India's Hidden AIDS Epidemic: Virus to Infect 25 Million by 2010

A report by the British charity Voluntary Service Overseas, to be published this week, warns that unless women's rights in India are improved, the country's HIV/AIDS epidemic could explode.

While the Indian government reports that about 4 million people have HIV/AIDS, most aid agencies say the figure is much higher. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington has estimated India will have 25 million cases by 2010.

Activist groups say the inequalities women in India face are adding to the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS. According to the VSO report, "Gendering AIDS," women's low social status and lack of rights leave them vulnerable to infection regardless of their own behavior.

Indian women have few rights to property, or control over whom they marry. Three-quarters of HIV-positive women in India have been infected within marriage. Even if a woman knows her husband has HIV, it can be impossible to insist he practice safe sex. In addition, rape within marriage is legal, and domestic violence is condoned rather than condemned.

The government has banned discussion of condoms in schools and universities, despite the fact that a large percentage of girls are married by age 16. Tradition dictates that girls are not supposed to know anything about sex or contraception before they marry.

"We need to be able to give teenagers information about condoms. The government says that it will encourage them to become promiscuous, but that is not true," said Satish Kumar, an education officer who works with the AIDS group YRG Care in the southern city of Chennai.

Although India's government has recently begun to respond to its AIDS epidemic, little has been done to improve women's rights. "India has got to go through a phenomenal social and economic change in the way we think before we can deal with the AIDS issue and see women as equals," noted K.K. Abraham of the Indian Network of Positive People.

Back to other news for November 21, 2003