The union called on politicians and trade union leaders in society to take full responsibility to alleviate human suffering, increased respect for human rights, improved efficiency of preventative work and increased access to care and treatment.
It also called for all vulnerable groups including gays, lesbians, bisexuals as well as transgenders to have equal access to HIV prevention services without discrimination as this is critical to halt the spread of the pandemic.
“… Same sex relationships must be decriminalized so that these persons dare to exercise their rights and seek health services,” it said.
The union believes too that developed countries have a particular responsibility to implement good policies to curb stigma and discrimination.
CCWU also made a strong call for there to be an effective response to the pandemic, which it said requires commitments and sustainable financing. The statement said that with rapidly increased international funding and many new national and international actors, resources must be used in a coherent, accountable and effective way.
CCWU said it is committed to the prevention of HIV, to addressing the issues of discrimination and to protecting the rights of workers living with the disease, but acknowledged that there is still more work to be done to ensure workers’ rights to health.
It believes too that the obstacles to overcoming AIDS are the same that threaten the health of all working families. CCWU stated that everywhere there are shortcomings in human resources in respect of wages, upgrade of facilities and provision of medicines and management of the health care system. To this end, the statement urged that trade unionists now engage in a more comprehensive struggle to advocate for more accessible prevention and care.
It pointed out that an effective response also requires openness to the drivers of the pandemic. “We have to talk about sexuality, intimacy and sexual relations, men who have sex with men, sexual and other violence, drug use, people who buy and sell sex, migrants and trafficking in human beings,” it added.
“We must dare to see and acknowledge that prevention is about lack of equality, about power relations in society between men and women, parents and children, rich and poor… about access to male and female condoms… We must address the pandemic and its consequences with open eyes and open minds,” it said.
