FOR

Chen Wensheng

Xiao Hai's attorney

Refusing to hire Xiao Hai as a teacher is against the law. Xiao Hai has the right to be a teacher. The Employment Promotion Law, which became effective in 2008 stipulates that employers must not reject candidates for employment only because they may be carrying a virus of infectious diseases.

Moreover, Regulations on AIDS Prevention and Treatment formulated that employers are not allowed to discriminate against people with HIV/AIDS status or their relatives. The regulations also state that people with HIV/AIDS have the right to get married and employed, and receive medical treatment and education.

So, from a legal aspect, the refusal is employment discrimination.

Zhang Ke

An expert on AIDS prevention and treatment

It is ok for a person living with HIV/AIDS to be a teacher. The virus is transmitted mainly in three ways: unprotected sexual intercourse, mother-to-fetus transmission and blood transfusion, none of which will possibly happen in the classroom. People won't get infected via daily contact like shaking hands or eating together.

We shouldn't discriminate them so that they can live and work as normal people and get proper treated. According to an international authoritative survey, with medical treatment presently available, people living with HIV/AIDS in their 20s can live to more than 60 years old, and in their 40s to more than 70 years old. As long as they persist in taking medicine, they will live normal lives. Society should love and care about this vulnerable group of people and provide them with equal opportunities since they do not threaten any people in daily life.

Jing Ping

University student

I think society should be more tolerant of people living with HIV/AIDS and give them an equal opportunity to live and work as ordinary people.

Parents may worry children are likely to be infected if their blood comes into contact with a teacher's blood which is HIV positive, but what are the chances of a teacher injured and bleeding and a child injured and bleeding in the same place at the same time?   In my opinion, the chance is slim.

In class, what a teacher does is to talk and write with chalk, creating no possibility of transmitting the HI virus. So, there is no need to worry that children may be infected in the classroom.

Regarding the discrimination against people who are living with HIV/AIDS, more campaigns should be conducted to improve people's awareness of the disease so that they can understand and care for this group.