By Ranjana Narayan, IANS
New Delhi : Just like in India, migrant labour is one of the main causes for the spread of HIV/AIDS in neighbouring Bhutan and Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, it is contracted mainly by child sex workers catering to Western tourists, while in Nepal it is spread largely by trafficked women returning from brothels in India.
In Bangladesh, people crossing over from Myanmar, where the incidence of HIV/AIDS is high, are a main source of the virus, according to Asghar Chowdhury, professor in the department of communications and journalism in the University of Chittagong.
“There is no way of checking the entry of people from Myanmar, where the junta rule does not reveal the exact HIV/AIDS figures, but it is quite high,” Chowdhury told IANS on the sidelines of a workshop in the capital.
But the Bangladesh government, despite the current political instability in the country, is quite active in its intervention – spreading awareness, distributing condoms, running health camps, said Chowdhury at the workshop.
Titled “Template for Multi Media Training Manual on HIV/AIDS Reporting for Media Professionals”, it has been sponsored by Unesco. Apart from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, the others participating in the weeklong workshop are Kazakhstan, Jordan and the Maldives.
India has 2.5 million HIV/AIDS cases. Less than one percent of Bangladesh’s 140 million population is affected by HIV/AIDS, according to official figures.
In Bhutan, it is mainly Indian workers employed at hydel projects in the country who are the source of the virus, said Namkhai Norbu, a correspondent with Bhutan Times.
The Bhutan government is active in tackling HIV/AIDS, despite 125 infected in a population of over 600,000.
“The government is reaching out through advocacy programmes, awareness camps, radio and television. It launched a Multi Sectoral Task Force in 2001 and spreads awareness to villages, schools, housewives through it,” Norbu said.
In Sri Lanka, the sad face of the virus is the child sex worker who gets infected from Western tourists and the government is not doing much to tackle it, as tourism is a major source of income, said I.U.G. Prbathneranja, a radio programme editor with Kothmele community radio.
“There are around 1,400 infected children, mainly in Hikkaduwa in the southern coast of Sri Lanka, which is frequented by many Western paedophiles,” said Prbathneranja.
“These child sex workers, mainly in the 10-16 age group, then spread it to their family and others. Migrants are also a cause of the spread of the virus,” he said. Sri Lanka has less than 15,000 infected in a population of 23 million, according to official figures.
Nepal has 75,000 HIV positive cases in a population of 27 million, according to estimates by UNAIDS, but the government figures put it just at 10,000, said Tanka Upreti, a senior producer with Nepal TV.
A major source of the virus is trafficked women, numbering around 200,000. “Around 40-50 percent of these women who work in brothels in India have the disease and they come home and spread it,” Upreti told IANS.
While governments in neighbouring countries are actively working to tackle the virus, it doesn’t appear to be so in Nepal. “HIV/AIDS is not a priority of the government in Nepal. A high commission on HIV/AIDS headed by the health minister has been set up, but it hardly functions and meets just once or twice a year,” Upreti told IANS.
Angur Nahar Monty, a correspondent with Bangladesh’s newspaper Bhorer Kagoj, said her country’s government was involving Muslim clerics in the tackling HIV/AIDS.
“Though the cyclone that battered Bangladesh last week has hampered the work by grassroots workers, it will pick up again,” said Angur, adding that it was now easier for people to get condoms. “Earlier, people would be embarrassed to ask for condoms and it was not easily available, but now even sex workers are aware and many ask for it.”
In Bhutan, Ashi Sangay Chodem Wangchuck, wife of the Bhutan king Jigme Singye Wangchuck, is actively associated with tackling the spread of the disease in her mountainous country.
According to Unesco’s Shankar Chowdhury, “HIV is still spreading in these four countries (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal), and the government response is sporadic and scattered. We need to scale up interventions that have worked – with sex workers, injecting drug users – for success stories.”