Human Rights Watch has issued a disturbing new report on discrimination children with HIV/AIDS face in India:
(New Delhi, July 29, 2004) — India’s explosive AIDS epidemic is being fueled by widespread abuses against children who are affected by HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The Indian government’s failure to address these abuses is undermining its anti-AIDS policy and putting millions of lives at risk.The 209-page report, “Future Forsaken: Abuses Against Children Affected by HIV/AIDS in India,” documents that many doctors refuse to treat or even touch HIV-positive children. Some schools expel or segregate children because they or their parents are HIV-positive. Many orphanages and other residential institutions reject HIV-positive children or deny that they house them. Children from families affected by AIDS may be denied an education, pushed onto the street, forced into the worst forms of child labor, or otherwise exploited, all of which puts them at greater risk of contracting HIV.
Click here for the press release and full report. These pictures are ones of Dalit children that I took last summer in Bangalore, India. The Dalit people are the poorest of the poor on earth and have no health care to speak of. All of these children were living in a slum across the street from a hospital they were not allowed to use. These children are at terrible risk for HIV/AIDS and other preventable health related problems.
