NOTHING POSITIVE
- AIDS & THE INDIAN WOMAN
by
Surabhi Khosla
- AIDS & THE INDIAN WOMAN
by
Surabhi Khosla
Powerful ad campaign…" I care for you. Why don’t you care for me? "
The fact that over 19 lakh women in India are living with HIV AIDS is setting off alarm bells in the Indian medical fraternity – especially since more than 90percent of these are married women in monogamous relationships…
-More married women in India are at risk of getting AIDS than sex workers
-India is about to be hit by the worst AIDS epidemic in the world
-Research groups are now calling AIDS in India ‘a woman’s disease’
It is easy to misjudge the challenge of HIV/AIDS. Rarely perceived as a major public health issue in India, AIDS has taken on nightmarish proportions in recent years. The large population, low literacy and even lower levels of awareness has made AIDS one of the most challenging public health problems ever faced by the country.
The rising number of women (over 1.9 million at the last count) afflicted with AIDS is setting off alarm bells in the Indian medical fraternity – especially since more than 90 percent of these are married women and are in a monogamous relationship.
In the light of these statistics, Breakthrough, a human rights organisation has launched a media campaign titled What Kind Of Man Are You? The campaign highlights the rising incidence of married women infected by the AIDS virus by their husbands.
Crusade Against AIDS
As part of the crusade against AIDS, popular television stars Mandira Bedi and Samir Soni have joined hands with Breakthrough and both feature in a music video, Maati. sung by Shubha Mudgal, Maati talks about a pregnant woman who discovers she is HIV positive because of her husband’s promiscuity.
Apart from this, Breakthrough has been organizing various workshops to provide sex education to the general public. It also has an SMS facility through which people’s queries are answered, informing them about the treatment and care for the infected.
The organisation has also launched an intensive multimedia campaign to focus public attention on the growing problem of HIV AIDS. The message is being conveyed through music videos, eye catching advertisements in newspapers, radio and television that are being directed by renowned adman Prasun Joshi. The different visuals have the same theme - a woman asking her husband to protect her by using a condom.
The campaign aims to empower women in an exceedingly patriarchal society, enabling them to discuss sexuality freely with their husbands and encouraging the use of condoms among men.
Negotiating Safe Sex
According to Mallika Dutt, founder and executive director Breakthrough, "It’s a challenge for any woman to negotiate safe sex with her husband. Many times the request for a condom may be interpreted as an accusation of promiscuity against the husband. Our campaign helps married women to understand the need for safe sex and how to voice their opinion."
Both Sameer Soni and Mandira Bedi feel that the responsibility and the guilt that a man feels on infecting his innocent wife, is brought out beautifully in the video, directed by Arjun Bali.. "The fact that television and music are so popular with the masses will help spread the message much faster in a populated country like India, than workshops and prevention measures targeting small groups of people," says Soni.
Until recently HIV education programmes targeted only the high-risk population such as truck drivers, drug users and sex workers but the reality is that an increasing number of married women are at risk. They are ignorant about the dangers they face and hence are easy targets of infection.
Most Indian women are completely uninformed about sex and sexual health practices at the time of marriage. Under great pressure to produce children (particularly sons), the use of condoms and other contraceptives does not arise. The low economic and social status of women renders them unable to have much of a say in sex and thus, they cannot suggest the use of a condom which in turn can lead to their becoming infected with the HIV virus.
Cultural practices and outdated beliefs still plague the Indian society and there is rampant discrimination against women. A woman is labelled "immoral and loose" if detected with the deadly virus. Subjected to ill treatment and isolation of the worst kind, these women are faced with no family support, loss of job opportunities and an extremely low economic status.
Worse, there is lack of access to treatment and medical facilities for these women.
Besides they can also be subject to increased violence. Voiceless, disgraced and ostracized, these women sometimes end up being branded as untouchables or worse being killed by their own family members
Preventive Measures
In India sex is rarely discussed openly. However it is important to educate and inform the people. According to many health experts, the future course of AIDS in Asia will be set by India's example. Sex education in schools to promote the magnitude of safe sex is essential. Yet over 42 percent of boys and 69 percent of girls of 15 years and older do not go to school. To educate them mass media drives and sex education workshops for the general public are essential.
Allopathic medicines like AZT used in combination with other drugs form the main treatment for AIDS related diseases. Also early diagnosis and effective treatment can help in prolonging life expectancy.
Research is currently underway for a cure and to develop effective and cheaper female condoms that will put the power of protection against HIV in the woman’s hands. But until then the only way to contain the spread of the disease is cooperation by the male partner.
