By IANS,
New Delhi : The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) Thursday hailed the Delhi High Court judgment that decriminalises gay sex, saying it would help reach out to the community and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
“It is a positive judgment. Decriminalising this high-risk group has made our job easier as we will be able to reach them. This will help the public health system,” K. Sujatha Rao, NACO director general and additional secretary in the health ministry, told IANS.
The high court struck down the Indian Penal Code’s (IPC) controversial section 377, a law from the British Raj era, that says homosexuality and “unnatural sex” is a criminal act.
Rao said: “This (judgement) will help us access and prevent HIV/AIDS. HIV has no cure and it could be prevented through a condom.”
“Now, we will have more access to them, which was difficult earlier as the law made it difficult for us to work with sex workers and gays. They were the hidden population and we could not reach them as the law was not favouring them.”
NACO is the apex government body to monitor and check HIV/AIDS in India. The 2008-09 budget of NACO is over Rs.1100 crore, of which 67 percent is for prevention and 17 percent for care, support and treatment.
According to estimates revised in 2007, India has an approximate 2.5 million people living with HIV. According to NACO, there are 2.35 million men having sex with men (MSM) in the country.
On Thursday, a bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar said that if not amended, section 377 of the IPC would violate Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which states that every citizen has equal opportunity of life and is equal before law.
Gays are considered to be among the high-risk group that is considered vulnerable to the spread of HIV/AIDS in India. Apart from them, the other groups are sex workers, truck drivers and injecting drug users (IDUs).
“Our plea has always been for decriminalising this high-risk group. We are happy that our plea was considered by the court. It would make the public health programmes more successful,” Rao told IANS over phone from Hyderabad.
She said that India has been committed to universal access for halting and reversing the spread of HIV. “This would enable us to achieve that goal,” she added.