| World Aids Day sees the launch of a mobile testing unit for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, in Rajasthan, northern India. Provided by the Christian development agency, World Vision, the unit will test people in 14 communities over a 90-mile area.
India has the second-highest prevalence rate of HIV, next to Southern Africa. Last year, the situation was so bad in the country that the former US President, Bill Clinton, described the problem of HIV/ Aids there as “breathtaking”.
The Rajasthan region is home to the Rajnut, part of the Dalit caste (the former “Untouchables”), who for hundreds of years worked as dancers to local rulers. Now they are sex workers.
Alan Benjamin, project officer for World Vision in Rajasthan, said: “Sex workers don’t want to get tested because it could lose them custom if they are diagnosed with HIV. We want to provide a testing centre that goes to them, helps them to know the risks, and provides them with condoms.
“Ultimately, we want some of them not to enter the profession, and behaviour-change is something that we are working on.”
Anita is one of the World Vision team helping to bring about change in the brothels of Rajasthan. A former sex worker, now aged 40, she advises prostitutes on the risks of unprotected sex. “It’s important to be aware of the risks of HIV,” she said. “But what choice do people have? High-caste people get jobs. We have to do this.”
The mobile testing unit will follow up the work of peer educators such as Anita, who work in villages on the side of the six-lane motorway that runs between Delhi and Mumbai. People have to travel up to 60 miles to a testing centre, and, Mr Benjamin says, there is stigma for those who do make the journey. |
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