Human Rights Watch to Honor Meena Seshu

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In New York: Joanne Csete, +1-212-216-1224 (English, French)

Human Rights Watch to Honor

Leading Indian AIDS Advocate:

Meena Seshu Fights to Stem Escalating Epidemic in India

(New York, November 7, 2002) — On November 13, Human Rights Watch

will give its highest recognition to Meena Saraswathi Seshu, an

activist whose courageous work in southern India has helped women in

prostitution and others at high risk of HIV/AIDS to combat abuse and

discrimination and become important allies in the fight against a

growing AIDS epidemic.

The Indian government says there are 4 million persons with HIV/AIDS

in India, a figure that most experts think is grossly understated.

Since the national AIDS program refuses to provide anti-retroviral

treatment, prevention is the only hope for the millions at risk of

infection. " Meena Seshu has worked tirelessly to prevent and contain

one of the worst epidemics in the world, " said Joanne Csete, director

of the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. " I

have seen the impact of Meena's brave work firsthand. If there were

more activists with her courage and sense of solidarity with the most

marginalized, the AIDS crisis in India wouldn't stand a chance. "

AIDS in India, which has already killed millions, is fueled in part

by official harassment and social stigmatization of women in

prostitution, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users,

prisoners and others at high risk of infection. These groups

suffered severe discrimination and abuse even before the advent of

the AIDS epidemic, and are further marginalized by it with lethal

results. In recent years, both these persons and outreach workers

who have tried to bring HIV/AIDS information and condoms to them have

often met with violent abuse and harassment by the police, including

unlawful arrest, sexual and physical abuse, and extortion.

Meena Seshu is founder and general secretary of SANGRAM, an

organization based in Sangli, Maharashtra State, that has helped

women in prostitution become AIDS educators among themselves and in

the wider community. SANGRAM has empowered women in prostitution to

demand safe sex of their clients and has built on that transforming

work to organize HIV/AIDS education and condom distribution for the

general population. In the districts in which it works, SANGRAM's

programs ensure the distribution of up to 350,000 condoms per month.

SANGRAM also supports peer education on HIV/AIDS for men who have sex

with men.

In early 2002, women sex workers in a collective supported by SANGRAM

in Nippani (Karnataka State) were systematically and violently

harassed by local thugs supported by Shiv Sena, a Hindu political

party. The collective's life-saving work in the town was disrupted

as members were forced to flee their homes. When the women attempted

to file a complaint with the police, they were told they were

not " normal citizens " with the right to file complaints. Meena Seshu

was attacked by local leaders in the press and accused of using

HIV/AIDS education as a front for running brothels. Undaunted, Seshu

mobilized support from around the country and forced an investigation

of the acts of violence against the women in prostitution, managing

to reestablish much of the work of the collective. SANGRAM continues

its work as a living example of fighting AIDS by defending the rights

of those whose risk of infection is heightened by marginalization and

discrimination.

" If the Indian government continues on this course of abuse of

HIV/AIDS workers, it is literally a recipe for more death in India, "

said Csete. " We hope that recognizing Meena Seshu will signal to

India that the government must embrace and support such work to

prevent the AIDS crisis from escalating further. "

Background on Meena Seshu:

Meena Seshu is a leading spokesperson for the rights of women in

prostitution in India and for defending human rights as a key to

combating HIV/AIDS. She is a social worker by training and has

fought to defend and promote the rights of women and girls for most

of her career. Already a prominent feminist activist in Mumbai, in

1991 she moved to Sangli in southern Maharashtra State and founded

SANGRAM, one of the few organizations in India founded on respect for

the rights of sex workers and a clear vision of their role as

educators and frontline workers in the fight against HIV/AIDS. As a

transit point for the trucking industry, Sangli was becoming a center

for sex work and a potentially important focus of HIV transmission.

Under Seshu's leadership, SANGRAM has helped to avert an AIDS crisis

in the area with its effective programs of collectivization and

empowerment of women in prostitution, training of and support to peer

educators, and HIV information and condom distribution. SANGRAM has

also supported a network of AIDS educators targeting men who have sex

with men, one of a very few such groups in India not based in a large

city.

For more information, see our report " Epidemic of Abuse: Police

Harassment of HIV/AIDS Outreach Workers in India, " at

http://hrw.org/reports/2002/india2/