Migrant Workers: Sweatshop Conditions/Ignorance Lead to AIDS

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Indian Migrant Workers: Sweatshop Conditions/Ignorance Lead to AIDS

Epidemic

New Year brought bad tidings for more than 400,000 daily wage

labourers in India's diamond capital, Surat. A prosperous city in the

western Indian state of Gujarat, Surat is known for its finely cut

diamonds and textiles.

But despite a turnover of millions of dollars, individual businesses

operate on a small to medium scale and are little better than

sweatshops. Most employees who work in these small, congested

workplaces are temporary, receiving low pay and no benefits.

Yet year after year, hundreds of migrant labourers from the eastern

state of Orissa come to the city in search of employment and a new

life. Statistics say that one district alone in the state - Ganjam -

provides nearly 900,000 workers to Gujarat.

But on the eve of this year, the dream died for many of them when

more than 6,000 powerlooms closed down, protesting a hike in power

rates. Nearly 400,000 workers were retrenched overnight and asked to

return only when the looms reopened.

Armed with uncertainty, these migrant labourers caught the next train

home. But now, two months later, the crisis is no longer limited to

their professional life. Though seemingly unrelated, scores of

families of migrant workers who lost their jobs are waking up to yet

another nightmare. HIV.

A survey of private pathology clinics, Red Cross and government

laboratories conducted in the district in October last year revealed

that as many as 5000 migrant labourers who work in Surat are infected

with the deadly virus.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg, believes Loknath Mishra, who

runs Aruna, the first agency to provide counselling services in the

area since 1996. He says that the actual figure is likely to be ten

times higher since testing for HIV is not mandatory.

HIV counsellors in the area say that migrant labourers are especially

vulnerable because they fall in the sexually active age-group of 16

to 35. Only 15% of these take their families along. Long, hard hours

at work and an absent family life are some of the reasons why most of

them visit sex workers and contract HIV through unsafe sex. Since

these workers return home once every year, their wives and children,

an additional 600,000 people, are also living under the spectre of

HIV.

But the government refuses to acknowledge this medical emergency.

Even though the first case was identified way back in 1995, the state

has done little to check the spread of HIV. No comprehensive

healthcare programme including prevention and control of HIV has been

started neither have any awareness programmes been carried out among

villagers, most of whom are extremely poor and illiterate.

Data is hard to come by because no baseline surveys have been carried

out. Even so, doctors say the available infrastructure cannot handle

a medical and social crisis of this scale. Apart from the lack of

trained staff, there is only one authorised testing facility in the

district - the microbiology lab at the MKCG Medical College. In the

suburban areas, some private laboratories do offer the TRIDOT test

but since this method is not confirmatory, the labs are not permitted

to inform the patient whether he is positive or not.

In the villages, ignorance has bred fear and myths. Few are willing

to talk about the disease, let alone volunteer for blood tests. A

person who develops full-blown AIDS faces complete social expulsion.

Thrown out of their homes and shunned by their families, AIDS

patients live like animals.

Villagers even shy away from disposing the bodies of patients

suffering from Aids. In Sunathar village, a 21-year-old migrant

worker died of AIDS on January 12th. He had been working at a textile

mill in Surat for the last 3 years and contracted sexually

transmitted diseases several times. 8 months prior to his death, he

began to receive counselling from Aruna. But by then it was too late.

He was already a carrier. And when he died, no one in the village,

not even his family members, would do the last rites. It was left to

volunteers to cremate him.

But the locals have other concerns. Ganjam is among the poorer

districts in the state with few job opportunities. Most able people

are forced to migrate and every year, fresh groups join the regulars

travelling to Surat in search of a livelihood. But with mills closing

down, the job market has shrunk significantly. Since all of them are

temporary workers and work under exploitative conditions, they enjoy

few rights, such as medical benefits. So, if anyone is known to be

HIV positive, it would cost him his job. The situation has turned

even grimmer now following the powerloom strike in Surat.

Meanwhile, with the return of jobless migrants, tension is building

up in Ganjam. The local economy, heavily dependent on the earnings

they sent, is nearly shattered. There's also resentment as far too

many people vie for too few jobs. The administration is trying its

best to prevent a break-down in law and order, but privately

officials admit that the threat of HIV/AIDS riding on the back of the

current economic crisis is perhaps the biggest challenge they have

ever faced.

Submitted by Mohuya Chaudhuri, special correspondent reporting on

development related issues based in New Delhi.

E-mail: mohuya_c@...

Cross posted from the Communication Initiative site:

http://www.comminit.com/Commentary/sld-4103.html

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