Manipur: State Legislators form forum to combat HIV/AIDS

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum,

On June 25th – 27th, 2001 declaration of commitments on HIV/AIDS was adopted by

heads of different countries at 26th United Nation General Assembly Special

Session, New York. In adopting this Declaration, the international community set

common targets for reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS and alleviating its impact.

It’s been almost six years since the Declaration of commitments has adopted,

little has done to turn the commitments into action. We have seen many NGOs and

civil organizations coming out to protest against the slow progress of

commitments made at UNGASS but their

voice is still not reach to those committers who got involved in adopting the

Declaration. To date, HIV/AIDS has infected million of people and claim million

of lives. Besides, every second thousands are

getting infected with the virus and thousands are counting for their lives

looking out for proper treatment. The question at this critical time is “Are we

going to watch till the figure cross to billion”?

Speaking in our local context, Manipur one of the worse hit state in India by

HIV/AIDS has more than 25,000 HIV/AIDS infected population. More than half of

this population is young people. Since the first case of HIV/AIDS was detected

17 years ago, Manipur became the 11th state in India to have a Legislators Forum

on HIV/AIDS.

The Legislators Forum was form under the guidance of the Parliamentary Forum on

HIV/AIDS formed in 2000 with support from UNAIDS and NACO.

On 30th June 2007 at Manipur Legislative Assembly Hall, one day conference of

legislators on HIV/AIDS was held. Apart from the member of legislative assembly,

it was also attended by His Excellency, the

Governor of Manipur Dr.SS Sidhu , Country Coordinator UNAIDS-India Dr. Denis

Brown and member of Manipur Network of Positive People. The conference was

organized by the Manipur Legislative Assembly under

the sponsorship of Manipur State AIDS Control Society and Constella Future

Group.

In this conference the constitution of the legislators’ forum was adopted. The

15 points Imphal Declaration was also discussed and passed by the members of the

legislative assembly with the aim to

strengthen the fight against HIV/AIDS in the state.

The legislators also agreed to meet every six months to review the progress of

initiating and executing an appropriate action where necessary.

Coming back to global context we are seeing the UNGASS commitments being not

fulfilled and we don’t want the same thing happen in Manipur where more than

25,000 HIV/AIDS cases are reported which is comparatively very high considering

our 20 lacs population. Now the

right time has come for the legislators to work together with the NGOs and

affected and infected community to turn their commitments into action.

We don’t want to see the 15 points Imphal Declaration remains like a commitments

made at the time of election. We expect the government of Manipur to fully

commit into the issue and learned from the 2001 UNGASS commitments.

Ishwarchandra Haobam

Regional Focal Point- South Asia

Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS,

Project Coordinator,

Social Awareness Service Organization,

IDUs Project

Phone:91-0385-2411408

Fax: 91-0385-2411409

Mobile:91-9856136300

Email:ishwarchandra@.../ishwar.haobam@...

www.youthaidscoalition.org