A glance at the struggle of Positive Women Network: Issues remain unaddressed for women

[Guest guest]

A movement of 10 yrs ……….PWN+ has been on improving the quality of life of Women

and Children living with HIV/AIDS in India.

Our vision: Women living with HIV/AIDS and children are all empowered to live a

life of dignity and equality, free from stigma and discrimination.

Our objectives:

To build an active national network of women living with HIV/AIDS, representing

the different states, diverse support groups and collectives from rural, urban

and tribal areas.

To work towards the societal acceptance and social integration of women living

with HIV/AIDS.

To improve service delivery mechanisms and transmission of information on

HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support to women living with and vulnerable to

HIV/AIDS.

To improve access to services for women living with HIV/AIDS in the areas of

counselling, treatment, general health care and drug rehabilitation.

To reduce and eliminate stigma and discrimination, and protect the human rights

of women living with HIV/AIDS in all settings – domestic, community, medical,

employment, educational, political, religious and legal spheres

To provide affirmative action for women living with HIV/AIDS in the areas of

livelihood, employment, vocational training and credit inputs.

To ensure social security and the rights of children infected / affected by HIV,

in all settings – domestic, community, medical, educational, political,

religious and legal spheres.

Our strategies:

We have been working with the above clear objectives and strategies to

accomplish our mission. However, in reality, the scenario is quite different.

Efforts have been made in the past to generate awareness at the State and

District level as well as network with NACO and SACS. One of the prominent

results was the advocacy for establishment of the Drop-in-Centre for positive

women and children that was consolidated through a signature campaign.

Though the process of advocating for services for positive women is on

consistently, the members being a small group, there are issues of resource

constraint that reduces pace of action and implementation.

Human resource is not an issue because we can bank on our women living with HIV,

but financial support is required to accomplish our goal.

A high percentage of women are infected with HIV in India, yet beyond condom

distribution through targeted intervention targeting our sisters who are sex

workers and prescribing the pregnant HIV positive women Nevirapine durgs to

prevent transmission to the child, there are no other preventive services

available to avoid transmission of the virus among women. Moreover,

participation of WLHA is limited in all programmes.

We have been organizing several youth programmes supported by the Common Wealth-

with help of colleges and participation by slums. This effort is towards

reducing stigma from the communities. Thus, some reached women have shown

motivation to go in for testing and has taken preventive measures to avoid

getting infected.

Self-help group programmes have been initiated to generate awareness on

HIV/AIDS, economically support women and this has facilitated motivating women

for testing and identifying women with HIV. For some districts in Tamil Nadu,

Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan we have enabled forming HIV positive women’s groups

under the Disability Scheme under the Social Welfare Department and Women and

Child Development Department.

In Tamil Nadu, women as members of the SHGs have set up shops. For example – in

the Villapuram district- there are 7 SHGs, of which 1group has been able to set

up a shop, while the other 5 are in the process of setting up their business

enterprise. These groups and their successful stand has also been a good channel

to spread information to HIV positive women.

However, these are only small programmes and there has been limited support or

encouragement in implementing at the national level – the recognition to support

and involve women living with HIV seems to be a long process. There is still

dilemma in supporting women living with HIV. This is despite the Asian Report

calling loud to the world that if women are not included in the programme then

the infection rate will further increase.

We understand that ‘gender’ refers to both men and women. The ‘gender’ issue has

been highlighted and is much into debate and discussion everywhere, but there

has been no separate plan for women within the national programme. Women also

have limited accessibility to HIV testing, information on HIV/AIDS due to

prevalence of societal stigma and discrimination.

At this juncture we need to focus on where the ‘prevention and care’ initiative

is directed. Though the infection rate of HIV is high, service available for

women living with HIV is only through the national ARV programme. There are a

number of Reproductive Health issues that has not been addressed. There is an

increase in number of widows and we have identified the emotional, financial

needs that remain unaddressed. Some women continue to live with their positive

husbands and also try to earn their living. They need more support to deal with

domestic violence, property issues and their individual rights. In the early

epidemic there were men who succumbed to death.

There is more number of deaths among women living with HIV which goes totally

unnoticed. The fact that no programme addresses these needs is in itself

violation of their basic rights.

Some steps that have been taken by PWN+ for involvement (greater and meaningful)

of positive women:

· Positive Women’s Network was started in 1998 to improve the quality of life of

women and children, fight our rights and sensitize women about our needs

· There are about 5000 members involved in the initiative

We celebrated the coming together of positive women and keeping the movement

alive for 10 yrs on World AIDS Day 2008.

· Everyday at Positive Women Network is a Women’s Day.

However, not even 1% of our vision has been realized. How can all our e-forum

readers help us accomplish the vision for positive women and children? Let’s not

think only of medicine distribution as that will be of only limited help. Let’s

think beyond and see how individuals, NGOs, CBOs can help our positive women

live a healthy and satisfying life. Let’s use this platform for dialogue with

suggestions and views from all.

PWN+ Team (Positive Women Network)

Chennai,

India

Positive Women Network

e-mail: <poswonet@...>