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Mexico's CONAES Forges Collaboration to Decrease AIDS Stigma

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IMPULSO Member, Mexico City Eugenio Pazarín Osornio has experienced the stigma and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS. He has become an advocate of decreasing stigma and discrimination in the workplace and increasing awareness regarding the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

In January 2004, a U.S. congressional delegation, accompanied by high-level officials from the United States Agency for International Development, sat down with a group of HIV-positive people from various walks of life in Mexico City. During the discussion, someone asked the group how many of them had been fired for being HIV-positive. Every one of them raised their hands. When the delegation asked Mexican government officials, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, health care providers, and business leaders to identify the most difficult problem facing Mexico in the fight against HIV/AIDS, there was a consensus: pervasive stigma and discrimination.

A team comprised of members of the POLICY Project and the AIDS Responsibility Project responded by creating a national business council in Mexico, Consejo Nacional Empresarial sobre SIDA (CONAES). Through this business council, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and the government collaborate to decrease stigma and discrimination in the workplace. The team successfully recruited over 20 large multinational companies and continues to engage other large multinationals as well as large and small national businesses. The number of individuals currently employed by CONAES members, and therefore directly affected by this initiative, is 130,000.

The team has gathered a network of leading nongovernmental organizations responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Mexico, to provide technical assistance to the CONAES member companies. Initially, the team is coaching members of IMPULSO, a network of nongovernmental organizations, on effectively providing technical assistance regarding workplace policies, laws and regulations, educational programs, social security and private insurance, and human rights.

The first annual CONAES conference took place on June 29, 2005. Representatives of the member companies and nongovernmental organizations, as well as of the governments of Mexico and the United States, assembled to affirm their commitment to the reduction of stigma and discrimination in the workplace.

In September 2005, CONAES members will discuss member fees. In 2006, IMPULSO will provide technical assistance to private businesses and will be reimbursed for its services through membership fees.

This partnership demonstrates the commitment of the private sector to ending stigma and discrimination in the workplace while providing for IMPULSO's sustainability.