, Maduaburochukwu Bernard Udemezue who represents Ayamelum state constituency in the 8th assembly was of the opinion that most people who died of HIV/AIDS scourge, were not actually killed by the disease but died of stigma resulting from the discriminations they got from members of the society.
Udemezue therefore posited that if the bill is passed into law, it will go a long way in integrating HIV/AIDS carriers into the society so they would stop seeing themselves as less humans as the bill seeks to protect them from all manner of discriminatory tendencies and victimizations.
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