By Patra Lanyero
Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) has asked stakeholders to come up with a policy that can protect employees at their respective workplaces.
While speaking to the media on during the engagement meeting with employers to mark the 16 days of activism against Gender-Based Violence, workplace harassment, human rights and the pre-World AIDS Day commemoration, Robinah Nambooze, RHU Governance and Human Resources Manager, stated that there is a need for a policy that aims to end inequalities at workplaces in order to increase employee productivity.
“There are several interventions that RHU and the Federation of Uganda Employers (FUE) have designed for workplaces to benefit from so that they have violence-free workplaces with equality and gender equity,” she explained.
The media engagement was supported by the Danish Family Planning Association (DFPA), which funds a four-year program called Promise II that aims to create violence-free workplaces and also preserve the environment in Uganda.
George Tamale, a work health specialist at FUE, said HIV has been in the country for a long time and some people were born with HIV but managed to prosper despite being positive, noting that there is a need for companies to have policies to protect workers living with HIV through sensitization and having favorable working conditions for them.
“There is a need for companies to provide adequate knowledge about sexual and reproductive health; workers must be helped to know the basic facts on how to associate with people living with HIV, how HIV is spread, and how it can be prevented, instead of discriminating against them,” he said.
Tamale also revealed that FUE has engaged top executives in companies to educate them on the business case for investing in gender equality at work, the business case for HIV/AIDS, sexual harassment, and the formation of committees to monitor policy implementation.
“We have also trained workplace structures to effectively play their role and have a committee that will receive complaints on violence and harassment from workers, where they can freely report such issues,” he said.
Moses Mupapa, a senior labor officer at the Ministry of Gender, Labor, and Social Development (MGLSD), said the government, through the Equal Opportunity Commission, is pushing for gender and equity in all government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) to ensure that no one is left behind.
“As we are heading into the commemoration of 16 days of activism, we need to engage top managers from workplaces to join the cause of having policies protecting employers from discrimination and stigmatization, especially those living with HIV, women, youths, and people with disabilities,” he said.
He added that, as a ministry, they still insist that testing for HIV/AIDS at workplaces should not be mandatory but rather optional.
According to the Uganda AIDS Commission, Uganda made significant progress in combating the HIV and AIDS epidemics between 2010 and 2020.It is among the eight countries in the world that will have fully achieved the 90–90–90 targets by the end of 2020.
The number of people living with HIV increased from 1.2 million to 1.4 million, largely due to improved access and utilization of HIV services like testing, care, and treatment. There was a tremendous reduction in new HIV infections among the various age and population groups. The number of AIDS-related deaths has significantly decreased, resulting in fewer AIDS orphans.