Warangal, AP: Villagers boycotts women fearing AIDS infection

August 29, 2004

AP: Tribal village boycotts women fearing AIDS infection

FROM R AKHILESHWARI DH NEWS SERVICE, HYDERABAD:

For two weeks now, two women who helped a woman in need have been

subjected to social boycott by a community for fear of spreading

AIDS.

The two women of a remote tribal hamlet in Warangal district, about

100 kms from here, had helped a non-local woman deliver a child

since she had no help or relatives in the hamlet. When Bukhya

Sharada confessed to suffering from AIDS, a terrified community

drove her out of the hamlet while the women who helped in her

delivery, Bhanot Sammakka and Bukhya Vimala were boycotted.

The community `panchayat' decreed that the two women should

not enter the village for four months by when symptoms of HIV will

manifest, according to the panchayat.

While Sammakka is a cook with the school, Vimala is a health worker

at the Anganwadi centre in the hamlet, Anduku tanda. While parents

have prevented Samakka from cooking the midday lunch for the school

children, Vimala has not been allowed to enter the Anganwadi

centre. " Parents threw out the food I cooked. Now, they are

taking back their children to their home to give them lunch. In

fact, children are not coming to school, " said Sammakka.

Vimala said both of them pleaded to undergo any test ordered by the

community but the community remained unmoved. The school teachers

who live in Warangal also tried to convince the community elders

that their fears were unfounded but they did not relent. Sammakka is

a widow with a daughter and her only source livelihood is her job as

a cook.

While the mandal officials have asked the two women not to attend to

their work, the police officials have said they would organise

an `AIDS awareness programme' in the hamlet

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