Chronic Hunger and the Status of Women in India
This article from The Hunger Project details how malnutrition differentially targets the female body.


Views and Debates

Beijing + 5-year Review and Appraisal
This site, from the forum on women's health of the Bejing plus 5 Committee, hosts many postings about the status of Indian women from public health researchers, doctors and lay people.

Changing Concepts of Women's Health: Advocating for Change
In "Changing Concepts of Women's Health: Advocating for Change," the authors shed light on the changing definition of women's health, revealing how society's treatment of women affects their health. Not focused on South Asia, but a great resource nonetheless.

Organizations of Note

Moitree
Moitree, meaning "friendship" in Hindi, is a consortium of Indian women's organizations that deal with issues of women's health and domestic abuse.

HIV, prostitution, and sexual health
In a culture where sex is very rarely discussed, issues of sexual heath, prostitution, and sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV/AIDS) are often neglected by both governmental agencies and social activists. While the state of Tamil Nadu is noteworthy for its broad public health information initiatives to combat the spread of HIV, many state governments are contributing too little too late to control the disease. Prostitution in India is not limited to female sex workers and male clients; male homosexual prostitutes compromise a small but significant number of sex workers in large urban areas like Mumbai. Unfortunately, the issue of prostitution is inextricably linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS and the two issues must be dealt with in tandem, although the spread of HIV is clearly not limited to the prostitute/john relationship. The following brief introductions outline the problems of female and male health and the spread of HIV/AIDS in India.

Female Prostitution and HIV
Heterosexual prostitution is one of the main arenas in which HIV/AIDS is spread on the subcontinent, widely through women and girls who are forced into prostitution. Roughly 50% of female sex workers in Mumbai are HIV positive. Many of them are from Nepal, sold into prostitution by their families, and sent to work against their will in Indian brothels. The combined factors of poverty, misogyny, lack of education and poor healthcare add up to an alarming rate of HIV infection among Indian sex workers and women in general.

Recently, the Western media has paid a great deal of attention to the issue of prostitution and trafficking in India and many international women's groups have begun to do significant work on the issue. Along with this increased awareness, a number of questions and issues have arisen about the nature of prostitution in India and our international responsibility to help female prostitutes. Are sex workers helpless victims or agents of their own fate? Should our focus be to eliminate prostitution entirely or fight for the rights of sex workers? Would legalizing prostitution help or hurt the women involved? How do Indian images of female sexuality and the cultural legacies of courtesans and temple dancers inform the Indian sex trade? What role should international women's organizations play in helping female prostitutes in India?

Male sexual health and HIV
NGOs have shown remarkable success in mobilizing social groups overlooked by conventional institutions, including homosexuals and HIV/AIDS patients. According to Ashok Row Kavi of Humsafar Trust of India, the number of homosexual men and women in South Asia is approximately 50 million. Additionally, some surveys estimate that up to 30% of Indian men in certain areas have sexual relationships with men but do not consider themselves homosexuals. Yet the number of organizations designed to serve their interests is limited.

Crucial to the work of the Humsafar Trust is the recognition that patterns of HIV transmission in India are similar to those in the United States. While the World Health Organization and current conventional wisdom tracks the spread of HIV in the subcontinent primarily through heterosexual contact with female workers, the Trust asserts that male homosexual transmission is rampant yet undocumented.

Humsafar Trust has carried out informal surveys, and estimates from the responses that in India an alarming number of men who have sex with men are infected with HIV. Social mores and tightly knit family structures, along with traditions of dowry, create a situation where marriage is not only expected, but in fact is institutionalized and represents an economic income-generator for families of male children. As a result, sons who choose not to marry face enormous ostracism. For these reasons, many men who, given the choice, would rather not be married to a woman, enter into marriage for their family's sake but continue to have sex with other men. This scenario results in a subculture of men sexually active with each other yet maintaining an outward appearance of heterosexual family life. These are precisely the men the Trust would like to educate about HIV transmission. Barriers to carrying out such education projects are numerous, but perhaps the most important is the lack of an identified gay community to which the NGOs can direct its outreach efforts.

NGOs are working diligently to educate the public about the prevention of AIDS and provide support and counseling for HIV-infected persons. The additional dangers of placing value judgments on how individuals became HIV-positive is one of the toughest issues facing NGOs that work with people who are HIV positive. One key in the prevention of AIDS is to eliminate negative images of HIV-infected persons as projected by the media. NGOs should work toward educating the public to respect the dignity of all persons living with HIV, regardless of how they became infected.

The harm-reduction approach to prevent the spread and minimize the harmful effects of drug use is an increasingly popular and controversial method employed by NGOs. This approach involves distributing needles to drug users. Government and public officials have little understanding of these methods, and there is widespread opposition and reluctance on the part of donors to provide funds.

Articles and information