Make Every Woman Count - Avnish Jolly, Chandigarh, India

 

A One day workshop on “Single Women” has been organized by Voluntary Health Association of Punjab (VHAP), Chandigarh at Indra Holiday Home, Sector 24, Chandigarh on 28-1-2011.  In this workshop “Single Women” from various categories came from all over the State of Punjab. One of the objectives of advocacy meeting is to establish the identity of the single women at the national and the international level and represent their issues. They aim to develop leadership of single women at the national level and bring about a change in the societal and political perspective regarding single women. The Six representatives came from “Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, Himachal Pradesh” and share their experiences gain in Himachal Pradesh towards the Single Women of Punjab State. After that everyone introduce their experiences or problems faced by them as “Single Women” during the session.

 

I hope this advocacy meeting represent the voices of these single women and help the nation and the government realise their problems. For single women in India, customs and traditions take away their right to live a life of dignity and respect after they become single. Worse, they become economically weak. Government schemes and policies generally ignore the separated and divorced women leaving them to fend for themselves.  According to the 2001 census, nearly 7.4 per cent of women are "single". This includes widows and divorced or separated women but not women who have never been married. This number will further increase when the "customarily" separated women and those whose husbands have gone missing is added. While interacting with HIV + women at the workshop the fact that they became single, is that now they are living with HIV/AIDS. They are trying to give meaning to their lives and also to lives of those who are going through the same travails. A big problem with these women is that they do not get financial support. Moreover, they are not accepted anywhere after they become single, even by their own family. It is not their fault that they are single. During the interaction they advocate that the government may work on the policies on poor single HIV + women, provide them free of cost medical aid and also help them financially, especially those who have to look after their children all by themselves.

 

Ms. Nirmal Chandel, representative of Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, expressed her views regarding challenges faced by as Single Women in Himachal. She told that in Himachal we were fighting since last sixteen years on this issue. Now at this stage we have got Rights from Government of Himachal Pradesh. Now Widow of Himachal Pradesh get Widow Pension amounting of Rs. 300/- instead of Rs. 200/-. She told that Ekal Nari Shakti Sangthan have also represented demand charter in front of Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh.

 

 Some of the Single Women also raised the question that Govt. has declared to provide assistance of that farmer widow who has been affected due to suicide taken by their husband since 2007, but there is no action taken by Government.  Well, women are the heart of development. If we don’t pay attention to them, we are not going to make any gains on poverty reduction because it is women who bring major social and economic benefits to their families and communities. In order to make progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and indeed just in terms of human rights, precisely HIV+ Women in society are not valued.

"Men don't carry condoms in their pockets. And even if he has one, he won't use it... When he wants to do it, he just tells me to come aside."

"How can you tell him to use a condom if you are pregnant?" and "When I am using a contraceptive, there is no need for my husband to use anything."

Voices of women in the Workshop at Chandigarh, but they could be from anywhere in this country of 1 billion people. For millions of Indian women, sexual intercourse is not a question of choice but rather one of survival and duty. Married before she has grown beyond adolescence, her fertility and her relationship to her husband are often the source of an Indian woman's social identity.

 

Most Indians refuse to believe that heterosexual transmission accounts for 80 percent of infections in India. The virus has expanded the boundaries of high-risk groups to include adolescent girls (married and single); married women of reproductive age; sexually active single women; sex workers; college and university students; pregnant women; and women survivors of sexual abuse and rape. Women constitute 25 percent of known AIDS cases in the country, according to NACO. Data indicate that seven of 10 women affected by HIV are from poor rural and poor urban communities. Women with HIV are subjected to various forms of violence and discrimination based on gender. They could be refused shelter, denied a share of household property, refused access to treatment and care, or blamed for a husband's HIV diagnosis.

 

"When my in-laws got to know about my husband's HIV status they immediately blamed me for giving him the infection," said a 29-year-old woman.

Perhaps the most conspicuous context for HIV/AIDS-related discrimination, stigmatization, and denial is the health care sector in India, whether public or private.

 

As noted by Facing the Challenge, many infected people trace some of their AIDS-related fear, anxiety, and denial to their traumatic experiences in health care settings. While a doctor is sworn to notify only the patient of his or her status, the confidentiality of HIV test reports appears to be strictly observed only for the educated and the relatively well-off.

 

There seems to be no concern at all on the doctor's part that often the relationship most strained by HIV is that between a woman and her parents-in-law. While a woman is expected to care for her husband through his illness, as a widow, she can expect no help from her in-laws.

 

"After the death of my son-in-law, my daughter was sent back by her in-laws … I told them that my daughter got the infection from their son," explains one mother.

After lunch, the participants of the Workshop have been divided into four groups to discuss their day today problems i.e.  their needs, low widow pension, No employment for Single Women, No earning by Single Women, HIV effected Widow, Violence during Work or domestic violence and their expectations of special budgeting provision for Single Women from the side of government etc.

 

At the end of the workshop all Single Women given their views that we can made our own “AKAL NARI SHAKTI SANGATHAN OF PUNJAB” very soon and also raise this major issue at village level, Block Level, District Level and State level, through Association of Single Women. They also suggested that now “Single Women” wants their Rights from the Government.