Young students stand at a leper colony in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Hu Hebi was going to be a "normal student." After 18 years of dreaming, she was finally given a chance to join the third grade at a primary school in Yiliang county, Zhaotong, Yunnan Province.

However, the dream didn't last long. Just before the semester began, her promised enrollment was denied, along with 40 others like her.

Now half a month into the new semester, all that Hu and the other rejected students can do is wait.

"I am the oldest out of everyone. There are many teenagers among us along with  7- and 8-year-olds," Hu told the Global Times over the phone, her trembling voice giving away her sadness.

"We were all born and raised in the same way. Why am I treated differently?" she asked.

But Hu already knew the reason why. Her grandfather once suffered from leprosy, a chronic infection caused by bacteria that can seriously damage the nervous system, skin and flesh. It is not hereditary.

Before the 1980s, many leprosy patients were quarantined to remote mountain regions as part of a government strategy to isolate the disease. In some rural areas, particularly among the elderly, there is a prevailing belief that any contact with lepers, their descendants, or even the tools or water supply they use, can cause an infection.

Though now a curable disease, some former sufferers still bear scars of their past affliction: a lost digit, a deformed limb. Hu's grandfather is among them.

Unfortunately, his descendants continue to be affected by the disease, as the discrimination he endured is passed on to his son, and now his granddaughter.

Rejected at the gate

Hu recalled registering at Daqiao Wanquan Primary School with mixed feelings. She remembered with excitement the possibility of going to a school not specially set up for the descendants of leprosy suffers. But seeing other parents and students cover up their noses and mouths in her presence filled her with bitter disappointment and heartbreak.

"They don't like us because they think we have leprosy as well. We keep applying at that school, but never get in. I thought this would be our year," said Hu, adding that no one in her village had received a formal education until 2012, when a temporary school was built by local authorities for children at the colony.

While she appreciates the chance at a basic education, Hu holds a certain resentment for the school, as it leads people to believe she is different.

Made from an old barracks, there are only two teachers at the temporary school for first and second grades. Limited resources make it impossible for the school to support a third grade class, giving students like Hu with an added desire to study at Daqiao Wanquan.

A tough decision

Zhang Dingqiang, the principal at Daqiao Wanquan, does not deny that students from the leprosy village received the cold shoulder from parents on registration day.

"When they showed up, others stopped coming," Zhang told China National Radio (CNR), vowing that the school upholds every child's right to an education. Zhang said the students will temporarily resume classes back at their school while staff at Daqiao Wanquan continue to persuade local parents that their children are not at risk of infection.

However, this has proved very difficult. Despite press releases citing the local center for disease control, numerous expert testimonies and physical exam certificates proving Hu's health, the community remains fearful of the disease.

According to Hu, some teenage students had already given up waiting for an education and left for work.

"But without an education, what can we do? I really want to go to school like neighboring villagers," she said.

"We have tried communicating with parents and emphasized that all the students are healthy, but they don't listen. We had to say 'no' to those students in order to maintain a normal school environment," CNR quoted an anonymous teacher as saying.

Chen Zeying, a Yunnan-based project manager of HANDA Rehabilitation and Welfare Association, told the Global Times that while the Compulsory Education Law forbids schools from denying children an education, forced enrollment may flare up conflict in the community. 

"It takes at least a year and several rounds of publicity efforts to have an impact. Usually we organize university volunteers to visit the leper villages and eat and play games with them. University students symbolize a civilized group in rural areas, so their involvement could gradually influence villagers still in the dark about the disease," noted Chen.

Glimmer of hope

While this is the first case of its kind in recent years, according to Chen, discrimination against students with leprosy and other illnesses continues to persist across China.

A 4-year-old boy diagnosed with ichthyosis, a genetic skin disorder, has been repeatedly rejected from kindergartens in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, while one-third of the city's over 40,000 kindergartens rejected children carrying Hepatitis B in 2012, media reported.

Wang Hua (pseudonym), a teacher at a leper colony in Sichuan Province, sees the effects of such discrimination first hand.

After three years of volunteering in rural Jinyang county, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, Wang is now back teaching at a county-level middle school.

With Wang's help, several students from the village have successfully enrolled in her school.

"I told the children to prepare themselves for discrimination, which only comes from ignorance of the disease. When I first came back, other teachers wouldn't sit near me in the dining hall. This is inevitable, but knowledge will diffuse the fear soon enough," Wang told the Global Times.

So far, things are going well. Wang explains the children get along together, and the hardworking students from the leper village have become popular among teachers.

Hu, however, reminds that there is still a long way to go.

"I just hope my younger brothers won't have to relive what I have gone through," she said.