Assembly passes bill to protect, prevent discrimination of people living with HIV, AIDs in Kogi
By Odimayo Olatunde Fredrick
The Kogi State House of Assembly has passed into law a bill to provide for the prevention of HIV and AIDs based discrimination and promotion of the rights and dignity of people living with and affected by HIV and AIDs.
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The Lawmaker passed it into law at the floor of the house on Wednesday.
It was gathered that the Speaker of the house Rt. Hon. Aliyu Umar Yusuf before the passage of the bill led other members of the Assembly to consider the bill clause by clause after forming into committee of whole.
Earlier, the Chairman, Joint Committee on Health, Judiciary, Justice, Legal Matters and protocol Hon. Ochidi Usman Shehu while presenting his report before the hallow chamber said the bill which has been passed into law will protect the rights and dignity of people living with and affected by the HIV and AIDS while eliminating all forms of discrimination based on their HIV status, and to create a supportive environment for them to work under normal conditions for as long as they are medically fit to do so.
On the terms of reference of the bill before it was passed, the Lawmaker explained that, the Joint Committee was mandated to determine the appropriateness of all the Clauses in the Legislative proposal and subject same to Legislative examination with a view to recommend the Bill to the honourable House for passage.
” The Committee considered the legislative provisions in the Bill and resolved that Public Hearing be held on the Bill to allow the critical stakeholders participate in the lawmaking process. The public hearing was held on Thursday 30th May 2024 and in attendance were the Stakeholders, At the Public Hearing, views were exchanged, observations noted, and opinions expressed for better legislation”.
“The Joint Committee, having analysed the submissions of the stakeholders and clauses of the Bill, come up with the following amendments for consideration and passage into law. The proposed anmendments are to wit. Page 12, No 11, sub-clause 3, should end with the following wordings “State or Federal Ministries or institutions or Health”.
“Page 16, Clause 19, sub-clause 3, for instance “Commissioner” was mentioned without mentioning which of the commissioner, we recommend it should read “Commissioner for Justice” and any other place where “Commissioner” is mentioned, the Commissioner designation should be mentioned.
” Clause 6(1) as couched is a a mare statement, instead of the phase “have a right to freedom from discrimination” it should be couched to read: “people living with or affected by HIV or AIDS shalt not be discriminated upon based on their real or perceived HIV status”.
“Clause 7(1) is also an admonition that leaves as option for anyone to comply or not. To give it the force of Law since a breach of same would be sanctionable, the Clause should read thus: the rights of people living with HIV or AIDS is hereby protected and any form of HIV discrimination in any social or employment setting, health and educational institution or religious centres is hereby forbidden” he stated.
The Committee before the passage of the bill proposed that an amendments be considered to form part of the Bill for consideration.
The Committee further recommends that all the clauses (Section) of the bill not affected by any of the proposed amendments should form part of the bill for consideration and passage,
except as otherwise resolved during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.
