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| Home » Guest Column » K.K. Abraham |
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GUEST COLUMN |
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"Let’s Fight the Attitudes"
K. K. Abraham |
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| The most important challenge in any person’s life after
getting infected with HIV is how to conquer the multitude of
fears. One of them, probably the next only to the fear of death,
is the fear of stigma and discrimination. With adequate information
and counselling, the fear of death can be easily overcome. Fear
of stigma, however, lingers on. Some times, forever. In the
last ten years of my life as a person living with HIV/AIDS,
the most disturbing instances I keep in mind are that of discrimination
than of death. People mercilessly beaten to death, people thrown
out of jobs, people abandoned midway on surgery tables, people
denied emergency care even when they are in extreme trauma,
people denied access to family property, people denied shelter,
people pushed to destitution…it is ruthless and cruel.
I have lost friends to HIV/AIDS, but I have lost many more,
in terms of their abandoning hopes of life, to stigma and discrimination. |
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| Why do people stigmatise HIV and discriminate people living
with HIV? In my view, it is mainly because of the lack of information
and corrective institutional mechanisms besides the judgmental
socio-cultural climate and the false sense of invincibility
of people. The answer is to inform people: demonstrate to people
that HIV is like any other illness; that it is not immorality
that causes HIV/AIDS, but the vulnerabilities arising out of
socio-economic and cultural reasons; that HIV/AIDS does not
mean death and that by treating HIV/AIDS positive persons like
normal human beings, nobody is at risk. To back it up, we need
to institutionalise legal mechanisms for punishing those who
discriminate people with HIV/AIDS. Through a combination of
such efforts, western societies have been able to drastically
reduce the practice of stigma and discrimination. Not coincidentally,
same societies have also been able to effectively control the
spread of the epidemic. |
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| Stigma and discrimination is therefore also closely linked
with the availability and quality of treatment facilities. Because
of the way people are told about their status and the lack of
counselling and support, persons living with HIV remain silent
about their status. As this is a vicious cycle, there is reluctance
among positive people to disclose their status. One of the major
mechanisms to reduce stigma and discrimination is, therefore,
to provide a human face to the epidemic. Positive speakers from
INP+ and other state level networks are in a way attempting
to provide the same. It does not stop with this. There should
also be a mechanism to promote and protect the rights of people
living with HIV. |
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| Stigma and discrimination is therefore also closely linked
with the availability and quality of treatment facilities. Because
of the way people are told about their status and the lack of
counselling and support, persons living with HIV remain silent
about their status. As this is a vicious cycle, there is reluctance
among positive people to disclose their status. One of the major
mechanisms to reduce stigma and discrimination is, therefore,
to provide a human face to the epidemic. Positive speakers from
INP+ and other state level networks are in a way attempting
to provide the same. It does not stop with this. There should
also be a mechanism to promote and protect the rights of people
living with HIV. |
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| HIV does not kill instantly. Stigma does. |
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| (All the views expressed in this column are entirely that
of the author) |
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| About
the Author |
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