SHILLONG: Hitting out at Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC), Chief Executive Member (CEM), H S Shylla, the community of People Living with HIV (PLHIV) demanded him to retract his statement made towards the community and to issue an open apology to them.
Representing the People Living with HIV (PLHIV) and the drug user community in Meghalaya, Barry Leslie Kharmalki told reporters on Wednesday, “We want him to take back his statement or give an open apology to the communities in Meghalaya. If he doesn’t apologise, we have some good lawyers like the lawyers collective, who fight for HIV and AIDS cause in India, if need be, we will have to go for them.”
“Our very prominent leader has made some very discriminatory remarks especially saying that carriers of HIV are through truck drivers or those who marry truck drivers from outside the state which actually is quite stigmatizing as he targeting only a group of people,” he added.
Moreover, the community decided to send Shylla some materials such as flip charts to show modes of transmission of HIV and how counseling and testing is done “before he makes thoughtless comments.”
Pointing to the “hate sin but love the sinner” comments of Shylla, Kharmalki said, “Are all the people affected with HIV-sinners?”
Taking exception to the term “victim,” he said, “Do we look like HIV victims from any angle?”
Stating that Shylla does not know the good and the bad language in the HIV context, he said the community should be referred to as PLHIV and not HIV patients or people suffering from HIV.
Kharmalki said, “I will still forgive but as leader he should be sensitive, you think he did all the reading? How does he know? There is somebody amongst us who helped him for vested interests?”
“If we come to know about the person who fed him the information will also be held accountable,” he added.
He asserted that instead of stigmatizing PLHIV, the government should concentrate on prevention and launch extensive prevention campaigns to prevent new infections, launch extensive testing campaigns to test all the general population.
Counteracting Shylla’s statement on truck drivers and migrant workers as carriers of the virus, Kharmalki informed that injecting drug users, sex workers and men-having-sex-with-men are categorised as high risk group by National AIDS Control Society (NACO) while truckers and migrants are only the bridge population and not high risk group.
Again, Kharmalki said, HIV testing centre was present in all CHCs and PHCs for testing pregnant mothers.
“He should see what is there to help. I don’t see the lineage Bill is going to prevent HIV-AIDS,” he said adding that there should be the need of prevention, treatment, procuring drugs, better healthcare for children etc.
“Although, in today’s paper, he said his intention is not to stigmatise or discriminate. But what he said today is stigmatising and discriminatory as when you put your bias or unfair judgment on a certain group of people just because of their occupation, that is already stigma and discrimination,” he said.
Irked at the silence of the state government, Kharmalki said, “Where is the Health minister? We haven’t heard from him, even MACs should have reacted to some extent.”
Some of the people addressing the press conference, the member of Jaintia Network for Positive People (JNPP, and member of Meghalaya State Network of Positive People (MSNP+), expressed their opposition to Shylla’s statements.
A lady from JNPP said as per reports from the network, she found that people who are affected with the virus do not have non-tribal truck driver spouses.
Another lady from (MSNP+) said 90 per cent affected with the virus are tribals and there is no mix marriage.
Statistics
Cementing his argument against Shylla’s comments, Kharmalki brought up statistics he received from the ARTC and said, “We don’t go and ask people whether they have gone for mix marriage or we deal with the infection. For the first time in my life, I have to segregate them- the tribals and non-tribal infected with the virus.”
“HIV did not discriminate anybody. When the TB bacteria and the HIV virus can coexist very aaram se, why not we?”Kharmalki said.
As per statistics available the ARTC, he said there were 90 sex workers – 87 are Khasis and 3 are non-Khasis. From blood transfusion- 10 who got infected eight are non-Khasis and two are Khasis ; 127 IDU who are positive- 62 are non-Khasi and 75 are Khasis ; mother to child transmission- 181 out of them 40 are non Khasi and 141 are Khasis ; 70 people among the transgender or men sex with men group registered – eight are non-khasis and 62 are Khasis.
146 truckers who are infected with HIV- 17are non-Khasis, 129 are Khasis ; unsafe sex with spouse or partners-3102, out of them 624 are Khasis and 2478 are non-Khasis.
“The virus will infect and does not discriminate anybody. There should not be generalisation,” Kharmalki said.
Quoting the statistics available with the MSNP+, he said there were 1732 people registered with it, out of which 660 are male including 113 non-Khasis and 547 Khasis ; there are 932 females out of which 100 are non-Khasis and 832 are Khasis.
There are 11 transgender persons registered with the organisation and out of them one is non-Khasi and 10 are Khasis.
LGBT group
A transgender activist said, “As a transgender activist, I am very disappointed by the statement given by him in not recognizing the third gender.”
Marwein pointed to National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) judgment in which transgender people were declared to be a ‘third gender’ and were affirmed the fundamental rights.