08-31-2009, 01:37 AM
From above URL
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Meanwhile, the billboards and movie ads were addressing a particular population: âDon't treat Tamil Nadu as an African country ⦠the literacy level is higher, the adaptation to change is faster and the technology absorption is higher,â Dr. S. Vijayakumar, now head of the state AIDS agency, says (with a certain smugness that often characterizes the reflections of those in the field here).
However, in terms of one key bit of technology, there was indeed a crucial difference in India: Condoms had been actively promoted here since Indira Gandhi's population-control policies of the 1970s.
Also, there was little of the cultural distaste and discomfort that has greeted condom campaigns in Africa â and no conservative Christian church to lead a public outcry about abstinence.
There were, however, plenty of trained lab technicians and statisticians and the sort of qualified staff an AIDS program needs, the human resources that are so often lacking in Africa.
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Darker side
But there are also less-pleasant truths about India's victory over HIV. Beyond literacy, condoms, blunt ads and brilliant bureaucrats, one thing more than any other has checked the spread of the virus here: the oppression of Indian women.
The extreme control exerted over women's personal lives â first by their parents, then by their husbands and in-laws â means that very few ever have the opportunity to have a sexual partner other than their husbands.
Where 25 per cent of men report more than one sexual partner, less than 2 per cent of women do. Married women get infected by their husbands, and sometimes pass HIV to their children, but the virus stops there: They do not have other partners to pass HIV on to.
This is a marked contrast to Africa, where it is now clear that the âconcurrent sexual networkâ â the tendency for both men and women to have overlapping partners rather than serial ones â has been the key driver of the epidemic.
(Meanwhile, discrimination has played a sharply different role in the spread of HIV among men who have sex with men â it has extremely limited AIDS organizations' ability effectively to provide these men condoms and information. As a consequence, they have HIV infection rates 10 times those of the general population.)
There is, in fact, a broader issue of culture at play in India's AIDS success story, the sort of squishy subject that makes AIDS researchers flinch because it lies so far outside tidy quantifiable data.
But many in the field agree that Indian society remains rigidly hierarchical, still infused with the powerful role of the caste system, and people are accustomed to the strong role of government in their lives.
That's a contrast to many African countries with weaker states and more egalitarian societies. And it meant that when the Indian government sternly told people to use condoms and cut back on partners, they listened.
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The author is lamenting that most married Indian women are not whores
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Meanwhile, the billboards and movie ads were addressing a particular population: âDon't treat Tamil Nadu as an African country ⦠the literacy level is higher, the adaptation to change is faster and the technology absorption is higher,â Dr. S. Vijayakumar, now head of the state AIDS agency, says (with a certain smugness that often characterizes the reflections of those in the field here).
However, in terms of one key bit of technology, there was indeed a crucial difference in India: Condoms had been actively promoted here since Indira Gandhi's population-control policies of the 1970s.
Also, there was little of the cultural distaste and discomfort that has greeted condom campaigns in Africa â and no conservative Christian church to lead a public outcry about abstinence.
There were, however, plenty of trained lab technicians and statisticians and the sort of qualified staff an AIDS program needs, the human resources that are so often lacking in Africa.
--
Darker side
But there are also less-pleasant truths about India's victory over HIV. Beyond literacy, condoms, blunt ads and brilliant bureaucrats, one thing more than any other has checked the spread of the virus here: the oppression of Indian women.
The extreme control exerted over women's personal lives â first by their parents, then by their husbands and in-laws â means that very few ever have the opportunity to have a sexual partner other than their husbands.
Where 25 per cent of men report more than one sexual partner, less than 2 per cent of women do. Married women get infected by their husbands, and sometimes pass HIV to their children, but the virus stops there: They do not have other partners to pass HIV on to.
This is a marked contrast to Africa, where it is now clear that the âconcurrent sexual networkâ â the tendency for both men and women to have overlapping partners rather than serial ones â has been the key driver of the epidemic.
(Meanwhile, discrimination has played a sharply different role in the spread of HIV among men who have sex with men â it has extremely limited AIDS organizations' ability effectively to provide these men condoms and information. As a consequence, they have HIV infection rates 10 times those of the general population.)
There is, in fact, a broader issue of culture at play in India's AIDS success story, the sort of squishy subject that makes AIDS researchers flinch because it lies so far outside tidy quantifiable data.
But many in the field agree that Indian society remains rigidly hierarchical, still infused with the powerful role of the caste system, and people are accustomed to the strong role of government in their lives.
That's a contrast to many African countries with weaker states and more egalitarian societies. And it meant that when the Indian government sternly told people to use condoms and cut back on partners, they listened.
--
The author is lamenting that most married Indian women are not whores