By Papri Sri Raman, IANS
Pollachi (Tamil Nadu) : In a unique partnership, grassroots social workers and the community of transsexuals are spearheading a campaign to save the girl child and stop female foeticide in five districts of Tamil Nadu.
The Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative (TAI) has launched the state-run Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) programme in Salem, Madurai, Vellore, Chennai and Coimbatore districts to provide trained ‘aravanis’ (transgender) access to villages where they can spread the message on health and showcase their entrepreneurial skills as part of a major social integration initiative.
The Sangampalayam village in Pollachi in Coimbatore district last week wore a festive air. The villagers, especially women, poured out of their homes and farms, to see and hear what the anganwadi workers (village level social workers) and their new friends, the eunuchs or the aravanis (in Tamil) had to say. They spoke about the need to protect the girl child and ensure their right to health and education.
Seetha and Thenmozhi belong to an anganvadi-aravani team, a thousand of which have fanned out to five Tamil Nadu districts to spread the message.
Seetha, along with other aravanis from the community of 200,000 eunuchs, is also part of Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative’s performance troupes. They are being trained in various traditional art forms to help spread the message of HIV/AIDS prevention and end the stigma.
“The fact that transgender people talk to the general community on vital issues like female foeticide and the need to educate the girl child is a great initiative,” Thenmozhi, an anganvadi (primary-school level health and education) worker, said.
“It is too early to assess the impact. We have to wait and see how the campaign succeeds,” says Komalavalli, a parent from Sangampalayam, whose child is in the anganwadi centre. “Transsexuals are a part of society,” she added.
The gender balance is skewed in rural Tamil Nadu.
In Salem district, about 450 km south-west of Chennai, the male-female sex ratio is 1,000:851, with rural figures touching as low as 811 girls per 1,000 boys, and the girl-child is fast disappearing because of practices like infanticide.
“The need to raise consciousness about the rights of children and women has become very salient,” say government and non-profit organizations. They are encouraging the anganwadi-aravani partnership which can double advocacy capacity.
In the neighbourhood textile town of Coimbatore, 33-year-old Seetha has been accompanying social workers to villages since mid-January, speaking of diseases like tuberculosis, health checks, child care and gender rights. She was introduced to activism in her student years and took part in street plays on female infanticide and literacy.
Seetha discovered that she was a transgender in her teens while learning classical dance. As Seetha grew older, she continued her advocacy work. “It is only recently that I have been asked by the Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative to work with anganvadi workers,” she told IANS in an interaction.
Peer groups and NGOs, in association with government departments of social welfare, health and education, organised weeklong awareness camps this January to commend the “achievements of transgender campaigners”. “This is a celebration of our identity, we need to express ourselves and showcase our talents,” said Sudha, an aravani community coordinator.
“The aravani community is at a crossroad, they want to encourage change but on their own terms,” TAI project director Lakshmi Bai says.
TAI has made deep inroads into the transgender community with healthcare and skill development programmes in 14 districts with the support of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation known as Avahan and with Voluntary Health Services.
It has implemented a community driven STI/HIV/AIDS prevention programme, spearheaded a movement demanding laws that enable the transgender community to benefit from welfare schemes, ration cards, school and college admissions and health safeguards in Salem.
“They want to integrate with normal social networks because they know that unless they share some common associations and experiences with the mainstream society, they will not be able to get out of the vicious cycle of marginalisation,” Lakshmi Bai told IANS.
In Sangampalayam village, in nearly 1,000 anganwadi centres across 20 blocks, 300 transsexual workers, who have completed their initiation rites, now accompany the social workers.
“A negative image has always been associated with the transgender community. We were initially reluctant to accept them as colleagues, but after interacting with many of the aravani trained by TAI, we are convinced that they need to move towards the mainstream,” said Manimegalai, an ICDS officer from Salem.
(Papri Sri Raman can be contacted at [email protected])