Says Mallika Dutt, "India needs to follow the example of Brazil in aggressively pursuing AIDS prevention and treatment as the country is on the edge of a pandemic that might make India resemble one of those African nations where one in three people is afflicted with the deadly HIV AIDS virus.
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Sex Workers are vulnerable for HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh
Mohammad Khairul Alam
Executive Director
Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
24/3 M. C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-1211, Bangladesh
Tel: 88028628908,
rainbowngo@gmail.com
The over all HIV/AIDS epidemics situation is low in Bangladesh. But it is increasing very high in some heterogeneous group who are actually vulnerable of HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS spread out very quickly in all over the population. There are many ways in Bangladesh to HIV/AIDS increasing issue.
The cause of poverty, gender discrimination, low prevalence of health facility, lack of reproductively knowledge, illiteracy and high risky behavior may be called epidemic in future of Bangladesh. The atmosphere, which is needed to spread HIV as epidemic of HIV/AIDS, those are present in Bangladesh.
It seems that there are three issues that are appearing to play a crucial position in HIV transmission in Bangladesh: female sex work substance use, Intravenous drug use, professional blood donor and mobility. Female sex workers and their clients have been a major factor in the heterosexual transmission of HIV. Separate but unstable epidemics have been seen in some IDU populations in Dhaka city. And mobile populations, particularly at national borders are at higher risk of HIV acquisition due to the fact of being away from home, community and the anonymity and loneliness of traveling. The following three segments focus on the monitoring of the HIV epidemic in these vulnerable populations.
Commercial/Professional sex workers operate in all over the country. But it is important to know how large the sex-worker population may be to adequately interpret surveillance results. It is hypothetical that in some region, rapid increases in the absolute numbers of sex workers have resulted from significant political, social or economic changes. The nature of sex work and the profile of sex workers vary enormously within and between countries. There are most female sex workers, and those that work full-time, part-time or seasonally. Sex workers may operate in variety of settings such as brothels, riverbanks, bars, parks, under contraction buildings, street corners, hotels, etc. Sex work does not consider in Bangladesh, expect 14 reported brothels. Some HIV/AIDS or social workers suspected that brothel sex worker in Bangladesh is limited, near about 35,000 to 45,000, but other category sex workers is no countable, it is suspected more then 1,00,000. Dhaka city, for example, has approximately 5,000-15,000 female sex workers--an estimate (Source: Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation). In most Cities, however, validated estimates of the numbers of sex workers are almost non-existent.
All estimates require regular updating and validation but these two approaches are worthy of repetition in other settings. Neither method can work without the trust and involvement of commercial sex workers themselves.
Frequency of exposure to HIV infection through sexual intercourse is the key factor for transmission of HIV among sex workers. For example, there are many countries; a significant proportion of sex workers is infected with HIV. The rates might vary from less than 1 percent to 40 percent or higher in some settings.
Even where HIV infection has not yet increase extensively, STD infection is often very high among sex workers. For example, in one brothel area in Bangladesh, 95 percent of 466 sex workers tested positive to antibodies for genital herpes virus and 60 percent for syphilis, although HIV was not detected among any of them. With the sequence of the epidemic, HIV tends to increase where other STDs are present.
There are many aspects to the nexus of drug use and HIV infection, In most of Bangladesh, people who choose to use drugs (Smoking-drug, morphia, heroin, hashish, Medicare-drug some kinds of sleeping pill, cold syrup, injections etc) that are not all socially sanctioned are treated as entirely outside society, enemies even of the social structure. The factor of Injection/ intravenous Drug Users (IDUs), which is directly can influence of HIV/AIDS, STDs/STI. For the majority of injecting drug users (IDUs), it means that lip-service is paid to the principles supposedly learned through the course of the epidemic: in relation to IDUs and the risks of HIV transmission, issues such as human rights, peer education, community participation, and legal and social change are unachievable fictions.
Besides, better estimation of populations at risk (i.e., those currently injecting drugs, or sex partners of IDUs and populations coming to be at risk), and a better understanding of the dynamics of drug utilization and social association of drug use are all necessary for targeting interventions efficiently.
Populations in Bangladesh are moving across land and sea borders in increasing numbers. International trade supports this growth in population mobility, international border between India and Bangladesh, more than 500 trucks come daily. Also occurring in Bangladesh are high levels of maritime trade, and seamen on fishing vessels travel widely in the region, enabling the transmission of HIV to populations in areas where the virus was previously unfamiliar.
Crossing land or sea borders often requires overnight stays, leaving the individual with idle time and opportunities to visit drinking and gambling establishments and brothels. HIV surveillance data for female sex workers, male STD clinic patients and young males at two sea ports – Cittagong & Mongla --show a clustering of high prevalence sites.
Source: Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation
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