Fear of legal action pushes underground the two high-risk categories of HIV/AIDS
- sex workers and homosexuals. It, the Plan panel says, puts them out of the
reach of ''social interventions'' to check the killer disease, which is
threatening to take epidemic proportions.
The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act deals with prostitution while
homosexuality remains a crime under section 377 of IPC.
The suggestions to remove these legal constraints, called the ''impediments in
the anti-AIDS programme'', were made officially to the PM in the ongoing
exercise to prepare the 11th Plan paper.
Pitching for shedding the taint of criminality from the two groups, Syeda
Hameed, Planning Commission member, told TOI, ''We should not regard
prostitutes as criminals and homosexuality needs to be viewed with greater
sympathy.''
Morality, however, may continue to underline the subject. The views for change
are at odds with government opinion. The home ministry recently opposed a PIL
in SC, seeking ''decriminalisation of homosexuality'', saying public opinion
and Indian societal context was against the deletion of Section 377.
Morality vs. AIDS
. Sex workers and homosexuals under high-risk category of AIDS
. Prostitution and homosexuality a crime under IPC
. Illegal status puts them out of reach of social intervention
. Legal sanctity would bring these groups under AIDS scanner
Best antidote to HIV: Empowering sex workers
The legal prohibition on prostitution and homosexuality is at odds with the
strategy to fight AIDS which seeks to identify and target these two groups...
Experts say it creates a predicament for the anti-AIDS programme. While the
National AIDS Control Organisation supports targeted intervention in brothels,
sex workers and facilitators are prosecuted as these activities attract
punitive action.
Experts and civil society underlined this discrepancy during the preliminary
deliberations with the Plan panel.
Empowerment of sex workers is being pushed as the best antidote to HIV. Syeda
Hameed, Planning Commission member, said: ''Sonagachi in Kolkata has proved
that the best way to check the spread of the HIV virus among sex workers is to
bring them overground.''
