JAMAICA and much of the Caribbean should adopt legislation to ensure that people infected with HIV/AIDS are not discriminated against in the workplace, asserted a Jamaican law professor Thursday.

"Laws are needed not only to ensure that infected persons get jobs, but that they are able to retain them," said Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, a lawyer and lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Mona.

In a paper presented at UWI's first Caribbean Labour Policy Conference, she called the region's legal regime "woefully inadequate when it comes to anti-discrimination in the workplace". Not only did this apply to HIV/AIDS sufferers, she said, but included discrimination against women and homosexuals, among others.

In Jamaica, AIDS is the leading cause of death in the 20-30 age group, as well as in infants infected by their mothers.

Preventing discrimination against HIV/AIDS sufferers is also important to prevent a loss of workers, which poses a "potentially devastating" impact in the workplace, said Belle Antoine. In the past, the Jamaica Manufacturers Association and other groups have expressed similar concerns.

The Bahamas is the only Caribbean country to have adopted legislation to protect the rights of HIV/ADS sufferers at work, Belle Antoine said, but St Lucia may soon follow suit.

Noting that courts worldwide have ruled that HIV/AIDS sufferers can't be denied the right to work, the law professor said: "This is balanced against the health and safety of co-workers and the public, but there are only a few situations where that balance swings in the public's favour."

Anti-discrimination laws should provide HIV/AIDS sufferers "flexibility in work structures in a general sense," she said, but Caribbean governments have yet to embrace such notions in their labour laws.

Only a few countries prohibit discrimination "on specific grounds" such as race and gender "but this is limited to dismissal situations only," she said.

She warned that legal decisions can be influenced by prejudices in society without specific anti-discrimination legislation. Citing a sexual harassment case in Barbados, she said a female magistrate, lacking clear-cut legal guidelines, concluded that a "fondling" case amounted to nothing more than "ungentlemanly conduct".

UWI and the University of Toronto are among the sponsors of the four-day conference.

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