Indian Women Face Peril of HIV

India's government says it is trying to promote HIV/AIDS awareness among women, who comprise 39 percent of its HIV infections. But unless there is a massive campaign, health workers fear the situation will get worse soon.

"Not only the illiterate women, but the so-called educated women also are not aware of HIV/AIDS. That is the pity of the situation among women here," said Dr. Deeksha, medical director of Vasavya Mahila Mandali (VMM), a home for vulnerable women and children that promotes HIV/AIDS awareness in India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Deeksha estimated that at least 70 percent of the women in rural areas where she works have not heard of HIV.

"After my husband died, my parents-in-law threw me out of their house," said Nagmani, 23, a VMM client. "My brother's wife didn't want me in my family's house either. I had no place to go, that's why my [five-year-old] daughter and I came here."

Before her husband, a truck driver, infected her, Lakshmi said she "had never heard of HIV or condoms." Because she couldn't read, Lakshmi, 33, did not understand any awareness posters.

"We are trying to sensitize the husband in the first phase, saying don't do this and don't do that and try to be faithful and abstinent," said Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, India's health minister. Because sex is a taboo subject in India, he said, HIV education efforts take "a lot of work and energy."

"We're seeing a tremendous rise in numbers of people who are living with HIV," said Anjali Gopalan of the Naz Foundation. "We are seeing a rise in the number of orphans, so I think the window for opportunity that we did have even five years ago is not there any more." There is a critical lack of services and awareness programs on the ground, she said.

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