Illiteracy and Stigmatization
|
Another contributor of the lack of awareness in women in India is illiteracy as a result of the lack of education. Approximately 40% of the Indian population is illiterate. There are more than fifteen languages spoken in India, with more than 1600 dialects. Therefore, promoting AIDS awareness among the Indian population becomes challenging and even more so in rural areas. (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107629.html, 2005) In the National AIDS Control Organization’s behavioural survey, it shows that awareness levels are low in rural areas, especially among women. Beyond awareness, accurate knowledge of HIV transmission, ways to protect one's self and perceived risk to self remain low, again especially so in rural areas and among women. (NACO, 2005) Current and past approaches by the government and the healthcare sector who are lobbying for AIDS awareness campaigns are being criticized for defining ‘high-risk groups’ as sex workers, truck drivers, migrant workers, injection drug users and men having sex with men (MSM). While their approach is taken from an epidemiological view of prioritizing the allocation of scarce resources where they are most needed makes sense, it contributes to the stigma that this only group is at risk for HIV/AIDS. This has resulted, among the unaware populations in India, in a circle of blame, stigmatizations and further marginalization of those who are most vulnerable to infection because the members of this group defined are already seen as social outcasts and ‘core transmitters’ of HIV. For example, despite prostitution being technically legal, sex workers have long been stigmatized and subjected to frequent police harassment. As it happened with the gay community in the 1980s in the U.S., where the epidemic was perceived as a problem of homosexuals, the 'risk group' approach in India has contributed to the perception that HIV/AIDS is a problem of sex workers and truckers. A recent report of the Human Rights Watch (2002) reveals that police abuse of sex workers has remained unabated and in fact expanded to target NGOs, outreach workers, and peer educators who are providing life-saving HIV/AIDS information and condoms to sex workers. From a behaviour change perspective, the construction of 'risk' as a problem of the 'other' results in individuals not perceiving risk to themselves as they may not identify themselves with such 'risk groups'. Instead, people perceive that sex workers and their clients are vulnerable, but not themselves. Finally, the targeted intervention approach also fails to reach other populations at risk, such as married women and adolescents. (www.gng.org/currents/ teachers/hiv101/, 2005)   |
[Statistics] [Religion and Government] [Ideologies] [Education]
[Promoting Awareness] [References]