Inter Press Service - Thursday, November 19, 1998
Dev Raj

"For long policy makers believed that conservative social behaviour would protect India from the rapid spread of HIV," UNAIDS programme advisor Gordon Alexander said at the four-day global workshop here - 'Young People's Voices on AIDS'.

The meeting ending Thursday focused on how best to tap youth power in controlling a global epidemic now shifting focus to highly vulnerable populations in poverty and illiteracy-ridden South Asia.

Peer educators from around the world aired the difficulties they face in sensitising young people to the dangers of unprotected sex. "There is insufficient emphasis in the media on condom use," said Pieter Van Hest from the Netherlands.

Oleg Palunciuc, a peer educator who works with teenagers in Moldova, said too many young people were contracting HIV in his country through sharing needles used for injecting drugs. "There is just not enough awareness," he said. One answer was firm partnerships between young people and the media. The conference itself provides an example of peer educators closely interacting with journalists specialising in the coverage of adolescent problems and HIV spread. Brazilian participant Jullana Andrigueto cited the example of 'ANDI' a news agency created by journalists especially to sensitise media persons to the rights of children and adolescents in a county which has the third highest incidence of HIV/AIDS.

ANDI is currently working to popularise condoms in Brazil where the item is expensive because of "taxes and not readily accessible to teenagers because it is sold only though drugstores," Andrigueto said.

A common thread emerging from the workshop at Manesar, 50 km from Delhi, was the fact that awareness of safer sexual practices alone was insufficient to modify risk-taking behaviour among people at vulnerable ages.

"Young people will at some point in their lives take risks like cheating at exams, smoking, drinking or trying out drugs and then correct themselves - it has to be brought home that there is no turning the clock back on HIV," UNICEF consultant, Dr L.V. Balaji said.

Representatives from several Asian countries said young people were picking up their sexual knowledge from pornographic material or by risky experimentation because talking sex is taboo.

"It is only when someone gets pregnant, catches a sexually transmitted disease (STD) or is infected with HIV that parents wake up," said Josephine Prasad, a young representative from Fiji.

But it seemed that few countries faced the near total denial of parental advise and scientific information on sex to young people as in India where HIV first surfaced in 1986 and has since been gaining ground rapidly.

And nowhere else is the problem so pressing. Infants and children below the age of 15 form nearly 30 percent of India's 940 million people and form a high proportion of the upcoming sexually active persons exposed to HIV infection.

"Young people in this country are faced with an extraordinary lack of information and taken together with the powerlessness of women, the vulnerability to HIV is high," UNAIDS' Alexander said.

"Unfortunately, AIDS education is denied to young people because the subject is considered too sensitive and controversial for discussion in classrooms," said Asa Andersson, expert in AIDS education with UNESCO.

However, she said several states such as western Maharashtra, central Madhya Pradesh, southern Tamil Nadu and north-eastern Manipur have taken their own initiatives and shown commendable progress.

Education is a state subject in India and although the central government exerts considerable influence through the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), the government has so far failed to pronounce any firm policy.

According to Dr. Balaji, NCERT has so far been playing it safe because of the explosiveness of the issue of sex education which cannot be separated from AIDS education. "Too many people think that neither is compatible with their notion of Indian culture."

Still Balaji said India has come a long way from the day in 1993 when he was nearly assaulted by the principal of a government school in Madhya Pradesh where he and his team were attempting to introduce a course in sex education.

"We perfected a module for training teachers and peer educators after first trying to get biology teachers and even physical education teachers to do the job," he said.

In the end, reason prevailed and in Maharashtra a programme called 'Family Life Education,' dealing with sexuality, respect for the opposite sex and changes in puberty gets to half a million students in 2,300 schools through a non governmental organisation (NGO) called the Sevadham Trust.

According to Dr. S.V. Gore, managing trustee of Sevadham, the project took off largely because of unexpected support from parents who were relieved at not having to discuss the delicate subject of sex with their children.

One of Sevadham's body of 3,000 peer instructors, Gunjun Sah said young people in India were still learning too much from the television channels, pornographic material and from each other and too little from trained and responsible people. Said Dr. Balaji, "While it is natural for young people everywhere to take risks, behaviour modification can only be effected among people under the age of 25 that is why any worthwhile HIV-control programme needs to focus on this group."

Balaji said HIV/AIDS in India is something of a blessing in disguise because it has compelled attention on neglected areas such as equal relationships between men and women and on behavioural problems too easily attributed to the generation gap. (END/IPS/rdr/an/98)
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