Indian Women Unite to Fight HIV Discrimination

[Guest guest]

November 30, 2004: Three months after she was married, 20-year-old

Asha Ramiah was accused by her in-laws of being "unchaste" and

thrown out of the house when her husband discovered he was HIV-

positive.

 

Her pleas that her husband, who owns a truck company in the southern

Indian city of Bangalore, must have contracted the virus elsewhere

as she had been entirely faithful were ignored and she was brutally

shown the back door.

 

Soon afterwards she learnt that she too was carrying the virus.

 

Fortunately, her own parents took Ramiah back and she regained some

normalcy by joining a training programme for social workers.

 

"I wanted to live. The doctor who had tested me helped me find a job

as a health educator with a non-governmental organisation," Ramiah

told AFP.

 

"My colleagues liked my positive attitude and I was selected to

attend a conference of HIV-positive people in Russia in 1999," she

said. "When I met 500 people from around the world all living with

HIV, some for up to 15 years, it gave me a lot of hope."

 

When she returned, she joined up with a group of about 20 women in

Madras, capital of southern Tamil Nadu state, who, also infected by

their husbands, were fighting back after being shunned by their own

communities, spurned by their own families and seeing their children

thrown out of school.

 

"They were desperately trying to change society's attitude and

spread awareness," Ramiah said.

 

Before forming the informal self-help group called "The Positive

Women's Network", many of the women had become despondent and had

contemplated suicide.

 

Now they go from household to household to counsel and spread

information and fight discrimination and ignorance about the disease

in India's tradition-bound society.

 

"Our main aim has been to give hope to the HIV-positive women; to

educate them and their families. The attitude of our communities has

also slowly changed due to our efforts to spread awareness," Ramiah

said.

 

The change in her own life has been dramatic -- she has married a

group co-worker who is also HIV positive, with the consent of her

parents. A child has been born to them who, remarkably, is free of

the disease.

 

Ramiah is now trying to make the most of her daily life. Every day

she sets out with other members of the group into villages to speak

of the disease and to warn women to be on the lookout for telltale

symptoms among their husbands.

 

India already has the world's second highest number of people

affected with HIV/AIDS after South Africa.

 

Those who have contracted the condition are told that there is much

to live for and are provided health care and employment training.

 

As a result of the efforts of the group, some schools in southern

India have begun admitting children of infected women and healthcare

facilities in many parts have improved over the past three years,

according to those dealing with the disease.

 

The group's ranks has swelled to more than 5,000 and has spread to

other vulnerable states, such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,

Maharashtra and Gujarat.

 

Such has been the success of the movement that they plan to formally

launch it as a national group in the Indian capital New Delhi on

December 7.

 

"They are anxious to spread information and awareness. They know

there is very thin line between ignorance and vulnerability. They

feel that women have to talk to each other to deal with this," said

Akhila Shivdas, director of Centre For Advocacy and Research, which

is also involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

 

"Women of their social experience make it clear that you are not

safe even in marriage," she added.

 

The heart-to-heart bonds they are able to establish by talking

directly to women in households far exceeds the effectiveness of any

other form of communication, activists say.

 

Shivdas said the need for such a movement is desperate as nearly 40

percent of infected people in India are women, and the condition is

no longer confined to high risk groups like sex workers.

 

"It's a hidden epidemic. That really makes women vulnerable. It is

spreading to vulnerable sections such as the poor. Many of them are

not even aware that they are carrying the disease," she said.

 

Source: China Daily

URL: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-

11/30/content_395995.htm