Cutting through the spin on sin

Mussa 8216;Queen8217; Njoko is a jazz artist and one of the first women to disclose her HIV status in South Africa. She has been living positively with HIV for seven years and all the challenges that the virus brought into her life have not stopped her from living her dream to compose music. Today she is a leader in the fight for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. Louise Binder, a lawyer diagnosed with HIV in 1993, also didn8217;t shy away from disclosing her status. Today she is one of the coordinators of the Voices of Positive Women in Toronto and a leading member of the government8217;s blueprint for action on women and HIV/AIDS. It was also heartening to hear 24-year old Frika Chia Iskandar from Indonesia boldly proclaim her status at the recently concluded XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto. She knew of her positive status for the last five years but was shunned by her family. Gradually her parents accepted her and together they have started a support group for parents with HIV children.

Today, HIV has the face of a woman 8212; not just in Africa but also in Asia. According to WHO, twice as many HIV positive women in low income settings require treatment than in high-income countries. And at the Toronto conference, women activists from all over the world pledged to make women8217;s rights a central theme at the next conference in Mexico in 2008.

Frika8217;s announcement was a bold decision for a woman living with HIV in Asia. As the epidemic continues to shift towards women and young people 8212; it has been estimated that two in five adults living with HIV in India are women 8212;it is even more vital that more and more women announce their HIV status instead of suffering in silence. Do we have any takers for this in India? In a country with a rapidly increasing population of women living with HIV, how do we ensure that their rights are protected, was a question raised by Meena Seshu from Sangli.

The question is particularly relevant since AIDS is perceived here as a disease of 8216;others8217; 8212; of people living on the margins of society whose lifestyles are considered 8216;perverted8217; and 8216;sinful8217;. Discrimination, stigmatisation and denial are the outcome of such values. Bill and Melinda Gates stressed at the Toronto conference that it was essential to put the power to prevent HIV in the hands of women so that she should never need her partner8217;s permission to save her own life. Are we ready to do that in India?