Pacific Island Work Places Combating HIV/AIDS

The overall objective of this project is to develop policies and programmes to protect workers against HIV related discrimination, develop comprehensive prevention programmes at the enterprise level and ensure awareness and uptake of available services for HIV testing, treatment, care and support.

HIV prevalence in most Pacific countries remains low but efforts must be taken to ensure that these small populations remain protected from the potential social and economic effects of this epidemic. Pacific Islanders must make it their business to carry out programmes that reach the most vulnerable people and this includes using the workplace as a channel for delivering HIV prevention, care and support.

Workplaces are an ideal location to educate workers about HIV prevention and provide referrals to available services for HIV testing, treatment and care. Management staff and employees at all levels are the greatest assets of any organization and steps should be taken to ensure their health and productivity. Moreover, working women and men spend most of their lifetime at work in some form or another, and so this is an even better channel of influencing behaviour, attitudes and knowledge.


The overall objective of this project is to develop policies and programmes to protect workers against HIV related discrimination, develop comprehensive prevention programmes at the enterprise level and ensure awareness and uptake of available services for HIV testing, treatment, care and support. The Project will achieve this through two levels of approaches:
  1. At enterprise-level, work with management and workers’ representatives to develop HIV and AIDS workplace policies and implement a workplace programmes, ideally integrated into existing Occupational Safety and Health, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) or Staff Welfare Programmes. Vulnerable industries such as seafaring, long distance transport and hotels will be targeted.
     
  2.  At national level, assist tripartite partners (Ministries of Labour, employers’ and workers’ organisations) to develop and implement national policies for workplace programmes at the enterprise level. This will include integrating non-discrimination clauses on HIV into national labour laws, in member States where revisions are taking place. The ILO labour standard on HIV and AIDS in the World of Work will be used to guide development of these policies.

This project uses the global tools, expertise and guidance from the ILO and ILO/AIDS to support the fulfilment of the vision of Pacific Leaders for their people whose aspirations are to become a region where the spread and impact of HIV/AIDS and STIs is halted and reversed.

The Project is funded by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community under the Response Fund 2009-2013 to the tune of AUD 450,000 and is executed by the ILO Country Office in Suva, Fiji.