• An HIV-positive school teacher wins a lawsuit against a school that abruptly ended his contract.

An HIV-positive school teacher wins a lawsuit against a school that abruptly ended his contract. (Photo : Getty Images)

A Chinese teacher who tested positive of HIV wins a labor case against a local school in Southwest China for not renewing his contract.

The South China Morning Post reported on Friday about the case of a 33-year-old school teacher from Southwest China, deeming it a landmark victory on discrimination.

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According to the report, a Chinese court ruled in favor of a man who was given a pseudonym of Li Cheng after he sued the local education and human resources bureau for abruptly ending his job contract as a teacher at a government-compensated middle school at the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Guizhou Province.

The ruling stated that the education bureau should pay Li 9,800 yuan ($1,500) for violating the state labor law and that the human resources department also deserved part of the blame.

However, the ruling did not order the school to employ Li again, which disappointed the plaintiff.

According to his lawyer Jiang Xiaolong, Li will no longer be appealing to get his job back because his client was already exhausted.

"We wanted to help him keep the job, but failed, and he was exhausted. The ruling was made only based on the labor law, while HIV/AIDS and employment discrimination were not mentioned," he explained.

According to the SCMP, there is no law that defines punishment for people who discriminate others and the country's HIV/AIDS prevention and control policies also made no mention of penalties for such incidents.

In a similar case, a 27-year-old who wanted to be known only as Ming also filed for labor arbitration after his employer suspended him in December after he tested positive of HIV.

Talking to Sixth Tone, Ming said he was "hopeless and terrified" after he failed the physical examination in October when his employer invited him to undergo a civil servant recruitment examination.

In December, his employer then ordered him to go on an indefinite leave after pointing out that the company's decision was based on the 1991 Measures for the Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases that stipulates all those found positive of HIV should be isolated.