Sex now big in BollywoodRob Moodie

[Guest guest]

Sex now big in Bollywood

Rob Moodie

LAST week I was at a gathering of 15,000 people in Mumbai.

This was not unusual, seeing they were being entertained by Bollywood

stars and the latest batch of Indian idols.

But this gathering in Bandra, a dusty, newly reclaimed area of

Mumbai, which used to be called Bombay and provided the " B " in

Bollywood, was a little different.

The 15,000 people there were commercial sex workers and Bollywood was

backed up by Hollywood, namely Gere.

The event was called Atmavishwas, meaning self confidence, and was

about celebrities honouring the sex workers who protect themselves

and clients from HIV.

Life as a sex worker in India can be inordinately cruel and lonely.

The stories of these people are so grim as to be beyond sadness and

tears.

They tell of being beaten, raped and used by pimps, the police, their

partners and even their families.

Some get acid thrown over them, some are murdered.

Their job description includes the daily risk of becoming infected

with HIV, gonorrhoea or syphilis.

They are at the bottom of the social and economic ladder.

Gere, who presented awards to these sex workers, led a chant

of, " No condom, no sex. No condom, no sex. "

It is a pithy and profoundly protective message, but it is also one

which requires enormous cultural change.

As Gere said on stage, this gathering would not happen in the United

States or Europe.

Gere's presence was because of genuine concern and not convenient

exposure.

He starred in the 1990 Hollywood hit, Pretty Woman, the movie where

he rescues a sex worker.

Shift the scene to Bollywood 17 years later. The gathering of

concerned sex workers was organised by Family Health International,

which supports organisations associated with sex workers in India.

In India, FHI is run by Kathleen Kay, a Sydneysider who must have

spent more time working to stem the AIDS epidemic over the past 20

years, than anyone on the planet.

It is part of the Avahan project. Avahan is Sanskrit for a call to

action and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

HIV is an overwhelming problem in this big and populous nation.

UNAIDS estimates that more than five million people are infected with

HIV.

T HE goal of Avahan, the largest HIV prevention project in the world,

is to stem the AIDS epidemic in India by getting to those most at

risk of infection and of infecting others.

Avahan has rewritten the rule book for HIV prevention.

It is run by Ashok , a former business consultant at

McKinsey's.

It joins private and public sectors through simple business

principles.

It focuses on the most at risk population and delivers core

prevention services.

These include providing condoms, medical services and knowledge.

Sex workers and their clients are at the centre of the program.

In three years, the program has been established in 550 towns in 76

districts, Its 134 organisations cover 270,000 sex workers and six

million male clients and drug users.

It provides nearly eight million condoms a month.

The project is not only working to prevent HIV infection among sex

workers and injecting drug users, but it is doing it in a way that

improves their lives.

It is about reducing violence against them, about micro-credit

schemes to improve their lives.

HIV prevention and social justice go together in India.

On this hot January night in Mumbai, there was singing and dancing.

The new self-confidence of the award recipients and the audience was

obvious.

But was this simply a one-off where the self esteem would dissipate

as quickly as the crowd?

Ashok and his colleagues say they have observed radically

different attitudes among sex workers over the past year.

A sea change is happening. People are more confident and display a

willingness and capacity to control their lives, and their own sexual

lives.

This, in turn, leads to decreasing their HIV risk and stemming the

epidemic.

Many people reading this will think, why don't they just get out of

sex work?

Most of them don't have a choice if they are to survive.

One of the sex workers I met said as well as protecting herself she

now felt she was no longer alone and that she had respect and love.

She had friends and help and she had regained her dignity.

rmoodie@...

Dr ROB MOODIE is CEO of VicHealth and chairman of the technical

advisory panel for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation HIV/AIDS

prevention program in India.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21070139-

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