Update on the meeting of The India HIV/AIDS Alliance

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Dear Members

Re: /message/8421

In continuation to our previous posting, please find the update on the

following meeting:

The India HIV/AIDS Alliance organised a dissemination meeting on the

findings of the research study - " Men Matter " - Assessing Sexual and

Reproductive Health Needs and Barriers for Marginalised Groups at Hotel Grand

Sartaj, New Delhi, on 12th February 2008.

Representatives from various civil society organizations, research

institutions, donor agencies and the Government, attended the meeting.

Leading the meeting with the Alliance were community and NGO

representatives from participating agencies on the study - SASO

(Manipur), Humsafar Trust (Mumbai), Venkateswara Social Service

Association (Hyderabad), Sahara (Delhi), and INP+ (Chennai).

The dissemination generated an interesting discussion with regard to the sexual

and reproductive health needs of IDU, MSM, Hijra, Men in slums and Men living

with HIV. It was highlighted repeatedly that sexual and reproductive health for

men is not understood well or the understanding is not comprehensive.

Participants also shared that sexual and reproductive health needs for IDU, MSM,

Hijra and Men living with HIV is seldom appreciated. There has to be a 'new'

focus on addressing SRH needs for men. It was noted that there is a strong need

to integrate SRH and HIV in both public and private sector service delivery

mechanism.

Experiences from the field brought to light a number of gaps that need

to be addressed. Manipur, for example, is witness to poor availability

of services on STI. Very few NGOs are providing some services on STI.

Coupled with this is the need to address the issues related to quality

of services as most IDUs are not keen to access services and instead

prefer to go to NGOs. The discussion also focused on the need to examine the

complexities of SRH for MSM and appropriately find space for recommendations in

this regard. Partner management of STI is a challenge because this would require

disclosure of status and is therefore perceived as potentially leading to

marital discord. The need for male health workers was emphasised as a mechanism

to meet the unmet need.

The discussion also highlighted the importance of taking a fresh look at the

counselling component at ART centres in a manner that the

disproportionately large number of people accessing ART as each centre

does not lead to undue compromises on the counselling component.

Related to this is the issue of updating the knowledge and capacities of

counsellors. The participants discussed threadbare about the issues and

experiences related to sexual post- exposure prophylaxis.

It highlighted that this is an area that would require greater clarity at ART

centres in regard to their authority despite the fact that NACO guidelines on

this are clear.

The discussion concluded with a consensus among the participants that

its time to " Focus on Men " rather than talking about male involvement or male

participation.

Various programme and policy intervention options were discussed

including areas for further research with the participants. There was

collective agreement that there is a dire need for some operation

projects on the ground which can provide evidence for comprehensive

service models for multiple vulnerabilities among various sub-groups of males.

India HIV/AIDS Alliance looks forward to technical partnerships and financial

support to try some of these ideas in field.

A detailed report of the study will be available for downloading on the

Alliance's virtual resource centre site shortly.

Please visit SETU on www.aidsallianceindia.net

Padma Buggineni

Senior Policy Officer

India HIV/AIDS Alliance

Kushal House, Third Floor,

39 Nehru Place, New Delhi 110 019

India

Switchboard: +91-11-4163 3081 Ext. 135

Fax: +91-11-4163 3085

Email: pbuggineni@...

Websites: www.aidsalliance.org; www.aidsmap.com