The First Deputy Minority Whip and Member of Parliament for Tolon, Habib Iddrisu, has proposed the introduction of mandatory HIV testing for prospective employees in Ghana, a policy direction that raises serious human-rights, public-health, and legal concerns and risks institutionalising stigma and discrimination based on HIV status.
Raising the matter on the floor of Parliament on Thursday, December 18, 2025, Mr Iddrisu argued that the reported rise in HIV infections requires more deliberate and structured interventions, including compulsory testing within workplaces.
“Recently, when you listen to what the Ministry of Health is saying with regard to HIV, it is very rampant now. It’s on an increase that many people are now being tested positive for HIV in Ghana than before,” he told Parliament.
The Tolon MP proposed that HIV testing should be made part of routine recruitment and contracting processes across both public and private sectors.
“I think it should be part of the requirements in every organisation in Ghana. If you want to be given a job opportunity, you should be allowed to be tested. HIV should be part of the health screening so that we’ll be able to know,” he said.
According to him, not knowing one’s HIV status often delays treatment and increases the risk of transmission.
“When you are not tested, and you don’t know your status, you will not be able to handle it or look for solutions to it,” he added.
Mr Iddrisu further called on government agencies and non-governmental organisations to support mandatory HIV testing as a condition for employment or contractual engagement, while also emphasising access to treatment for those who test positive.
“And medication, in terms of when you test positive, it should be made free everywhere, so that people living with HIV can have access to it,” he said.
Why Mandatory HIV Testing for Employment Is Harmful
While concerns about rising HIV infections are legitimate, mandatory HIV testing as a condition for employment is a regressive approach that contradicts established public-health evidence and human-rights standards. Such a policy risks turning workplaces into sites of exclusion, where people are denied livelihoods based solely on their health status.
Compulsory testing does not guarantee prevention. Instead, it drives fear, discourages voluntary testing, and pushes people—especially those in vulnerable or marginalised communities—away from health facilities. When people fear losing their jobs or future employment opportunities, they are less likely to test, disclose, or seek care.
This approach would increase stigma, reinforce harmful stereotypes about people living with HIV, and create an environment where HIV status becomes a basis for surveillance, punishment, and discrimination rather than care and support.
Potential Violations of the Ghana AIDS Commission Act
The proposal directly conflicts with the Ghana AIDS Commission Act, 2016 (Act 938), which provides a clear legal framework for Ghana’s HIV response. Key protections under the Act include:
- The right to voluntary HIV testing, grounded in informed consent, rather than coercion.
- Protection against discrimination, particularly in employment, education, and access to services, on the basis of actual or perceived HIV status.
- Strict confidentiality of HIV-related information, including test results, to protect dignity and privacy.
- Equal access to employment and economic opportunities for persons living with HIV, without adverse treatment.
A policy that conditions employment on HIV test results risks violating these protections by normalising compulsory testing, undermining consent, breaching confidentiality, and enabling employment discrimination, even if discrimination is not explicitly stated.
A Rights-Based Path to Tackling Rising HIV Infections
Addressing rising HIV infections requires expanding awareness, prevention, and care – not coercion. Ghana’s HIV response must focus on:
- Scaling up voluntary, confidential, and rights-based testing services.
- Increasing access to prevention tools, including education, condoms, PrEP, and accurate public information.
- Ensuring people can safely access treatment and care without fear of stigma, job loss, or social exclusion.
- Protecting vulnerable and marginalised populations, who already face barriers to healthcare due to discrimination and criminalisation.
Making HIV services safe and accessible for everyone—regardless of background, employment status, gender, sexuality, or socioeconomic position—is essential. When safety is compromised, people withdraw from care, transmission risks increase, and treatment outcomes worsen.
If we fail to make HIV prevention and care safe for all, we do not only harm individual bodies; we harm our collective body. Public health suffers when fear replaces trust, when stigma replaces science, and when coercion replaces care.
A truly effective HIV response must be grounded in human dignity, legal protections, and evidence-based public-health practice—not policies that risk reversing decades of progress.
Rightify Ghana 