农民·农民工·艾滋病——一种人权视角下的分析

Farmers,Farmer Laborers,and AIDS——An Analysis from the Perspective of Human Rights

随着艾滋病的传播,农民和农民工日渐成为这一疾病感染的高危群体。解析这一现象不仅要对公共健康的细菌模式和行为模式加以认识,还要对社会流行病模式和人权模式加以检讨。因为疾病不仅仅是细菌所致,也不仅仅是人们不良行为的结果,它还是社会平等和正义缺失的表征,是社会不和谐的体现。

With the spread of AIDS, farmers and farmer laborers have day by day become the high-risk group vulnerable to infection. To properly understand this phenomenon, we must transcend the two traditional theories on public health-the germ theory and the behavioral theory. The germ theory posits that as the deterioration of health results from microbial infection, the maintenance of public health necessitates preventing contagious microbial infections. When a certain disease proves incurable, however, the germ theory offers no antidotes other than waiting for the emergence of certain drugs that can cure the disease. Nevertheless, the behavioral theory posits that diseases and injuries result from the unhealthy behavior of individuals. However, it becomes problematic when applied to AIDS. On the one hand, this theory appears to blame individuals disproportionately for public health problems so as to result in equating AIDS with retribution for blameworthy personal behavior, ultimately in discrimination against AIDS carriers, while aggravating the difficulties in preventing and controlling AIDS and caring for AIDS patients. On the other hand, the behavioral theory may also result in unenviable choices for the government： while public health authorities spare no efforts promoting the availability of condoms in pubic entertainment establishments, the police treat possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution, necessarily leading to a dramatic reduction of the effectiveness of various public health measures taken. Due to the shortcomings of the germ theory and the behavioral theory, we must analyze public health problems from the perspectives of social epidemiology and human rights. Social epidemiology posits that diseases only result from germs, nor unhealthy conduct, but also reflect the inequality and unjustness in society -the manifestation of social disharmony. This theory argues that the people from every social sector have the possibility of catching AIDS infection at the beginning of ADIS spreading. But with the passage of time, farmers, farmer laborers and other marginal groups in our society will become the high-risk group vulnerable to infection at last. Therefore, the protection of these marginalized or vulnerable groups needs the theory on and implementation of human rights. Human rights theory posits that a proper understanding of a public health problem can only be sought from the vantage point of human rights-that is to say, in the promotion and improvement of public health, the government has an unshirkable duty. Internationally, this manifests itself in the fact that the force of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has not moved beyond the examination of the reports of the States parties, with no mechanism set up for receiving individual complaints, resulting in the lack of effective enforcement of the right to health on the international plane. Within China, the enforcement of the right to health primarily depends on the implementation of public policy. Although the right itself has received recognition and concretization under the Constitution and ordinary laws, the lack of a judicial review system has resulted in the nonexistence of effective judicial enforcement of it.