Schoolchildren participate in an AIDS awareness rally.
Imphal, May 19 : The Manipur Legislature Forum on HIV/AIDS is set to take up the issue of HIV widows and orphans as part of its ongoing programme to check the spread of the disease in Manipur.
The forum, formed on June 30, 2007, is currently organising awareness programmes in Assembly constituencies.
“Our programmes, so far, were concentrated on creating awareness. From now on, we will be taking up specific programmes to help HIV widows and orphans. Their rights should be protected and needs taken care of. Otherwise, it could become a serious social problem,” Irengbam Hemochandra Singh, Speaker of the Manipur legislative Assembly and chairman of the forum, said.
Manipur is one of the six states with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the country. With hardly 0.2 per cent of India’s population, the state registers nearly 8 per cent of the country’s HIV-positive cases.
According to statistics available at Manipur AIDS Control Society, 29,147 people have tested HIV positive. Of them, 7,513 are women.
However, there is no survey on the number of HIV widows and orphans. The NGOs working on this said the number was increasing every year.
Sources said many HIV widows became commercial sex workers to make a living after they were shunned by their relatives. “Given this situation, the chances of spreading the virus to more people by these widows are very high,” an NGO activist said.
Hemochandra, who became the Speaker only recently, said the issue would be put up for discussion in the next executive committee meeting of the forum and added that the committee would meet very soon.
He also said he would explore the possibilities of proposing to the government for a legislation on protecting rights and ensuring a decent living by generating means of livelihood for such widows and orphans.
“Though the government takes up many programmes to prevent spread of the disease, it has done hardly anything for HIV widows and their children. The government should do something for us,” Manishang Devi (name changed) of Imphal East, an HIV widow with two children said.
Echoing Devi, Ahanthem Chitra, an Imphal-based researcher, said most of the programmes undertaken by the government were not women-friendly and the little help that came from NGOs could not meet their requirements like nutrition and education for their children.
The forum began its work with nearly Rs 10 lakh provided by the UN AIDS. Now, the MLAs contribute Rs 1 lakh each annually since last year for the intervention programmes. So far, awareness programmes have been held in 36 of the 60 Assembly constituencies.