AIDS control as photo op

Last week, Nafisa Ali, former model and now a patron of all those who work for the prevention of AIDS, visited Delhi’s redlight area of GB Road to support the activities of an organisation Shakti Vahini Foundation that has been working for the women in prostitution there. She went away after distributing condoms and promising more condoms, even while media photographers clicked away.

The young activists of the Jana Shakti Vahini, which had Chandraswami as its patron earlier, say that they go to any extent to see that these women do not lose their customers because of the taint of HIV.

When they discover that a woman has been found positive during a test by a private hospital (hospitals do it without asking permission, says a worker) they keep the fact to themselves. Their job is to protect the women and their profession, they say, adding that these women are in the flesh trade due to poverty.

When they come to know of a positive case, they tell no one as that would be betraying the trust of the women. They also do not tell the women themselves. Which is strange. If the test was done by the hospital and not at their request then the least that can be done is to inform the women about the results, surely? “If they know that they were tested the women will lose faith in us,” the activists reply.

They also justify the distribution of condoms saying that the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) does not want awareness programmes anymore. They want intervention that is targeted at “high risk groups”, a social worker explains. But he agrees that the women are quite capable of buying condoms themselves once they know what is what. But again he quotes the NACO rule: Don’t trust the people to take care of themselves.

The activist even goes on to say that children in schools and colleges should be given more attention, even condoms. Politicians, actors and models too, he adds. But the government will never include the “beautiful people” in its “risk lists”, and they are, therefore, beyond such interventions as the one mounted by the Shakti Vahini Foundation.

Meanwhile, why does Nafisa Ali want condoms in GB Road? So that our prostitutes do not lose their reputation for being safe?

The prostitutes themselves are sick of the unnecessary attention they are getting, vis-a-vis AIDS. And all the while Nafisa Ali shook hands with them and extracted promises from them to work together against AIDS, they wereasking for better healthcare facilities. But no one was listening.

Every week, the Delhi government sends a mobile van to the area. But the prostitutes know that the van is part of the AIDS control initiative and that’s why, they say they never go near it.

Wouldn’t it be wiser to provide basic health care facilities to all people so that they can lead healthy lives? Rather than worrying about a disease that has no cure?