AP AIDS Bill Pros & cons of mandatory premarital HIV testing

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum members,

At a recent meeting of the Indian Network of AIDS NGOs (INN) in Madurai the pros and cons of mandatory premarital HIV testing were discussed.

I would like to share a few points with the group. The main objective of this law is to protect young brides to be from getting infected through their HIV positive groom. Below the arguments which go against mandatory HIV testing before marriage:

a) Premarital HIV testing creates a false sense of security because fake HIV test results can be bought, b)the window period of three months may mislead someone to believe that the partner is negative when he may be positive. c) An HIV test result is just a snapshot in time. At the time of the test, the person may have been negative. But what about the next day? d) The person may be HIV negative before marriage and become HIV positive during marriage which again puts the spouse in a vulnerable position.

All these points still leave the young girl unprotected and therefore the law would fail to achieve its objective. In addition, those young men and women who are positive will probably be much stigmatized and discriminated against. This is especially severe since the current law does not even allow to consenting HIV positive people to marry a further discrimination of positive people.

Implementing a law on mandatory premarital HIV testing would be unique in the world (I believe) and very difficult to implement and reinforce, prone to failure in achieving its objective and would create more harm than good.

Rather, at the meeting it was discussed to have something like a mandatory pre marital counseling in which the couple to be gets information on all kinds of health issues including family planning and HIV. Here the couple together can learn how to protect themselves not just before marriage but throughout. It is here where they can VOLUNTARILY decide to undergo an HIV test.

This seems to be a more sustainable and long-term solution and contribute much more to a lasting protection of young wives.

This may not be the complete solution for arranged marriages but certainly requiring an HIV test before marriage will not achieve the objective of protecting young women for the reasons mentioned above. more debate would be needed before the law is passed.

Binod Mahanty

National Consultation on VCT

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