India's HIV/AIDS Infected Seek Law to Battle Bias

Lawyers Collective, a group advocating rights for the poor, abused women and HIV patients, said Wednesday that the lack of a specific law to protect Indian HIV patients from bias hurts efforts to seek justice against discrimination. "We are handicapped by the lack of an anti-HIV discrimination law," said Anand Grover, head of the group's HIV/AIDS unit.

India has the largest HIV/AIDS caseload in the world, with 5.7 million people infected. The country reported its first case in 1986, but has yet to enact legislation to prevent discrimination against patients, many of whom face acute stigma.

General provisions of the Indian Constitution deal with discrimination in the public sector but do not cover the private sector, where many HIV/AIDS patients receive hostile treatment. Grover said few lawyers are willing to advocate for HIV/AIDS patients because the cases are not seen as lucrative.

Lawyers Collective, which provides free legal aid, has taken up 281 cases of HIV discrimination this year, of which around 40 percent were related to charges of bias and hostility in the workplace, Grover said. Another 40 percent of cases deal with family disputes, he said, including allegations of HIV patients not getting their share of property from parents or being thrown out of their homes by family members.

Lawyers Collective has submitted a draft law to the government to cover discrimination in the private sector as well as in government jobs, legal experts said. But the draft law will take time to be approved by parliament, as it has to go through a lengthy bureaucratic process, according to officials, who added they will continue to tackle discrimination on other fronts.

"Social legislation takes time. We can't rely on law alone," said Sujatha Rao of the federal National AIDS Control Organization. "We have to fight stigma more by creating awareness."

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