Law

My grandfather, an immigrant, barely made ends meet with farm work when he arrived in South Africa around the start of the 20th century. He was lured into swapping the open fields for underground life as a worker on the gold mines.

There is no doubt that mine workers with occupationally acquired lung diseases get a raw deal in South Africa. Their counterparts in other industries receive monthly pensions for life.

The mining industry is going to court to avoid paying nearly 30 times more in statutory levies to the compensation fund that deals with mine workers' claims for occupationally acquired lung diseases.

Closing date: 7 August 2009

The People's Health Movement (PHM) is a global network, bringing together grassroots health activists, civil society organizations and academics from around the world, particularly from low income countries. PHM works towards the revitalisation of primary health care (as described in the Alma-Ata Declaration) and works to address the social determinants of health, including in particular, the growing inequity within and between nations, mostly due to unfair economic structures which lock so many people into poverty and poor health.

Thandile Qwalela died in the tuberculosis ward of his Eastern Cape district hospital at the age of 48. He was an underground miner from age 20 who served 17 years as a stoper and winch driver on the gold mines.

Two years ago Mopeli Mofoka, 39, left his wife and child in Maseru, Lesotho's capital, and joined the more than 50,000 men pushed by poverty and unemployment in their home country to seek work on mines in neighbouring South Africa. It was his second stint as a miner the first had been 15 years earlier. This time he was hired as a sub-contractor, which meant that despite testing positive for HIV during his preliminary health screening he did not have access to the on-site health services available to mine employees. When his health began deteriorating 18 months later, he went to a local public hospital but was turned away because he lacked a South African identity document. His only option was to return home, where he is receiving treatment for tuberculosis (TB) at a government clinic run in partnership with international medical aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontires (MSF) in Morija, about 50km south of Maseru, the capital.

Closing date: IGLHRC will begin reviewing applicants on February 20, 2009 and continue until a suitable candidate is identified.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) is committed to working with local, regional and international partners to fight human rights abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity worldwide. In mid-2007, IGLHRC opened a regional office for Africa in Cape Town, South Africa, to more effectively manage its operations on the continent and to build partnerships with African LGBT and human rights organizations. The Africa Program Coordinator will manage this office and IGLHRC's Africa program.

HIV is thought to have a kill rate of close to 100%, higher than even the notorious haemorrhagic diseases such as Ebola. But, unlike such virulent attackers, HIV kills its hosts through a steadily attrition of the immune system, giving ample time for new infections to occur. The result is a slow-burning epidemic steadily destroying lives and eroding South Africa's development potential. HIV/AIDS was regarded as effectively untreatable in South Africa. The drugs were too expensive: Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Edwin Cameron had to have financial help to afford the antiretrovirals that have now kept him alive for so many years. Effectively, antiretroviral therapy (ART) was seen as something for the wealthy elite - and, so the argument went, even if it were affordable, then poor and unsophisticated people were unlikely to be able to take it properly.

By virtue of the physical nature of their jobs, South African miners receiving treatment for HIV and AIDS are vulnerable to discrimination when they are not at peak performance, because of the drugs' side-effects. This is one of the challenges that workers in the mining sector deal with, as HIV rips through the industry. Benchmarks Foundation estimates that about 16 to 30 percent of mineworkers are HIV-positive, a problem which, according to experts, has yet to receive adequate attention.