Gender-based AIDS campaign questioned

NEW DELHI, MARCH 6: AIDS activists have questioned the need to segregate patients according to gender, even as the World AIDS campaign thi...

NEW DELHI, MARCH 6: AIDS activists have questioned the need to segregate patients according to gender, even as the World AIDS campaign this year launches its men-oriented programme in the Capital this week.

The UN AIDS campaign is to focus on men this year as victims and carriers of HIV after having tirelessly targetted women, especially sex workers, for more than a decade.

However, AIDS activists and workers are saying that any gender-targeted programme is bound to be lopsided and are asking for a holistic approach. 8220;The AIDS awareness programme of UN AIDS and National AIDS Control Organisation being a targeted intervention programme, has been lopsided from the word go,8221; says Anjali Gopalan of the Naz Foundation, which works for HIV patients. 8220;Even when they stressed on women, they spoke only of sex workers, not women in general. Why talk of any group like truck drivers, soldiers or sex workers? It is a holistic approach that is needed,8221; she says.

The World AIDS campaign 2000 called Men Make a Difference8217; which the UNAIDS unveiled in the Capital on Saturday, will witness an improvisation in the priorities of AIDS prevention campaigners as the programme will look beyond sex workers and drug addicts to include men as partners and spouses rather than merely as clients.

UNAIDS spokesperson Doris D8217;Cruz-Grote admitted that initially, the emphasis of the programme was on women without looking at their partners. 8220;Now men will be included without leaving out other risk groups,8221; she said.

However, Gopalan says that earlier there was no emphasis on women. 8220;The programme looked only at sex workers as brothels are easy for intervention programmes.8221;

8220;First they hyped about truck driver, then about street children and then about sex workers. And now they want a lot of hype about men. They just want to scare Indians and project a negative image of the country,8221; says Purushottaman Mulloli of the Joint Action Council Kannur, a health activist group here.

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8220;And why did they not focus on men earlier when according to NACO only 25 per cent of those infected in India are women and the rest are all men,8221; asks Mulloli.

8220;In 1990, only 10 per cent of infected people were women and it rose to 10-15 per cent by 1997 and to 25 per cent in 1999,8221; he said quoting NACO figures.

D8217;Cruz says that the title Men make a Difference8217; is misleading and there is no intention to shift focus from women to men. 8220;It is just meant to include men in the programme,8221; she said.

NACO director Prasada Rao washed his hands of the UNAIDS programme, saying that men have never been left out of the country8217;s AIDS programme. UNAIDS keeps focussing on different groups each year to sensitise them and this year, they have decided to talk of men, Rao said.