A Chinese job applicant who is HIV-positive became the first person ever in China to receive a damages award (45,000 yuan, or £4,600) for the employer’s refusal to hire him because of his condition.   

According to the Guardian, about 780,000 people in China are HIV-positive or have AIDS, and face intense social stigma. “Experts say that discriminatory hiring practices based on pre-employment health checks will likely remain a problem in China, especially for companies in highly-coveted sectors that can afford to be picky about who they hire.”

Geoff Crothall, communications director at the Hong-Kong based China Labour Bulletin, said that these health checks are "a kind of legacy from the time when there was a significant imbalance between supply of labour and demand for labour.  The checks that they insisted workers go through were based on a lot of fear and misunderstanding about the effects of having somebody with a quote-unquote contagious disease in the workforce (emphasis added)."

We just wrote how employers can get into trouble if they consider “fears, myths and stereotypes” in their hiring or employment practices.  Apparently, China has a lot longer way to go.